Anderson & Turpin wrote:
I thank you for pointing out this plan. I will need some time to read and
think about it before I comment in detail. But just looking at it briefly,
it doesn't appear to fix very much. It plans to double ridership by 2030,
which doesn't seem sufficient to have much effect on congestion. And I have
doubts that they can achieve that anyway.
Again, mass transit will not reduce congestion. More lanes will not
reduce congestion. Both will help mitigate it. I believe the Met
Council's ridership goals are much too low. Given the Hiawatha
experience, I am sure we can double ridership. We should shoot for
much more than that.
Well, I'll read the Met Council plan, but at this point I'm not convinced
that key corridors will take care of the problem. There's been discussion
on this List before about how little traffic is going to or from downtown.
I see quite a bit of traffic. It's true that there is a lot of
cross-suburb traffic. That's why I'd like to see LRT all the way around
the beltway. Yeah, it's expensive. But so is adding extra lanes in
each direction.
We've got to get away from the notion that mass transit should result
in a single ride to get us anywhere. There will be transfers, just as
in every other city with good mass transit. The central corridor
has a lot of trips but I don't know how many actually begin and/or
end in the downtown areas. A central corridor LRT will need support
systems, pimarily busses, to handle the last mile.
Some kind of clean personal transportation (rented bikes, electric cars
or scooters, perhaps) could be useful at major park-and-rides.
In my own experience, I commuted every day from 1980 until 2004 from
Minneapolis to Eden Prairie or Minnetonka. The congestion for the last ten
years has been tremendous and gets worse every year. I don't see how mass
transit will make a dent in that corridor, including the routes discussed in
the Met Council plan.
Where would the Southwest LRT need to go to allow you to use it
regularly? The Met Council recently held several open houses about
the line. About five different alignments are being considered which
trade off access vs. cost. Look for the Southwest corridor summary,
which should have maps of the proposed routes.
When I took that trip to city hall, I drove from work in Mendota Heights
to the Fort Snelling park-and-ride and took a nice, quick trip into
downtown. I didn't have to pay for gas along Hiawatha Ave and in
downtown. I didn't have to pay for parking. Unfortunately, we have
this notion that park-and-rides are for rush-hour commuters. Think
of them as access points to the mass transit system. That's how
they get used in Chicago, for example.
Full trains are good; it reduces the need for subsidy. But I thought the
purpose of the train was to reduce auto congestion and to serve the people
that travel in that corridor.
It's one of the reasons. Other reasons include redevelopment and access
to businesses. Cap's Grill, for example, has seen a huge surge in
business since Hiawatha opened. I count at least four major brand new
condo developments either just completed or under construction along
Hiawatha.
There never was that much congestion in the
first place on Hiawatha, in comparison to other corridors. It would have
been much better to put LRT where there are heavier levels of commuting.
Remember that Hiawatha equipment will be viable for 50 years at least.
This is a plan for the future.
Hiawatha was chosen as the first route for several reasons, mostly
political in nature. Residents didn't want the proposed six-lane
freeway, so in a sense even those who don't regularly use the line
benefit from it. So it does serve the area. Other reasons included
the existing state ownership of the right-of-way (less cost) and
the inability of Ramsey and Hennepin county (and Minneapolis and St.
Paul) to agree on a plan for Central.
Pretty much everyonee agrees that for sheer volume considerations,
Central is the most obvious first choice.
I suppose it's possible that real good mass transit could encourage denser
development in the path of the bus or train, thus resulting in a future
population pattern more conducive to mass transit. I will remain open to
that possibility -- I'll see what the plan says.
It's happened in many other places. Portland put a modern streetcar
through a very large abandoned, polluted industrial field. Now it's a
thriving shopping and residential district.
It's happening right here along Hiawatha, as noted above.
Believe it or not, I like having mass transit available also. One reason I
live in the city is so I can get places on the bus. But that doesn't mean
we should write a blank check for it. Most of the arguments I hear are that
we have to have more trains and buses, regardless of the cost.
I've never heard that argument from anyone who has done any sort of
study of transportation. Even the good folks at Transit for Livable
Communities aren't asking for a blank check. They're asking for a
system that will tie the metro together and keep it viable.
I don't think we need 4 to 6 lanes to every highway; I suspect a lane or two
to each would take care of the problem.
I certainly don't object to fixing some bottlenecks. Highway 100, for
example, has been a sore spot for a long time. I strenuously object to
Mn/DOT's latest plan to add lanes to 394. Just open the tolls lanes
on off-peak hours, for goodness sake! What a waste of money.
It's this kind of "build more to solve the problem" attitude that
scares the heck out of me. I drive up to family in Maple Grove
and feel all of the pain of needing to drive everywhere, and getting
stuckl in traffic on the local roads. Maple Grove is the classic
suburb built entirely the wrong way, with local roads feeding into
local arterials, thereby cutting off neighborhoods from each other
and cutting off neighborhoods from retail. All this means that people
_have_to_ drive, creating even more congestion. I remember why I
decided to live in the city.
If we can't add more lanes, then
where is the Met Council getting all those corridors for new LRT lines and
dedicated bus lines?
Existing rail corridors that are owned by the counties. The lines will
go right next to the existing bikeways. Not much space is needed for
rail. A _lot_ less than is needed to carry the equivalent amount of
people in cars.
I wonder if the bus or train lanes will carry more
people than the equivalent space for a highway would carry. I doubt it.
Why? Put a bus full of people next to the equivalent number of cars
to carry each occupant separately. Which takes more space? Now do
the same with a train.
Rail has the added, important advantage of not needing huge
infrastructure to handle water runoff.
And I do see extra space to build on our highways. The two highways I know
best, 35W and 62, both have a bunch of grass on the sides and the middle of
large sections of highway. No reason we couldn't put more road there. We
might also have to expand some bridges to complete the lanes.
I agree that we have room for lanes in some places. But rebuilding
bridges is EXPENSIVE and should only be done if we really, really
need it. It's one of the reasons that putting Central Corridor
down I-94 was abandoned. Thew associated bridge expansion costs
were prohibitive. University is a better route anyway because it
has potential to spur development.
Crosstown can't be expanded along its entire length without moving
some homes and businesss (espcially in extreme south Minneapolis and
Richfield) and without taking down massive retaining walls at great
expense, as Peter pointed out.
Is there any large city where mass transit has "solved" congestion? Of
What does "solved" mean to you? Europe seems to do quite well. I
would argue that those living in downtown Chicago on in New York City
feel the problem is solved. They don't need a car!
by NOT building roads; we've proved that right here in our home city. Your
I agree. I've never said we shouldn't build roads. I'm saying we
should build _fewer_ roads and make a real investment in public
transportation. A single mode, whether it's rail, bus or car,
will not solve the problem.
comment "building more roads only creates more congestion" is one of
nonsensical clichés that many people have come to believe just by repeating
it over and over. It's ridiculous and makes no sense. You seem to be
saying that building more highway lanes will result in a proportionately
more cars per highway mile than we have now. There is no evidence and
certainly no logic behind that supposition.
There is definitely logic behind it. Build the roads and developers
will build homes and shops. Homes and shops attract people. More
people will be commuting longer distances. It's one of the reasons
we have serious growth problems in the northwest and southwest
suburbs. It's a tremendous waste of land, not to mention the
additional use of gas, wear on roads and costs to maintain parking,
automobiles, etc.
There are many excellent studies of this. Myron Orfield is a good
source.
David Greene
The Wedge
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