Well we also better get MnDot to change all the street signs in and around that area too then. Because all the people you listed also drive cars in and around Minneapolis. What I would be for is paper pocket maps in different lanaguages. The question of enforcement of fare is still in my mind.
Last question; did the Met council tour other cities rail and subway lines? I'm assuming yes, and if so what cities? THanks Stephen Jester Mckinley -----Original Message----- From: Jennifer Lovaasen [mailto:jennifer.lovaasen@;metc.state.mn.us] Sent: Monday, October 21, 2002 3:26 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [Mpls] Light rail farecard machines to be in threelanguages? Free riders?? Stephen Jester suggests that Metro Transit save tax dollars and omit foreign languages from its light rail ticket vending machines. For us, it's a wise business decision to include other languages. The 2000 census estimates that about 84,000 people in the seven-county area speak Spanish at home, nearly 40,000 speak Hmong and about 21,000 speak African languages, including Somali. Many of Metro Transit's potential customers speak Spanish, Hmong and Somali and we want to attract their business by making transit lines easy to use. The final decision has not been made yet. The issue will be addressed by the Metropolitan Council's Transportation Committee, which meets Monday, October 28 at 4:00 p.m. at Mears Park Centre, 230 East 5th St., St. Paul. Members of the public are welcome to comment. Jennifer Lovaasen Outreach Coordinator Metropolitan Council >>> "Stephen Jester" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 10/20/02 08:56AM >>> Light Rail is a good idea, we had it before, but now the decision has been made a long time ago to go with buses. The rails have been pulled up, and the buses have been running for fifty years. If you don't know the story, it was a deal made with GM. Yup GM paid big bucks to have our rail system scrapped for buses. If the light rail line would have been built along 94, or down 35W to burnsville, I'd be more in favor of it. But the Kings at the Metro council used the corridor that had been sitting undeveloped because it was never made into the freeway it was supposed to be. The problem here is that we are in a country here that is at a crossroads. We have terrorists living in this country. We have left the front door, the back door, and the side doors open to our country to illegal immigration. And governments in Minnesota may be harboring them right now. Go ahead and call me a xenophobe, I really don't care. But it is still a crime to be an illegal immigrant. And people in the non-english speaking communities need to understand that. And deal with it. Can't we all agree that we should all be able to communicate with one another? Why then continue to coddle these non-english speakers? Save the tax money and put it all in English. Have the political will to tell those folks that we live in a country where we need to speak one language. Stephen Jester McKinley -----Original Message----- From: Jim MCGUIRE [mailto:mazaskan@;msn.com] Sent: Friday, October 18, 2002 10:48 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Mpls] Light rail farecard machines to be in three languages? Free riders?? I read this message several times trying to figure out what the problem is here. First off, this is clearly written by an opponent of light rail. It looks to me as if Mr. Jester expected to find something in the article to make him mad and then succeeded. As to fares, I'm not certain what the best collection system is. It doesn't bother me, per se, that it will be "voluntary", but neither would I disagree with a compulsory system. The bottom line, however, is that transit isn't designed to make money. (How much money did 35W make last year?) As to the rant about ENGLISH. It's just that, a rant. There's nothing wrong with designing a system that acknowledges that we have non-English reading residents (citizens and non-citizens). Plus one can simply take a look at the route and realize that this system goes through the West Bank, which has a large Somali community, and crosses Lake St which has a large Hispanic community. Would Mr. Jester prefer that if people have trouble reading English they not ride the train? Jim McGuire Como ----Original Message Follows---- From: "Stephen Jester" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Mpls" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [Mpls] Light rail farecard machines to be in three languages? Free riders?? Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2002 08:19:46 -0500 When I read this story yesterday, I nearly punched my monitor. It made me that angry. Why? I'll tell you why. My wife and I were in Washington DC a month ago celebrating our anniversary. Neither of us had used the subway in DC before, but all of our travel books said that it was cheap and easy to use. And the books were right. The station was four blocks from our hotel, and was located in the George Washington University area. You would take and esclator down, and the first thing you notice is farecard machines. Guess what? They are in ENGLISH!!!! All the maps? ENGLISH! Anyway, you would stick your money in the machine, press a button for a farecard and the machine would spit it out. And typed on the card is the value. Then you walk to the gates that lead to the platforms. You take your farecard stick in into a slot in the front of the gate, and it reads your card and spits it out through the top, and the gate opens. You get on the train, and once you arrive at you destination station, you have to use the gates again. Why? Fares are based on how far you have gone from your original destination. So you stick your card in again, just like before, and if you have enough value on your card, it comes out the top and the gate opens. It's very cheap, considering a cab from our hotel was 10 bucks, the subway was 2.20. Why this all ties into our LRT is the story in yesterdays paper. Feeling like I have some knowledge now of how this form of transportation works, I just couldn't believe my eyes. All fares are going to be based on the honor system? HELLO!!!!! This thing is not going to make a dime. It won't even be able to pay for itself. What kills me is you have the machines and instructions in different languages, and the way you enforce the fares is by using police officers?? I guess we better get officers that speak Hmong, Spanish, Somailian, Russian, Hebrew, Yiddish, French, Ect.. I can see the stories now... "Blacks sick of be profiled on LRT." "Somali community upset that officers held fare busters that cannot understand English." It just goes to show that as an American society, we all need to be able to communicate in one lanaguage. English. Period. End of Story. Stephen Jester McKinley _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:mpls@;mnforum.org Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls _________________________________________________________________ Unlimited Internet access for only $21.95/month. Try MSN! http://resourcecenter.msn.com/access/plans/2monthsfree.asp _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:mpls@;mnforum.org Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:mpls@;mnforum.org Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
