You might remember Roadguy’s “welcome to work” pothole from a few months back. A few weeks after the post, the city filled in the hole, and the next day, I was reassigned to a new parking lot.

My new space is a bit harder to get to but closer to the front door of headquarters, so it’s been something of a wash in terms of how much time my overall home-to-desk commute takes. One thing that hasn’t changed is the quality of the pavement. Last week, this appeared in the middle of the first aisle:

Apparently the massive weight of the traffic cone is too much for the asphalt. Gives great confidence that it can hold up my car. The next time you don’t hear from me for a few days, you’ll know where to look: the Abyss of Parking Lot A.

Thanks to conflicting travel plans and the wacky runup to the RNC, Roadguy may very well not get to the fair this year. (”The fair,” like “the lake,” may seem like a vague description to outsiders, but Minnesotans know what I’m talking about.) There’s a small chance I’ll have a fair-visiting opportunity this weekend (I would of course check out the new MnDOT display), so my question for you is: if you go to the fair, how do you get there?

Eons ago, the first time I drove to the fair, I paid 10 bucks to park on somebody’s lawn. Then for many years, I was a huge fan of the park-and-ride lots at the U — free parking and a free shuttle bus ride down the transitway. (Now a football stadium is rising where I used to park.) Two years ago, I hit up a colleague who lives near the fair and parked in his driveway for free — lots of his friends did the same thing, so we all left our keys on a table and moved each other’s cars as necessary.

If you’re a fair fan who’s already been or is planning to go, please share your preferred route and mode below.

Some random transportation bits, in no particular order….

Alert reader Prof. S. calls our attention to a Wall Street Journal page-one story that ran under this headline: “San Francisco Ponders: Could Bike Lanes Cause Pollution?” Prof. S. offers this summary:

Basically, it’s a story of a guy who sued to stop bike lanes from being created by pointing out the city failed to do an environmental review, which he argues would show bike lanes are worse for the environment.

There’s also a short video. And no, alert reader Pete, I’m not posting this to restart the bike-car war — few are more weary of that conflict than Roadguy. The only real criterion: I found the story worth reading. (Speaking of Pete, click on his name for a photo essay of his impressively lengthy bike commute.)

Also from Prof. S. and the WSJ is this opinion piece critical of lowering the speed limit.

Alert reader Art, meanwhile, directs our attention to this Q&A, in which the author of the previously discussed “Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)” handles some questions from readers of nytimes.com.

We conclude today with a little anecdote shared by the original Greengirl, whom Roadguy encountered yesterday here in the drab hallways of headquarters. Turns out that, very recently, Greengirl was a passenger in a car in Wisconsin, and the driver decided to make a U-turn at an intersection with a signal. Alert readers like Greengirl know that this is a big no-no in Dairyland, but before she could properly voice her concerns to the driver, the deed was done — and the po-po quickly pulled the car over.

Alas, a transportation blogger can only help those who read him.

Here’s my column from the Sunday paper. If you’ve already read it elsewhere (like, say, here), please skip on down to the comments below. Thanks.

LIGHT-RAIL CAR OR CATTLE CAR?

If you’re eating breakfast right now, you might want to read this when you’re done, because alert reader Andy’s tale of taking light rail home from a Twins game last month isn’t for the faint of stomach:

It took us an hour in line to finally get on a train. … On the train, we were packed shoulder to shoulder as someone began to vomit.

Andy said there wasn’t room to move his family away from the mess, and his head was full of questions: Don’t trains have some sort of capacity limit for safety reasons? And doesn’t Metro Transit plan for the postgame crowds?

The short answers to those questions are, respectively, “no” and “yes.”

Trains and buses aren’t like planes, boats or elevators — operators aren’t constrained by the number of seat belts or flotation devices or the combined weight of the passengers.

A light-rail car can hold about 190 people, says Bob Gibbons of Metro Transit, but there’s no firm limit. “We don’t have someone standing at the door clicking,” he said; loading continues “until people don’t want to get on anymore.”

If the crowding is not to one’s liking, Gibbons suggests waiting for the next train. But after a game, the next one is likely to be packed as well — just ask the baseball fans who had to make room for paramedics last week after a man hurt in a robbery boarded a train at Lake Street.

To prepare for the postgame rush, Gibbons said, Metro Transit employees watch the games on television to see when fans start to leave, monitor the flow of people on the platforms, and activate the entire light-rail fleet (save for one or two cars in the shop for maintenance or vomit-cleaning). At the same time, they maintain the regular light-rail schedule so that non-sports-fans elsewhere along the line can get where they want to go.

It’s “a little bit of an art,” Gibbons said.

NO WIGGLE ROOM

Alert reader Cassandra is also feeling a bit cramped:

With rising gas prices, it’s no surprise to me that more people are opting to ride Metro Transit buses. … What I don’t understand is why Metro Transit has not added more buses to routes that really need it, like the one I ride (850 Express from the Foley Park & Ride). It’s very obvious that there are more riders, as demonstrated by every single bus I end up on having several people standing in the aisles. If more people are riding the bus, wouldn’t it be reasonable to assume Metro Transit has more money to add more buses to the routes?

The economics of public transit can be counterintuitive. A full bus brings in more revenue than a mostly empty one, but the overall formula remains unchanged: Riders pay only about a third of the cost of the service, with subsidies making up the rest. So adding a bus, even if it attracted new riders, would cost more money, or require a service reduction elsewhere.

“It’s not the kind of business where you can make it up on volume,” Gibbons said.

(Related link: A New York Times story about removing seats from subway trains is here.)

Roadguy is on the road again today, so for your reading pleasure he’s reached into his mailbag and pulled up a li’l something that alert reader Amy sent along a couple of weeks ago:

I had reason to be on Snelling Ave. in Roseville this afternoon. Snelling is all ripped up, under heavy construction, and with the stoplights, traffic was backed up for blocks. While idling away at a red light, I looked over and saw a teenage girl, weaving and swerving on a bike. At first I thought there was something wrong. But no — she was steering with one hand and texting on her phone with the other. Eyes on the phone, of course. In heavy traffic, in a construction zone. I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt, thinking maybe she was just dialing a number, but no, it just went on and on.

My jaw still hurts from where it hit the steering wheel!

Maybe she was texting her legislator to ask whether the texting ban applies to bicyclists…

As you’re probably aware, Roadguy hasn’t been spending much time in front of his BlogTron 3000 (props to old pal Batgirl for that term) this summer. But last week, he did head out on a micro-road trip to… um… somewhere. Let’s see if we can’t refresh our memory with a check of the overhead freeway signs:

Er, that’s not much help. (Maybe they’re still trying to decide between Clearview and the current font.)

Ah, here, this one’s better:

Yes, Stillwater, that’s it.

Roadguy took the scenic route, which included…

… the Maryland Avenue Bridge of Doom, which was keeping its concrete to itself that day. We also passed…

… which is in, of course, Hugo. No hunchbacks or cathedrals were spotted.

Once in Stillwater, Roadguy noted that even the price of parking has a small-town feel …

… and the guy who raises the lift bridge has his own spot:

The bridge itself looks O.K. from a distance:

Up close is another story. There’s rust…

… and if you look carefully, you can detect a slight bend where a too-tall truck crashed into some beams earlier this summer:

The bridge also has this sign:

(Roadguy confession: Many years ago, with the consent of a friendly tender, I once stayed on the bridge — the lift part — as it was raised for a small boat.)

Of course, who even needs a bridge to cross the mighty St. Croix River when you’ve got boats, except that the fuel …

… is even more expensive than gas for the car. Then again, you can always travel under human power:

(Yes, Stillwater is the Venice of Washington County.)

Finally, this vehicle, spotted at a marina, combines the best of both worlds:

A car-boat, for all your transportation needs. Stillwater has it all.