Frank Lloyd Wright is a renowned as a great architect. His city plans are less well-loved. In the 1930s he proposed Broadacre City, a new American landscape where everyone would have an acre of land, a car, and a gyrocopter. Fueling those cars requires gasoline. Gasoline requires Gas Stations. FLW, being an architect, had a gas station design. It was actually  built in Cloquet, Minnesota (map). Needing fuel, and liking Wright, I took the opportunity to acquire some black gold at this classic design. Now a full-service Spur Station   (on Main Street, but I can’t say much about the rest of the town, since we just passed through), it continues operation. A history of the station is here.

We didn’t exactly build Broadacre City (described in his book The Living City), though we didn’t exactly not build it either, aspects of it infuse post-War suburban America. But one element was exactly constructed. and remains attractive, as gas stations go, to this day. The dreams of what became the modern landscape evolved not simply from the minds of post-war developers, but had many pre-war antecedents, reflecting the agrarian/urban conflict dating back to at least Jefferson and Hamilton.

Cross-posted at streets.mn

Okay, Thunder Bay (map) is not quite in Minnesota, but it is the largest city northeast of Minneapolis, larger even than Duluth with over 100,000 people (though of course, when you get talking about metropolitan areas, the numbers change). “Thunder Bay” didn’t even exist as a named place until 1969, it was formed by the consolidation of the adjacent Lake Superior municipalities of Fort William and Port Arthur, Ontario. Wikipedia writes:

On 1 January 1970, the City of Thunder Bay was formed through the merger of the cities of Fort William, Port Arthur, and the geographic townships of Neebing and McIntyre.^[10] Its name was the result of a referendum held previously on 23 June 1969, to determine the new name of the amalgamated Fort William and Port Arthur. Officials debated over the names to be put on the ballot, taking suggestions from residents including “Lakehead” and “The Lakehead”. Predictably, the vote split between the two, and “Thunder Bay” was the victor. The final tally was “Thunder Bay” with 15,870, “Lakehead” with 15,302, and “The Lakehead” with 8,377.^[13]

There was more controversy over the selection of a name for the amalgamated city than over whether to amalgamate. A vocal majority of the population preferred the “Lakehead”.^[14] There was much discussion over whether there was any other city in the world that uses the word “The” in its name, which there is, as The Pas, Manitoba has “The” in its name, for example. The area was often referred to as the “Lakehead” before and after amalgamation based on its geographic location. It was seen as the “head” of shipping on the Great Lakes and the “rail head”.

If only they had Ranked Choice Voting. Nevertheless, you can imagine the possibilities, Green Bay, Wisconsin could have renamed itself Cheesehead.

Crossing into Ontario, and the Eastern Time Zone, from Minnesota, it becomes immediately apparent that the roads are in better condition. This is not due to the gas tax, which is higher, but not dedicated to transportation, but instead better management and different priorities.

Fort William was established by the Northwest Company (1803-1821) as a fur trading outpost. Today it is a living history museum (well worth seeing if you happen to be in the neighborhood, the Great White North’s equivalent of Williamsburg) replicating its final glory days in 1816 as the Hudson’s Bay Company took over the Northwest Company, but before this outpost was disbanded.

Since Thunder Bay is an amalgam, there is more than one Main Street. In fact the official Main Street is a desolate industrial serving street. There is also a High Street in the Port Arthur section, but that is mostly residential in that area. There are also lots of strip shopping centers and big box stores in newer sections of town. Instead the traditional main street in the Fort William part of town I took to be Victoria Avenue, which is bisected by an unfortunate 1980s urban mall: Victoriaville Center. This was locked shut on Sunday morning, presumably to keep out the locals, who were not among society’s victors.

Even on a Sunday morning, transit was operating, with Bus shelters ubiquitous. Parking meters abut the buildings instead of the curbs. Accessibility, particularly to growing rather than declining economic sectors, was lacking. Even the pawn shops and check cashing are going out of business. Transportation seems the least of Thunder Bay’s problems.

The buildings on the other hand, are mixed at best. Thunder Bay is literally a hollowed out shell of its former self, as illustrated by the Canadian Bank of Commerce facade.  They shamefully let their building fall into such a stage of disrepair that only the facade remains.  If the bank were out of business, that would be bad enough. But in fact it is still an operating entity (Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce). Is this how they want their brand reflected? Now I guess it is better to preserve the facade than it be a completely empty lot. But the strongest bank in Canada should want to do something with this site, if only to fund a public facility if they don’t wish a branch.

In the US we are quick to praise Canadian urbanism, looking at Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and even Edmonton and Calgary. We do not somehow look to Thunder Bay.

Cross-posted at streets.mn

Someone on an earlier post said all the action in McLeod county is in Hutchinson, not the County Seat of Glencoe, so I should go there. So I did. Hutchinson (map), 61 miles due west of Minneapolis, is certainly a bit livelier than Glencoe, with nearly three times the population. There is an important public square , with a sculpture of the founders: the musical Hutchinson brothers. The brothers were abolitionists and among the biggest musical acts of the day, touring and provoking both imitators and satirists.

Wikipedia writes:

The Hutchinson brothers’ party of explorers chose a setting on the crest of a hill overlooking the beautiful Hassan River Valley. (The river, originally given the Indian name Hassan (Maple Leaf), is now called the Crow River.)

The group wrote 13 “Articles of Agreement” for the town. These included articles setting aside 5 acres for the Humanities Church, 15 acres for parks – making Hutchinson’s park system the 2nd oldest in the nation, 8 lots for educational purposes and stating that Hutchinson women would have equal rights with the town.

 

The town itself has about 15,000 people, and a strong Main Street compared with similar towns, though it is not at the level of somewhat larger New Ulm, Northfield, Owatonna, or Faribault. The design of Highway 15, the main route through town, connecting US12 and US212, makes Main Street more of highway than some other places (though less than St. Peter).  It still has industry, Hutchinson Technology (important in the Disk Drive sector) and 3M have facilities. There is also a MnSCU Community College branch (Ridgewater), but this seems to have less effect than full-time, larger, four-year schools. The town is on Otter Lake, which Main Street skirts, though being on a lake is no guarantee of success (as per Albert Lea).

 

 

This is cross-posted at street.mn

Cross-posted from streets.mn

Excelsior, Minnesota is home to Minnesota’s second operating streetcar line (part of the Minnesota Streetcar Museum). Being good transportationists, we visited a few weeks ago. Excelsior is legally a city, though really a town, with about 2400 people. Excelsior is coated about 20 miles southwest of Minneapolis (map), connected directly by Mn 7, and more circuitously by Excelsior Boulevard (County 3). Though the town’s population is small, it possesses a main street (Water Street) that serves a larger market area, though the businesses are clearly appealing to those with some accumulated capital (flickr).

The area was developed in part by Twin City Rapid Transit, back in the day, when it extended its line here as a terminus, aiming for both weekday and weekend service, the latter to try to attract reverse direction (outbound) weekend flows for people seeking a summer holiday in this lakeside town. Lake Minnetonka is a huge attraction, and TCRT constructed Big Island Amusement park nearby, connected by TCRT ferry. Unfortunately for Tom Lowry and company, this venture only lasted from 1906-1911. Another entrepreneur, Fred Pearce, was more successful on a mainland site, as the Excelsior Amusement Park lasted from 1925-1973, before the owners migrated southward to Valleyfair.

Today Water Street retains the common features of late 19th/early 20th century streetcar nodes and main streets, a good frontage of retail activity for several blocks. There is on-street parking, with far more parking around the back. Water Street naturally enough leads to the Lake, which is pleasant to look at, and I am sure pleasant to boat on. (I don’t really have much to say about maritime transportation). It is well-maintained and fixed up, with the all important streetlights, but more importantly, fully occupied, which is more than can be said for some main streets in Greater Minnesota. The main downside is that the developed area is fairly small, which is a shame, for there is far more retail activity in and around Lake Minnetonka in much less pleasant designs.

The Streetcar Museum (which is basically a trolley ride plus the shops) is well worth the $2 admission. My favorite part are the ads on the interior of the streetcar (among them, promoting Ludefisk).

Cross-posted from streets.mn

Chisago City is, not surprisingly, a City in Chisago County, and has just under 5,000 people. Just to the west Lindstrom has just over 4,400 people. Neither of these cities however, possess the County Seat, which is the tiny Center City, with 628 people. All three cities share US Highway 8 (Lake Boulevard) as their main street (map).

While these towns are part of the larger 19 county metropolitan area, the driver of the economy is not what happens on a daily basis in the Cities some 45 minutes away, but rather local activities that tend to interact with the cities on a less frequent cycle. Certainly there is a resort aspect, as the Lakes in particular are important for Fishing and Boating. The Hazelden Center for addiction treatment is located in Center City.

Nearby to the east is the Franconia Sculpture Park, far more interesting than the more famous establishment sculpture garden in Minneapolis (flickr set).

We arrive at Chisago City first when traveling east-bound from I-35W (flickr set). The first thing you notice is the giant Adirondack Chair beckoning, assuring “Life is Great on Highway 8!”. Even if it makes us blue, all that rhymes is very true. The second thing you notice is a sculpture of a tall man and his bicycle. This is Vilhelm Moberg (1898-1973), who explored the area in 1948 by bicycle. The plaque says:

“Vilhelm Moberg was one of the foremost Swedish authors of the 20th century. His most famous characters, Karl Oskar and Kristina Nilsson, were representative of the over 1.2 million Swedish emigrants that landed on our shores between 1846 and 1930. During the summer of 1948 he stayed in Chisago City and explored the area by bicycle. That research helped shape his most famous work — the epic tetralogy “The Emigrants,” “Unto a Good Land,” “The Settlers,” and “The Last Letter Home.” In Sweden, thanks to Moberg’s literary works, this land of Kichi-Saga — the Chisago Lakes Area — is probably the best-known area of the United States.”

It does not mention Moberg committed suicide by drowning in 1973. Though I had never heard of him (not Swedish enough I guess), his most famous work has been compared to the Norwegian Ole Rolvaag’s Giants in the Earth, which I have.

Though Chisago City is nominally larger than Lindstrom, I am surprised to read that, given the relative sizes of their downtowns. Lindstrom’s downtown is significant larger.

Lindstrom (flickr set) is more clearly oriented to Highway 8. Chisago City is to the side, presumably because the road was widened and rerouted, while Center City is aligned North-South to the north of Highway 8. Highway 8 has been converted to a one-way pair through town, though the east-bound souther part of that pair seems to be more of the main street, while the west-bound side has fewer buildings but still has parking access. There is parallel parking on both sides of Highway 8, which is 2 through lanes serving long distance traffic. This is not the ideal urban environment, with large trucks moving through town at a relatively high speed. However efforts have been made to increase the attractiveness, with new lighting, new sidewalks, and new plantings. Our photos are from Sunday morning, so parking was not at a premium.

There are some wonderful bakeries and meat stores here (with the iconic sausage on the roof as a distinguishing feature), as well as tourist serving antiques shops. The water tower is tea pot shaped. The flag of Sweden features prominently on the side of one of the buildings.

Cross-posted at streets.mn:  Diagonals

Diagonals

by David Levinson on April 7, 2014 in Streets, Transit

The street pattern in and around Minneapolis is very grid-like, with a few exceptions, mostly due to natural barriers. Yet there remain four major routes that clearly disrupt the 90 degree grid by providing movement in the 45-degree direction for an extended distance.These are now major highways, with generally limited access but with periodic traffic signals:

• Hiawatha Avenue – to the Southeast. Hiawatha was the first to get the LRT treatment, in 2004, a few years after the road was upgraded, but has seen only limited redevelopment to date. The Diagonal aspect of the route (along with its ancestral parallel, Minnehaha Avenue) continues on MN55 past Fort Snelling and the Airport, across the Beltway (I-494), to US52. The LRT however turns into the airport, on its way to the Mall of America.
• Bottineau Boulevard – to the Northwest. Bottineau Boulevard extends from Broadway in North Minneapolis, through Robbinsdale, past Crystal, across the Beltway (I-694), into Brooklyn Park, by Maple Grove, to Osseo, to Highway 610 (the Outer Beltway), before connecting to I-94 at Rogers. The proposed LRT turns north to attend to Brooklyn Park, rather than west to Maple Grove.
• New Brighton Boulevard – to the Northeast. New Brighton Boulevard wound up adjacent to light industrial land uses (at its southern-most point at Broadway), the Quarry strip shopping center, single family homes and a cemetery, a small strip shopping center in St. Anthony, a petroleum transfer park, and some more industrial before reaching I-35W. While this might be redevelopable, it is hard to see the driving pressures for it. It doesn’t serve the centers of demand in the communities it passes.
• Hennepin Avenue / MN7 to the Southwest. Hennepin Avenue runs from the Southwest out of Downtown to Uptown through a famous bottleneck. One must use Lake Street to traverse the Chain of Lakes, which then forks into three parallel routes:
  • MN CSAH5 – Minnetonka Boulevard,
  • MN7 (CSAH 25) – No Cool Name,
  • MN CSAH 3 – Excelsior Boulevard. (In a move out of St. Paul’s playbook, the StateHighways are not numbered sequentially from North to South).

  The proposed LRT does not follow Hennepin for fear of costs, and instead is planned to tunnel under a bike path. Later it expects to turn south to serve a suburban office complex.

Three of these four corridor have been designated for LRT. Hiawatha (the Blue Line) and Bottineau (proposed Blue Line extension) most obviously, the SWLRT (proposed Green Line extension) follows railroad tracks parallel to MN7 for much of its route.

From a transportation perspective, pre-Interstate these were some of the most important routes into the city because they reduced the circuity of the grid, and thus the distances traveled. Strategically, these provide the best opportunity for transit to make up time against automobiles traveling on the grid.

In an idealized featureless plain with a CBD at the center, we would expect these radial routes to be equally important, and thus equivalently treated. But our world is asymmetric, with rivers and lakes, falls and dams, Chicago nearer than Seattle, and Des Moines more important than Winnipeg, all of which stretch and distort the city. Eden Prairie is more populous than Roseville (even if Roseville is a much larger retail agglomeration, home to Target #1, and more retail spending per capita than Bloomington), and so gets dibs on the large scale regional investments.

Roads can serve as the axis of development or the edge of the community. Hennepin and Broadway are axes, though the remainder of the roads described above are much more community barriers than focal points (or focal strips since they are links).

So the questions include:

1. Should large scale transit investments serve
   • (a) the communities through which they pass (which will inevitably mean either higher costs per mile or slower trips), or
   • (b) as fast ways of moving longer distances (which has lower costs per mile, but fewer positive spillovers to land development)?
2. Should stations serve as anchors for
   • (a) existing places, or
   • (b) new places (green fields), or
   • (c) abandoned places (brown fields), or
   • (d) park and ride lots (black top)?

To the first question, the non-Central Corridor parts of the Twin Cities regional system aim to move people from the suburbs to downtown, and thus lean toward being fast ways of moving longer distances  to downtown Minneapolis (and Saint Paul), with stops along the way in a few obvious places (the Airport, Hopkins, Robbinsdale), rather than serving the communities through which (by which) they pass.

To the second question, stations are disproportionately greenfield suburban places rather than existing town centers. Major greenfield site include: Bloomington Central, Opus in the Golden Triangle, Target at Brooklyn Park. Now granted, some of these municipalities lack an identifiable town center, so the LRT station node may serve as a nucleus for such a place.

This is of itself would not be inherently bad if there were a high probability these greenfields will develop soon after LRT, and if the greenfield developments which benefit directly from the accessibility contribute to the cost of the LRT in the first place. What is the evidence and the record on this? The additional property tax gained is small compared to the cost of the line. There is little to no evidence total sales or income will increase overall, instead it will be redistributed from other sites (that don’t see development) to these sites. The additional net tax revenue is insufficient to recover the capital costs of the line.

The Central Corridor, and to a lesser extent the other lines, also serve some brownfields (I use the term without implying toxic waste dumps, though obviously there is some of that too). The advantage in principle of a brownfield is that the accessibility is higher since the place has at least proven that once it was worth developing, and is located more centrally, and that the new development replaces an eyesore or functionally obsolete property which has negative effects on neighboring land. It also imposes fewer infrastructure costs since water, sewer, schools, etc. are already located to serve the site.

Obviously it is too late to change the alignments of Central and Hiawatha, and given the existence of the corridors, the stations are more or less where any transportation planner would put them (though arguably Hiawatha should have run on the east side of the roadway the whole time).

But the two other diagonal routes deviate from the natural street network that birthed (and was birthed by) the communities on their paths.

As well documented on these pages, Southwest LRT (Green Line Extended) misses Uptownalong the Hennepin Diagonal of course (although the most popular alternative uses Nicollet). But by using RR RoW, it also misses a significant part of St. Louis Park along Excelsior Boulevard. Perhaps that could not be helped.

The Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extended) misses  the Broadway segment of the diagonalthrough the heart of North Minneapolis, choosing instead to serve a park (and save time for suburban commuters).

It is argued that proposed streetcars are a substitute for serving the local community. While the streetcars may come closer to the ride quality of LRT, they lack the exclusive Right-of-Way and thus speed. To those using this for transportation, as opposed to tourists along for the ride, daily speed is important.   And the streetcars are not (yet) in the region’s official plans, or funded.

So if Minneapolis and the region approves these remaining two diagonal LRT lines, it should be well-aware of the trade-off of providing service for suburban commuters (and event-goers) to the CBD instead of lines that better serve Minneapolis residents in their daily lives for both commute and non-work trips. One is not morally superior to the other, though one is likely more efficient, and more equitable, and thus will generate more riders than another. That is a choice.

 

Cross-posted at streets.mn I write about Main Street – Albert Lea:

The first thing one notices is that the Main Street, while attempts have been made to restore it, including an active road reconstruction project, is dead. Some may say it is just stunned, but I say its, pinin’ for the Fjords.

Main Street – Albert Lea

Caveat: This is at best drive-by urbanism, I didn’t do any investigative reporting besides citing Wikipedia and visiting and photographing. While we did get out of the car, I don’t claim to know what makes the town tick, but even at a short glance, some issues can be identified.

Albert Lea is a city in and the county seat of Freeborn County in the southeastern part of the State of Minnesota. The population was 18,016 at the 2010 census.

Marion Ross is from Albert Lea. (So is Eddie Cochran.) This is a fact you cannot miss if you visit Albert Lea [photos]. The first thing one notices is that the Main Street, while attempts have been made to restore it, including an active road reconstruction project, is dead. Some may say it is just stunned, but I say its, pinin’ for the Fjords.

Now there are plenty of lovely buildings (most of which have seen better days and have been remodeled badly), and a lovely lake at the end of Main Street, and a nice performing arts center, and pedestrian brick pathways acting as crosswalks, and planters, and no shortage of diagonal on-street parking spaces on the very wide road. But people and economic activity are missing. Physical infrastructure cannot of itself create economic activity. The town has also made special efforts in walkability, but on a mild Saturday afternoon, I saw almost no-one walking.

What could have gone wrong? What activity there was migrated to nearer the interchanges with I-90 and I-35. Albert Lea is the town just southwest of this interchange, and so should be a veritable crossroads of commerce, there are a very limited number of towns on a ’0 level east-west interstate and a ’5 level north-south interstate. Had all of the economic activity been concentrated rather than spread out, there would probably be a thriving historic Main Street in the old town area, rather than a “Main Street” (US 65) which is really a Main Highway. Still, the town is declining in population (unlike the other 3 towns we visited), and would make a perfect case for immigration. Here we have an overbuilt capital plant needing people, and all around the world are people who would love to have America’s cast off built infrastructure. Just somehow put 2500 more people living and working on and around Main Street, and the place would be bustling. (Easier said than done, of course.)

 

Cross-posted from streets.mn: I write about Main Street in Owatonna:

I have a Theory of Constraints, that places with physical constraints (an island or peninsula) are more economically successful because the constraints force higher densities, and those higher densities create economies of agglomeration. The examples are San Francisco, or Manhattan, or Venice, and so on. People of course have less space at home (since real estate is pricier), but as a result, they are out and about more often, interacting and trading and creating.

Main Street – Owatonna

Caveat: This is at best drive-by urbanism, I didn’t do any investigative reporting besides citing Wikipedia and visiting and photographing. I don’t really know what makes Owatonna tick, but even at a short glance, some issues can be identified.

Owatonna is [the county seat of] Steele County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 25,599 at the 2010 census.

Downtown Owatonna [photos] appears economically the most successful of the four (Faribault, Owatonna, Albert Lea, and Austin) southern Minnesota main streets visited. The Main Street is mostly rented out. There were more people on the street.

The anchor of Owatonna is the Wells Fargo Bank, which is a great piece of architecture originally designed by Louis Sullivan as the National Farmer’s Bank. The main square hosts Farmer’s Markets and attracts people to the center of town. Away from the heart of town, the land use and architecture gets a bit lower rent (as one might imagine).

I have aTheory of Constraints, that places with physical constraints (an island or peninsula) are more economically successful because the constraints force higher densities, and those higher densities create economies of agglomeration. The examples are San Francisco, or Manhattan, or Venice, and so on. People of course have less space at home (since real estate is pricier), but as a result, they are out and about more often, interacting and trading and creating.

One might expect binding man-made constraints to have the same effect. So if there were truly effective zoning or greenbelts or urban growth boundaries that forced concentration, there would be less developable spaces outside of downtown, driving more to the center, and making those places vibrant. The risk of course is that it might drive development away from the city altogether, to some other place.

At any rate, Owatonna is rapidly growing, and has a lot going on, and has done a better than average job of driving, luring, keeping economic activity, especially retail, toward the center of town, but still the core is only a few blocks long before demand peters out. It is a town and not a city, but even as a town it sprawls a bit more than it should.