As for bikes on Lake, my take on that is the same as EVERY subject concerning people biking in Minneapolis on busy streets. I avoid sharing pavement with lots of cars every chance I get. It is a matter of SAFETY for me. I'm not young, so I never assume I get x number of years without regard to my protection of my neck. I get a feeling this is about the RESPECT for bicyclists, more a psychological than a physical need. When I was a kid, there were no lane markings ANYWHERE for bikes. Ergo, they were not "accommodated". Something happened on the way to today because today's cyclists seem to consider a street off-limits without lines painted on the streets. Personally, I don't get that. When did that rule start. About the only place I sense any rule excluding bikes is on the freeway, and that's mere sanity.
There are THOUSANDS of streets that accommodate bikes. If one or two are a bit dicier, well, adjust. The world has real problems to spend its time on. Apartments: I started renting apartments in the Jurassic. Back then, I got a sleeping room for, I think, about $6 a week. Furnished. Of course, I was making about $1 an hour, so you can do the math. A little later, I got a housekeeping room. I think that ran me $30 or $40 a month. By then I might have been making $1.25 an hour on the loading dock of a famous department store. Somewhat later, my brother and I shared a furnished efficiency apartment in downtown Minneapolis. We paid $69 a month and each paid half. I think I was up to a stellar $1.75/hr (part time) and my brother made $1.25/hr in a bike shop. Next four members of my family shared a rental house in Cooper for a couple hundred bucks a month. Can't precisely retell what we were all earning then. Was a pretty good deal for the time. Allowed me, who was going to school and working part time, to buy a $89 car when Twin Cities Lines struck. Well, so over the years I gradually worked my way up. In 1982, my rent on my 1BR apartment went from $135 to $175. So my wife and I took an apartment in NE Mpls for $340 for a 2BR in a triplex. That was unfurnished, and we had to pay utilities on top. I was pretty happy with that deal, but we had pets, so we were locked into a certain limited market segment. But we held onto it till was up to around $15/hr. So now I'm a homeowner in Cooper, and my monthly cost before utilities is twice the cost of that apartment. A lot of value is frozen in the equity, but there are no forseeable sales plans, so it really is just money out of pocket, but we are sharing it (big plus for marriage). So it isnt a crushing burden. But I've struggled up to a somewhat higher income niche (straight middle class), so my current situation doesnt really relate to the housing-for-the-poor issue. Library: Well, I hate to say I told ya so, but I thought those library plans were a little out of touch with reality. My wife saw a picture of the original library on 10th, and I doubt I'll see a library whose appearance I'll like as much. The BOOKS are the meat of the library, not the windows. I shake my head at the fuzzy-headed quality of what people think a "world class library" should look like. Some of the most noted libraries in the WORLD haven't built a new building in a century. So why is Minneapolis on its THIRD building in a century? Why do we fail so utterly to predict where library science is headed? -------------- Jim Mork--Cooper "Save yourself from this corrupt generation....All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need". Acts 2:4-45 "The disciples determined that according to their ability, each would send relief to the believers". Acts 11:29 "From each according to his ability...to each according to his need." Karl Marx Get your free Web-based E-mail at http://www.startribune.com/stribmail TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Send all posts in plain-text format. 2. Cut as much of the post you're responding to as possible. ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
