My gut reaction is "Great!"Amid furious budget-cutting, the city has more than doubled its squad of traffic cops - and tickets quadrupled from March to May, according to councilmember Dan Niziolek. For more details, see:
http://www.swjournal.com/display/inn_news/news06.txt
David Brauer
Editor, SW Journal
Kingfield
For the past 3 years since I moved back to Minneapolis, my impression of traffic enforcement in the city has been that there was none to speak of. As long as one didn't do something really egregious right in front of a police officer, and perhaps have some other suspicion-inducing characteristics (e.g. loud radio, darkly tinted windows, etc.), you could get away with anything.
It certainly seems like it where I live. By actual count of hundreds and hundreds of vehicles, at different times of day and on different days, less than 5% of the cars stop at the stop sign on my street. More than 10% do not even slow down, and 2% of the people actually SPEED UP!
Stop signs, stop lights, speed limits, noise ordinances for cars, pedestrian right of way, etc. all seem pretty much optional in Minneapolis. So maybe this new emphasis on traffic cops and tickets will provider a saner, calmer street environment. Some of that has got to rub off on making neighborhoods a bit nicer and maybe even discouraging other crime in the same way getting rid of graffiti does, right?
At least I can hope.
Chris Johnson Fulton
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.)
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