Basically, just days before the announcement that the Pawlenty administration was asking about deleting the 38th Street ramps from the so-called "Access Project", there was a meeting in Kingfield neighborhood to discuss changes that were to be made to the elaborately designed ellipse-about bridge (complete with fountains?). The changes were supposedly from MNDoT, and Tom Johnson (Access Project Coordinator), made no mention of the possibility that the 38th Street portion of the project is being seriously considered for axing. Tom Johnson was well aware of the possibility, because he had already sent the memo to PAC members and scheduled a meeting to discuss it. In fairness, Tom was not the organizer of the Kingfield meeting - but I consider it disingenuous to attend the meeting to discuss design changes without even mentioning the very real possibility that the ramp relocation may not happen at all.
For those of you who believe the rhetoric about phasing the project in, consider this: Pawlenty's administration is using very creative financial tools to speed up construction of many road projects. Peter McLaughlin has discussed his plan to have Hennepin County bond for MNDoT's portion of the Excess Project, so why would Pawlenty not have looked at this as another way to leverage funding and speed up construction? The answer is that they probably don't support that portion of the project to begin with. There are many people who support the Access Project primarily because it includes moving the ramps at 35th and 36th to 38th; without this portion, well, I can't think of anyone who is very interested in 8 lanes on Lake Street! Have the final phases of any "phased project" ever happened in Minneapolis? David Piehl Central --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > In a message dated 5/30/03 11:17:06 AM Pacific > Daylight Time, > [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > > > Does anyone feel that it was in any way > disingenuous > > of Smith Parker to hold a community meeting about > > changing the design of the 38th St bridge at the > same > > time Tom Johnson's memo to PAC members about 38th > St > > being axed was already in the mail? Is this a > "wear > > them down" strategy, or an attempt to divert > > attention?? Was 38th St and the ellipse-about > with > > it's beautiful fountains always just a diversion? > > > Could you please expand on this story. I am not > familiar enough to understand > all the implications of this particular series of > events. > > Thanx, Keith Reitman NearNorth __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Calendar - Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM). http://calendar.yahoo.com TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.) ________________________________ 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
