#Car on stone arch bridge full#

On the contrary, other than the interstates, the Hennepin Avenue Bridge is the worst bridge in Minneapolis. I have nits to pick.įor one thing, declaring the Hennepin Avenue Bridge to be the “best in show” is a stick in the eye.

#Car on stone arch bridge full#

I’ve been a Lileks fan for decades, ever since I happened across his Minneapolis Gateway district history website 20 years ago, chock full of photos I hadn’t seen before.īut his column on the “Five Best Bridges of Minneapolis and St. In other bridge news, I struggle to contain a petty response to the recent column by longtime curiosity seeker, James Lileks, that appeared in this week’s Star Tribune. Let’s hope closing the Stone Arch Bridge never happens again. Instead, the city needs to ensure it prioritizes public space, walking, bicycling, and romantic after-dinner strolls, over vague concerns about teens. We should curb reckless driving and drive-by assaults by changing our streets, not our parks.Ĭordoning off the city’s best public space flies in the face of the rhetorical and/or earnest efforts from city leaders to bring people back downtown. Far better to bring back the impromptu idea in Council Member Michael Rainville’s Ward 3 from last year, which installed traffic diverters in the posh Mill District.

These kinds of mayhem require the use of an automobile, which means that the car-free Stone Arch Bridge is the last place you need to close. For weeks, Minneapolis has been plagued by public safety issues coming from suburban teens driving cars through dense areas of the city, often using fireworks to assault passers-by. Not only was this weekend’s closure useless security theater - touted routinely during news broadcasts, because “something must be done” - but it misdiagnoses the problem. This is why Minneapolis needs the Stone Arch Bridge open all the time. It’s the only place in the city that consistently passes the street musician test: If there aren’t buskers on the Stone Arch Bridge at sunset, the streets of Minneapolis should be deemed lifeless. I saw everyone from new immigrants to Minneapolis lifers, street musicians, convention-goers, joggers, downtown lanyard types, and more. Last Thursday, the evening before MPRB closed the bridge, the bridge boasted the diversity of the Twin Cities. No matter how many times you’ve done it, crossing the Stone Arch Bridge remains unique. Nothing else even comes close downtown it’s the one part of the city where all walks of life cross paths, from CEOs to conventioneers to the unsheltered. It’s important because public spaces, where people from all over the region come together, attract vitality creating a virtuous cycle. The Stone Arch Bridge is the best public space in Minneapolis, the urban icon that literally appears on nearly every tourism video, public relations campaign, and in generations of prom photos. This is why it boggles the mind that Minneapolis and its Park and Recreation Board (MPRB, the elected entity managing Minneapolis park space) closed the car-free Stone Arch Bridge during the evenings of a key holiday weekend. Now more than ever, downtowns need to foster vitality, a critical mass of “eyes on the street,” and other urbanist clichés. The correct reaction from city leaders has been to place more emphasis on street life. Minneapolis is not alone, as post-COVID work patterns have swept through Midwestern downtowns like a tsunami of emptiness.

Everyone seems to agree that downtown Minneapolis, whether on the brink or the cusp, is poised at a pivotal moment where something needs to happen.