Minneapolis Driving? (Coon Rapids, Lynd: organic, stores, safe)

[Ghengis]

I like puppies.

[StanleyVegas]

Originally Posted by Ghengis

I like puppies.

Point taken...

I get lost every time I drive in DTMPLS because of the number streets and avenues intersecting. Biking down there would help me become familiar with the layout.

In DTSTP, the number streets run parallel to the river, and name streets are perpendicular, for most of Downtown and Lowertown.

The curveball (literally) is that Kellogg Blvd. does both. It starts one direction up by the cathedral and 94 fwy, curves around the Xcel/River Center and follows the river.

The wedge formed by Kellogg, 7th St. and St. Peter St. is where things get weird (around Rice Park) because everything changes direction slightly. 5th and 6th intersect with 7th.

Again biking there helped a lot, and it is a much smaller area than DTMPLS.

[yoyoma02]

Originally Posted by StanleyVegas

The one in Pasadena?

Technically it's Glendale, but near Pasadena, yes.

[AllCity RayofMinneapolis]

Hello! I'm just coming around to share my newest cool Minneapolis video. THis shows lots of winter traffic downtown, thus the posting in "Minneapolis Driving". Enjoy.

[Laggard]

We cracked the top-10!

Study: MN Traffic among Worst in Nation (http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/dpp/traffic/study-mn-traffic-among-worst-in-nation-sept-27-2011 - broken link)

[golfgal]

Ok, so on average, MN drivers that have a GPS unit have a round trip commute of 60 minutes if you don't take into consideration any vacation time or sick time....from a study that only looks at GPS data. So places like Washington DC where they have extensive public transportation and people have ONE WAY commutes of an hour or two have better traffic??

Try driving in DC, Boston, NY, LA, St. Louis or any other major metro and tell me that MSP has bad traffic.

[audadvnc]

When I lived in a Washington DC suburb, my commute to Georgetown was an hour and ten minutes by car, train and bus. Or an hour and fifteen minutes by car alone.

Minneapolis has it all over DC in ease of commuting.

[cammci]

crushingcupcakes (I like the name):

I feel your pain! I moved from a town of about 80,000 in Iowa, where the most time you'd spend in traffic from one part of town to the other was 15 min---in rush hour! So coming to the Twin Cities was a bit daunting for me. In the past when I drove around here during visits (pre-GPS), I would get so turned around on I35 I would cry/scream.

To acquaint myself with the area I researched my favorite stores (Target, Lowes, Menards, Trader Joes, etc) on their websites and plugged in my address. Each site helped figure which store was the closest to me. I created a journal with addresses---GPS'd them, and after of traveling to each I was able to figure out how to get there w/out the GPS.

Now that I'm a little confident (been here 90 days), I recognize many of the same landmarks when going downtown or to other locations, but I still rely on the GPS to help me get there. Also I've tried to expand my experiences and visit new places for shopping/eating based on others' feedback. One day I'll concentrate on Bloomington/Mall of America area, another day maybe Edina, then maybe Grand Avenue area in St. Paul.

[Cruz Azul Guy]

Originally Posted by Laggard

We cracked the top-10!

Study: MN Traffic among Worst in Nation (http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/dpp/traffic/study-mn-traffic-among-worst-in-nation-sept-27-2011 - broken link)

I wonder how many of those drivers with GPS's drove on Hwy 62 for their daily commute. Worst....highway....ever.....hands down.

[uptown_urbanist]

Originally Posted by yoyoma02

Technically it's Glendale, but near Pasadena, yes.

There's one in Pasadena, too; that one was the first multiple-story Target in the country; think it opened in the mid-90s. It's on Colorado, near Vroman's (and only a mile or so away from the first Trader Joe's, for people who are into random trivia like that...). Not that it matters, and for what it's worth, I like the downtown Minneapolis Target much better.