It can take some planning to get to the State Fair.

Here’s what you need to know about transit and parking options.

Park-and-ride, Express Bus options

There are 34 free park-and-ride options offered during the Fair.

Buses run from 8 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. (9:30 p.m. on Labor Day). The last bus to the Fair runs at 8 p.m. (6 p.m. on Labor Day) and the last one leaves the Fair to return to a park-and-ride lot at 11:30 p.m. (9:30 p.m. on Labor Day). Times vary based on traffic and crowds. Grandstand shows typically end between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m., with the last show on Labor Day ending at 4 p.m.

Metro Transit park-and-ride locations can be found in Blaine, Maplewood, Minnetonka, Bloomington, Cottage Grove and Maple Grove, with Maple Grove service only available on weekends and Labor Day.

For more information go to mnstatefair.org/get-here/free-park-and-ride.

There’s also service from Express Bus provided by Metro Transit as well as Minnesota Valley Transit Authority and SouthWest Transit. All Express service is wheelchair accessible.

For information on these options go to mnstatefair.org/get-here/metro-transit/.

New this year — service begins at 7 a.m. from all three Minnesota Valley Authority Express Bus Service stations.

Bus fare through Metro Transit app, parking updates

Those purchasing tickets through the Metro Transit app can get a small discount. A round-trip ticket costs $5 through the app or their website and $6 at boarding locations.

For real-time updates, such as on parking lot capacity, visit Metro Transit’s social media on Facebook and its alerts-only feed on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Falcon Heights street parking

The Falcon Heights City Council voted in May to create temporary paid parking zones during the Fair, making around 1,000 parking spots near the Fairgrounds available for a fee.

The pay-by-mobile parking program turns select city streets east of Snelling Avenue into paid parking zones and charges $25 per day for vehicles to park between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. during the 12 days of the Fair. Trained ambassadors hired by the city will be available to give directions, answer questions and enforce parking.

The streets north of Larpenteur Avenue include: Asbury, Arona, Simpson, Pascal, Holton, Albert, Ruggles and Crawford. Avenues to the south of Larpenteur include: California, Idaho and Iowa.

Fair attendees can pay via website, app or automated pay-by-phone line and enforcement is tied to license plate information. See how to pay and other Falcon Heights parking information at falconheights.org/residents/parking/state-fair-parking.

Parking violations are $100 from Aug. 15 to Sept. 15.

Residents living on streets designated as a parking zone received one free parking pass in the mail starting in July, with additional passes available by request.

Road work wrapped up

Meanwhile, recent road work that closed portions of Interstate 94 from Interstate 35W to Minnesota Highway 280 in recent days has wrapped up.

Work is expected to resume after Labor Day and the end of the Fair.

Bikes and scooters

Those riding a non-licensed bike or scooter to the Fair can park in one of three free corrals on Fairgrounds. The corrals are located at the Loop Gate on Como Avenue, the North End Gate, and the Randall Avenue-Buford Gate. The corrals are open from 6 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. (9 p.m. on Labor Day).

Bikes or scooters with license plates must park in the Motorcycle Lot ($15 each) or in the general parking lots on the Fairgrounds ($25). Attendees may also park and lock bicycles at Express Bus lots and ride a bus to and from the Fair.

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The city’s public housing agency is calling for proposals from private partners to create new housing near NYCHA campuses.

A view of NYCHA’s St. Nicholas Houses near the intersection of Frederick Douglass Boulevard and West 127th Street in Harlem. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)

Being New York City’s largest landowner comes with some perks.

NYCHA is looking to leverage its large footprint together with private development to help address New York City’s housing crisis and the agency’s own deep rehabilitation needs.

NYCHA has 2,473 acres of land in the city and a population the size of Minneapolis. As of 2025, the aging NYCHA housing stock has a $78.6 billion backlog in physical repair needs after decades of federal disinvestment. 

Now, officials want to expand their footprint even further, developing housing projects on private land near NYCHA sites. The public-private partnerships would create new affordable housing and potentially help NYCHA address its deep repair needs.

“NYCHA will leverage private-sector partners which will lead to the development and expansion of deeply affordable housing,” said Deputy Mayor Adolfo Carrion in a statement.

Officials say it’s part of an all-hands-on-deck strategy to address the housing crisis in the city. 

NYCHA is already converting 38,000 units to private management under the city’s PACT program. PACT converts public housing subsidies to project-based vouchers, which command a higher payment from the federal government, generating revenue NYCHA plans to use on repairs. Another 1,700 units have voted to be part of NYCHA’s Preservation Trust pipeline, which retains NYCHA management while converting to Section 8.

With this initiative, NYCHA is seeking proposals from private developers that leverage new funding and development tools the agency has developed. That could include building new units that would join the federal government’s RAD program, supporting new affordable housing with project based vouchers, or selling development rights to fund repairs or new housing.

“Returning to its roots as a public developer, NYCHA must leverage available assets to serve current public housing residents while creating more affordable housing opportunities citywide,” added NYCHA Chair Jamie Rubin.

Councilmember Chris Banks, who runs the City Council Committee on Public Housing, expressed skepticism about the proposed effort.

He said that past private partnerships have not delivered what they promised.

“I don’t buy that,” said Banks. “I don’t trust NYCHA or these developers that it’s going to help and support the surrounding buildings.”

The proposals could include “build first” projects where new housing is constructed offsite and made available to current NYCHA residents who can move in with a voucher. It may also create vacancies that would enable NYCHA to make repairs in older buildings, and eventually move new tenants in from the agency’s long wait lists for housing assistance.

“Wouldn’t it be great if you could get access to that vacant lot [across the street] to help free up the space for the regeneration of that campus—that’s never been done before,” said Jessica Katz, former Chief Housing Officer for the city and leader of the NYCHA Regeneration Initiative.

Any redevelopment project is logistically difficult, especially when rehabilitation requires tenant relocation, but the conditions at NYCHA increasingly demand it, Katz says.

“The physical needs of the NYCHA portfolio have deteriorated very significantly over the last 10 years,” said Katz, who noted that rehab requires more money and longer relocations. “One goal of this new construction model is the fact that there just needs to be a place for people to go while the buildings are being rehabbed.”

It’s notably different from more controversial “infill” projects, where NYCHA partners with developers to build on parking lots or other open space within campuses, generating revenue that supports repairs at existing buildings.

NYCHA has tested infill projects recently, like when it sold a slice of land to fund repairs at the Manhattanville Houses in West Harlem or a contested plan to move NYCHA tenants to new buildings and demolish and rebuild the Fulton and Elliot-Chelsea Houses in Manhattan. 

Infill projects have garnered criticism from residents, but gained more vocal support from elected leaders in recent years, like Council Speaker Adrienne Adams. Zohran Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo also mentioned infill at NYCHA campuses in their primary election housing plans.

A spokesperson for NYCHA said that the Request for Expressions of Interest (RFEI) only seeks proposals for private land, not infill.

Banks said NYCHA’s priorities are in the wrong place. After a NYCHA apartment is vacated, it takes the housing authority an average of 339 days to move a new tenant in, while more than 173,000 applicants sit on a waitlist. 

“I find that very presumptuous of NYCHA when currently there’s about 5,000 vacancies… I think they should actually deal with that issue before they step outside to develop more, to be a part of these types of partnerships,” said Banks.

The tools used and the ownership structures of the plans NYCHA is soliciting may depend on the specific project.

Developers have other tools to play with in their proposals. NYCHA hopes that lending some of its affordable housing funding mechanisms to private development will chip in on filling a citywide affordable housing need.

NYCHA has some wiggle room under a federally-mandated cap on the number of public housing units in the city. Under one of the tools, it could build new public housing units up to the cap, then convert them to PACT, making room to build more under the cap, and doing it all again.

Another way is through a transfer of assistance, where public housing residents would switch to Project Based Section 8 assistance and move into a new development, freeing up vacancies in existing public housing that could facilitate repair and rehabilitation, or get people off the housing authority’s long wait list.

Because of its “towers in the park” design, many NYCHA campuses have a lot of land at their disposal. Where NYCHA campuses don’t have as much housing as zoning would allow on their lot, a transfer of development rights enables them to sell off that extra buildable area to an adjacent owner, who could build bigger than otherwise permitted.

Getting tenants on board will be a challenge no matter the project.

“We’re heavily focused on making sure that residents have input when these programs are being introduced to them,” said Banks.

“Trust is very hard won, and it is very easily lost, and NYCHA residents have lots of reasons not to trust that these projects are going to go forward,” said Katz.

To reach the reporter behind this story, contact Patrick@citylimits.org. To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

Want to republish this story? Find City Limits’ reprint policy here.

The post NYCHA Looks to Expand its Footprint With Private Partnerships appeared first on City Limits.

REDMOND, Wash. (AP) — Worker-led protests erupted at Microsoft headquarters this week as the tech company promises an “urgent” review of the Israeli military’s use of its technology during the ongoing war in Gaza.

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A second day of protests at the Microsoft campus on Wednesday called for the tech giant to immediately cut its business ties with Israel.

The police department began making arrests after Microsoft said the protesters were trespassing.

“We said, ‘Please leave or you will be arrested,’ and they chose not to leave so they were detained,” said police spokesperson Jill Green.

Microsoft late last week said it was tapping a law firm to investigate allegations reported by British newspaper The Guardian that the Israeli Defense Forces used Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform to store phone call data obtained through the mass surveillance of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

“Microsoft’s standard terms of service prohibit this type of usage,” the company said in a statement posted Friday, adding that the report raises “precise allegations that merit a full and urgent review.”

The company said it will share the findings after law firm Covington & Burling completes its review.

The promised review was insufficient for the employee-led No Azure for Apartheid group, which for months has protested Microsoft’s supplying the Israeli military with technology used for its war against Hamas in Gaza.

In February, The Associated Press revealed previously unreported details about the American tech giant’s close partnership with the Israeli Ministry of Defense, with military use of commercial AI products skyrocketing by nearly 200 times after the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. The AP reported that the Israeli military uses Azure to transcribe, translate and process intelligence gathered through mass surveillance, which can then be cross-checked with Israel’s in-house AI-enabled targeting systems.

Following The AP’s report, Microsoft acknowledged the military applications but said a review it commissioned found no evidence that its Azure platform and artificial intelligence technologies were used to target or harm people in Gaza. Microsoft did not share a copy of that review or say who conducted it.

Microsoft in May fired an employee who interrupted a speech by CEO Satya Nadella to protest the contracts, and in April, fired two others who interrupted the company’s 50th anniversary celebration.

Wednesday’s practice at TCO Performance Center was the official end of training camp, the last workout before the last preseason game, set for 7 p.m. Friday against the Tennessee Titans in Nashville.

By all measures, it’s been a good camp for J.J. McCarthy, and the young quarterback went out with a bang, completing 26 of 33 passes — including a few highlight connections — in a roughly two-hour scrimmage under blue skies and a hot, late-August sun.

With the top offense and defense mostly playing against the second units — with many players subbing in and out of the latter — McCarthy was 7 for 7 with completions to four different receivers on the first drive, and completed three touchdown passes on a late red zone drill.

Confidence, McCarthy said, is “Extremely high. Highest it’s ever been.”

It was a good way to end camp for McCarthy who, despite missing all of last season because of a knee injury, will start the Sept. 8 opener at Chicago with just one preseason possession under his belt.

Most, if not all, starters will sit out Friday’s game as head coach Kevin O’Connell and his staff prepare to cut the roster to 53 active players before Tuesday’s 3 p.m. CDT deadline.

“I feel like just looking at the other guys, the coaching staff, that gives me all the confidence in the world,” McCarthy said. “They’ve got my back, and all of our backs. I get goosebumps right now just thinking about it.

“We put in the work, the rest is going to take care of itself. But the confidence, as a precursor to the work, it just makes me really excited.”

Here are more takeaways from the final day of training camp:

How is McCarthy?

Well, terrific. He was in control of the offense, hung tough in the pocket, and with the exception of one or two throws, hit receivers on the hands or the numbers. He did not throw an interception and hit a variety of receivers.

He mostly found Jordan Addison, who will miss the first three games because of an NFL suspension resulting from a DUI arrest last summer. But maybe his best play was a touchdown pass to Lucky Jackson on a red zone drill. He also found Thayer Thomas a few times at the tail end of his progression for gains over the middle.

His last connection — a long timing route to tight end Josh Oliver — was one of the best and, appropriately, the final play of the scrimmage.

Before practice, offensive coordinator Wes Phillips was asked if anything about McCarthy’s camp has surprised him.

“Well, we drafted him,” he said. “We thought he was good.”

Who stood out?

— Those were all big catches for Jackson and Thomas, two young receivers trying to make the team, if only to fill Addison’s role early — particularly as the Vikings are reportedly looking at a possible free-agent addition.

— In a two-man battle to be the team’s punt returner, Silas Bolden won the day, catching everything sent his way by punter Ryan Wright while his competition, Myles Price, fielded punts from Oscar Chapman and dropped the first one before recovering it near his own end zone.

Asked before practice what the team was looking for from its kick and punt returners, special teams coach Matt Daniels said, “Tracking the ball, catching the ball and decision making. Probably ball security is going to be at a premium.”

— Left tackle Christian Darrisaw, returning from a knee injury that prematurely ended a strong season, played a lot of snaps Wednesday, a good sign with the season opener three weeks away.

Quote of the day

“In season, it’s kind of difficult; I feel like every time I close my eyes I’m going to fall asleep.” — Offensive coordinator Wes Phillips, on practicing meditation

Injury report

— Tai Felton, hoping to catch on as a depth receiver and returner, appeared to injure his left hand early in Wednesday’s scrimmage and didn’t return. He left the field with a bandage on his left thumb.

— Linebacker Blake Cashman watched the scrimmage from the sidelines. Safety Harrison Smith also was absent.

What’s next?

After Friday’s 7 p.m. kickoff at Tennessee, the coaching staff has to trim down to an active roster of 53 players by 3 p.m. CDT on Tuesday.

J.J. McCarthy #9 of the Minnesota Vikings is tackled as he carries the ball in the second quarter of the preseason game against the Las Vegas Raiders at U.S. Bank Stadium on Aug. 10, 2024 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

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