Terrell Brown wrote: > > From the editorial: "Taxpayers contribute not a dime from the city's > > general fund into its extensive parking system." Do other's on the > > list agree that this is true? > > [TB] I think its true, I also think its very misleading.
> TIF money has been used to build parking ramps. One of the > explainations that the City Hall spinmeisters used to explain that the > Target subsidy wasn't the number approaching $100 million that was > reported was that some of that money was used for such things as city > owned parking, not a part of the gift to Target. Which TIF money has been used to build parking ramps? My understanding was that the Target parking ramp was self-supporting as is required by city policy. I believe Target Corporation was paying market rate for the spaces that it was going to use. Again, my understanding is that the City's total part of the project was$62 million gross, part of which ($30 million-ish?)was the self-supporting ramp. Is there someone who can clarify this if I am wrong? It is my understanding that it is the City's policy that every ramp must at least be self-supporting and it must be so the first year in operation. Was this policy violated? >True this money > didn't come out of the general fund, but the TIF designation keeps > money from going into the general fund (plus to the school district, > Hennepin County, etc.) until the TIF bonds are paid off 20 or 30 years > from now. The tax base is no worse off because there would be no TIF money without doing the TIF project that creates the money. None of the general revenue governmental organizations are any worse or any better off directly because of the TIF project. So no one forgoes money. There is no subsidy from the general fund or other general revenue source. > So, while we haven't used general fund money to build parking ramps, we > have used money that would have otherwise gone into the general fund to > build them. TIF money would not have otherwise gone to the general fund. You only get TIF money from doing TIF projects. No TIF project, no TIF money to go to the general fund or other purposes. > That we "need" so many thousand parking spaces by 2010 or whenever is a > much a sign that we need better mass transit as it is anything. We > can't very well be adding more streets to hold the cars downtown > without ripping down buildings (not that we don't do that on a regular > basis (RIP the original Times Bar and Cafe)) and last I checked the > neighbors along neither 394 or 35W wanted the highway widened to handle > more traffic. > > The City's parking enterprise does at least 2 undesirable things: It > encourages people to drive rather than take mass transit by providing > large amounts of cheap parking and it diverts money away from the > general property tax base. I don't disagree that we need more mass transit. But we also have to be realistic about what we can achieve. Currently transit carries around 5% of trips in the US and that percentage has held pretty static over the last 30 years. The Metropolitan Council has set a goal of doubling transit ridership and usage by 2020. This means at best, transit captures 10% of the trips in the region. And this also assumes doubling the operating funding for transit, from around $250 million a year to $500 million a year (in current dollars). In common finance geek parlance, that would be considered quite a chunk of change to come up with. I completely agree that we need to do much more with transit but at the same time I think we have to be realistic about how much funding can realistically be put together for this. For the future that we can see, the transportation solution has to involve both automobiles and transit. I would also quibble with the idea that parking in downtown is "cheap." All day parking in the core can approach $15 a day and has proven to be the best congestion pricing system that this region has currently been willing to accept. Currently about 40% of the people employed in downtown Minneapolis take transit. This percentage is much higher than any other area in the Twin Cities. This percentage is this high because transit is so much less expensive than parking. Compare this to most suburban locations where parking is free and transit usage comes nowhere near that of downtown Minneapolis. And the reality is that even the typical transit rider does not take transit every day but instead drives some days and rides transit some days. Parking complements transit. Minneapolis has a downtown that is the envy of most major metropolitan areas in the country. Most regions have cores that are dead as opposed to downtown Minneapolis that is thriving and vital. Also a downtown that contributes mightily to the tax base, making it possible to do many other things in the community. I think we have to think carefully about the building blocks that have made this possible. I don't think it is a coincidence that Minneapolis both has one of the most vital downtowns and one of the largest municipal parking ramp systems. I think that the parking ramps have been an incentive to businesses locating in downtown Minneapolis because businesses knew that their employees and their customers would be able to find a place to park and get to their businesses. The solution to transportation in this region is a combination of automobiles and transit. Ignoring one or the other will hurt our community and leads to poor transportation solutions. This holds true for the Minneapolis downtown as much as it holds true for the whole region. Carol Becker Longfellow _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
