Monday roundup: Bridge collapse survivors speak, $9 per 311 call, housing lawsuit 20 years later

City news roundup for Monday, July 30

By James Shiffer

July 30, 2012 at 3:41PM
(The Minnesota Star Tribune)
File photo by Jim Gehrz
File photo by Jim Gehrz (The Minnesota Star Tribune)

35W bridge collapse, five years later:

  • After the fall, healing and rebirth: In the years since the bridge collapsed on Aug. 1, 2007, killing 13 people and injuring 145 others, survivors of the rush-hour disaster have struggled to rebound. Some still battle physical limitations. Others, emotional demons. (Pam Louwagie, video by Jenni Pinkley and Matt Gillmer)
  • Check out the updated 13 Seconds in August interactive project, now updated with the identities of every motorist on the bridge. (Dave Braunger, Jane Friedmann)
  • Bridge safety still lacks urgency: Arguments in favor of greater investment after the 35W bridge disaster never gained national traction. (Kevin Diaz)

311 - Best run but most costly? Each report of potholes, overgrown lawns, busted stoplights and other issues to Minneapolis 311 cost city taxpayers $9.15 last year, a per-contact expense that surpasses most cities across the country. (Eric Roper)

An unfinished project on the North Side: Twenty years after Legal Aid filed a landmark lawsuit to reshape four aging North Side housing projects, the landscape has changed substantially. But a significant portion of the promised redevelopment remains unfulfilled, and there's no timetable for completing it. Nor has anyone studied how the low-income people who were supposed to benefit made out once they were resettled. (Steve Brandt)

Posh Park Avenue back in the spotlight: The history of Minneapolis' Park Avenue -- and the movers and shakers who built their now-faded mansions there -- will be explored in a popular walking tour. (Lynn Underwood)

More are reaching out to homeless youths: A "host home" program is among a mini-boom in services underway for Minnesota's homeless youth, an often invisible segment of the homeless population that continues to grow. (Jean Hopfensperger)

On the street where a child died, residents rally: Terrell Mayes, slain by a bullet late last year, would have been four years old Sunday. (Jim Adams)

about the writer

about the writer

James Shiffer