iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

I want to ban cars as much as the next guy. Still think you’d get some bunching. Trains is really the way to go.

Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Bus bunching is an intractable problem. If the leading bus starts to fall behind, more people show up at stops, leading to more total stopping. But then the bus behind stops less frequently (because people boarded the first bus) and so speeds up. Not sure there's a good solution.

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I’ve been curious about this. I figured they’d have some plan to put it back in but you’re right it’s now blocked by landscaping

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

This is a great point - that highlighted portion sneaks in the assumption that we could have one of those without the other and I'm not sure there's another state that pulls it off.

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I would absolutely love to look at a ranking of city-level park sports field quality. I have no priors on it at all.

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Agreed. I only worry that one city's doom loop is 20 suburbs' growth loop...

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

I could absolutely believe this. And if true, it really means there are no solutions that don't affect programming (aside from, say, restructuring the per-student funding model).

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Interestingly enough, Portland Public Schools just released a similar plan amid enrollment declines. Some of these problems are structural, although MPS definitely has it's idiosyncratic bureaucracy issues www.opb.org/article/2026...

opb.org

Portland Public Schools says ‘rightsizing’ plan to close schools aims to standardize educational experience across the district

Portland Public Schools is planning to close up to 20 of its 81 schools.

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Definitely. Exiting the public schools doesn't require a residential exit as it does in most other places.

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Totally, I don't think there's an easy answer. Large urban public school districts are just more difficult to administer than population-stable or growing suburban districts.

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

And probably also that one of the mechanisms through which it will save money is reduced staffing

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

I have to imagine this will actually save a lot of money, but the district doesn't want to frame it that way because "we're closing your school to save money" sounds worse than "we're closing your school to create stability and regularity of programming"

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Do we actually know that CDD had effects on enrollment? I hadn’t moved here yet, but from what I know it was playing out alongside some major macroeconomic changes.

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Did they actually change the start date in a lot of districts?

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Theories for why the first two Fair days were blowout record attendances and since then attendance has been middling?

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Fair itself surprisingly uncrowded

A street with a ton of people walking on it

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Packed A Line to the state fair.

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Very nice visualization! The ACS is the best we can do on this front, but I've always thought the mode share variable understates the levels of non-drive-alone commutes. I sometimes bike, sometimes bus, sometimes WFH but only get to choose one. People who drive alone likely do only that.

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Unpopular but correct opinion on the Fair: the crowd is the reason to go!

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

My very limited experience with Malcolm yards is that it’s a mostly urban crowd. Some come from the burbs, sure, but many fewer then would be expected given how suburbanized the metro is

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

I honestly don’t get this criticism at all. Doesn’t this stop only exist because the better alignment (tunnel through uptown) was considered too expensive? It’s not like they specifically wanted to hit hidden beach.

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

Do we have an official winner of the “farthest business from Hennepin and Lake to bear the name ‘Uptown’”?

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

I remember reading that a disproportionate number of people instrumental in the early Minneapolis parks system were born in Maine

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

I think part of why these are so bad is that bike lock-up infrastructure in the city is generally really good (compared to other places I've lived at least). But yeah, these are laughably bad.

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

So, so jealous of this building. Amazingly beautiful inside and out.

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

And this isn’t unique to Metro Transit. WMATA’s replacement bus service was a joke

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

I think what’s frustrating about these closures is the refusal to take the replacement service seriously. The line flanking Hiawatha for much of the route means the replacement bus could be really good if we were willing to take a lane and build good temp stations.

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

The main thing I hate about biking on 40th East of the freeway is all the two-way stops. Part of the reason why bike blvds just aren't the same.

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

It doesn't help for getting to/from downtown, but there's an almost continuous protected route from Prospect Park to NE Middle School and Central/Lowry

Map of protected bike lanes (dark blue) and paths (green) in NE and SE Minneapolis

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

Park/Portland will help a lot. But if one were going to build a new PBL East of 35 other than those two, it's not clear what the choice would be. Bloomington? Cedar?

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

Problem here is it’s not just the police who think it’s ok to break traffic laws. It’s one of the few areas of bipartisan agreement (as you know)

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

I do suspect that police generally think breaking traffic laws is ok or at the very least that enforcement is "a drag", because they themselves tend to drive most places and see the world from that perspective. Would explain why tickets didn't bounce back up. in 2022/2023

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Reposted by Andy Fenelon

Evan Roberts @evanrobertsnz.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

Could be updated, but to a close approximation they used to stop 50-100 people a day for speeding/red lights/DWI suspicion etc. Then they just decided not to do that from about June 2020.

traffic envorcement in Minneapolis, 2017-24

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

Traffic enforcement has all but disappeared and drivers have realized they can get away with it. I can't remember the last time I saw someone get pulled over.

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

We have too much to squeeze into 3 months!

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Green Line from Westgate Station (for the time being until the extension opens)

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Spyhouse Coffee online order for pickup

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

Ah I see, this is specific to Minnesota.

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

What is the scale on this graph?

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

Don’t forget about Kahluna in Uptown, Sea Salt in Nokomis, and Alma in Northeast Minneapolis

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

More evidence that Minneapolis residents—even the Mayor—don’t know where the neighborhoods actually are

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

No I think it's generally considered to have over-estimated city populations. People think of the decennial census as a perfect 100% count, but response was about 70%. The census bureau can use other methods to capture the rest of the population, but it introduces error in subpopulations.

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

Unfortunately in this case I think it's the 2020 census that is what we should take with a grain of salt. Demographers who use the data generally consider the 2020 census to have a lot of issues.

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

I would actually be curious which area streets have the worst speeding issues. My impression is Park and Portland are extreme, but we don’t really have the data right?

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Reposted by Andy Fenelon

Heather Randell @heatherrandell.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

A few weeks ago I posted about the negatives we found behind our kitchen wall during renovation. We figured out that they are from the family who lived in our house in the 1940s and 50s. Well well just got the negatives developed and the photos look so good for being buried in rubble for 70 years!

Photo of a man and woman standing in front of our home, taken sometime in the 1950s.

Photo of a man and boy standing in front of our home, with a view of our neighbors' homes, sometime in the 1950s.

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 03/05/2026

Lol. I’m actually not very knowledgeable about city parks in other places. This was a rare case that I was genuinely asking for information

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Andy Fenelon @andyfenelon.bsky.social · 03/05/2026

Are there similarly-sized cities with A+ park systems?

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