Originally Posted by
tjspiel
This was winter was tough on the asphalt in the area and there's a lot of potholes. A few blocks from my house there's an intersection where a large area of asphalt has broken up to reveal the cobblestone underneath.
I had known that the streets in the area were originally cobblestone but I noticed something else this morning, - a rail from the old streetcar line.
What a shame. All the expense and drama that have gone along with creating and expanding our limited light rail system could have been avoided. With a bike and the trolleys, it would have been easy to get just about anywhere in Minneapolis/St. Paul and from Lake Minnetonka to White Bear.
So true, and something that has been done in so many other cities. The old "Trolley neighborhoods" of the 1910's and 1920's have just become freeway exits from the distant 'burbs that came about in the post WWII housing boom.
SLC has the same thing. We live in a 1920's bungalow within 1 block of the (abandoned) rail line, but the modern light rail system (about 5 blocks away) was built with great effort and expense requiring extensive Right of Way and Easement cost.
Oh well, at least there is some form of mass transit versus none.