Nothing like some good suburb bashing. Nothing like telling the suburban
legislators what you think about them. It makes a jolly of a time when the
city is before legislative committees controlled by suburbanites.
Craig Miller
Rogers MN
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
-----Original Message-----
From: Nathan Hunstad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Mpls list <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Friday, January 19, 2001 9:23 PM
Subject: Re: [Mpls] Minneapolis and the Crosstown
> It is my understanding that the cities can't agree for the same reason
>they couldn't agree over three decades ago when they started construction:
>neither city wants to tear down houses and businesses. Neither city wanted
>to do that when I-35W was first proposed. The original design had I-35W
>gently curving to the southwest at its junction with the Crosstown. But
>such a diagonal route would mean more right-of-way needed than the straight
>north-south routes Richfield and Minneapolis wanted. Minneapolis wouldn't
>move I-35W west, Richfield wouldn't move it east, so it was duplexed with
>the Crosstown. Selah.
> To fix this interchange properly would necessitate a few things. The
>first option would be to bite the bullet and do what engineers wanted to do
>in the first place: bend I-35W so it doesn't share a road with 62. Of
>course, that would mean tearing down neighborhoods again. We could build a
>new I-35W above 62, stacking the freeway like they do in California. But
>that would be ugly and expensive. Or you could bury the freeway like they
>are doing in downtown Boston. That would take several presidential cycles,
>based on how long it is taking at the Big Dig. Besides, changing the
>project would mean going through the process again: planning, environmental
>impact statements, the whole mess.
> Regarding building our way out of congestion: of course we could do it.
>Just look at the above options. The question is whether we want to do
this.
>I don't. I commute 20 minutes down University Avenue; no problem here. If
>highway projects to the outlying 'burbs were financed by those 'burbs --
for
>example, if Eden Prairie, Chanhassen, and Chaska were the ones paying for
>the 212 expansion -- I wouldn't care as much. But I don't need 212 or 610.
>I have seen what is happening to Brooklyn Park with the new 610. Where
>there was nothing a few years ago, now there are bright gas stations all
>over the place, along with housing developments that look like mushrooms
>sprouting up on a farm. Ugly, ugly, ugly.
> Regarding light rail along I-35W: if I remember correctly, this was the
>original alignment. It would sure make a lot more sense than running the
>line from a place where few live through a place where people just travel
>through to end in a place where nobody lives. I will spare the PRT rant
for
>now.
>
>
>===
>Nathan Hunstad
>Marcy-Holmes
>Minneapolis, MN
>(612) 331-7766 -- Home (612) 598-6484 -- Wireless
>
>"Standing on a hill in my mountain of dreams,
>Telling myself it's not as hard . . . hard . . . hard as it seems"
>--Led Zeppelin
>
>________________________________________________
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>http://www.angelfire.com/mn/freakpower
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