Business View Magazine | February 2020

198 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2020 of Fridley, which then became the City of Fridley in 1957, encompassing eleven square miles on the northern edge of the Minneapolis metroplex. According to Community Development Director, Scott Hickok, during the 1950s and ‘60s Fridley experienced an enormous amount of residential development, with many one-story homes built in neighborhoods with winding streets, making the city’s footprint unlike that of most cities at the time. “Fridley wanted to depart from the typical grid format of the city streets, so it became a city with curvilinear streets and cul- de-sacs and other things,” he explains. The downside to that type of topography was Fridley’s limited connectivity. With few sidewalks and an unusual grid pattern, walking and biking was made more difficult for its residents and automobiles became the preferred mode of transport. So, the city has recently adopted an active transportation plan that seeks to get people out of their cars and onto an improved