Twin Cities commuters suffered through more long waits and stop-and-go traffic today as a six-inch snowfall brought joy to snowplow drivers (overtime!) and body shop operators as well as northern resort owners (for some reason, there has to be snow here before folks will believe there is snow in northern Minnesota). However, our long-awaited, very expensive light rail trains will soon be carrying paying passengers. Those who commute from the Hiawatha Avenue areas of the city will now be able to ride downtown in comfort. This is expected to remove zero cars from the really congested areas of the city, at a cost around $800 million. It would have been cheaper to buy half the people who will ride the train to work a new minivan every 5 years and have them drive one other person to work. Okay, it's nearly done, and we're stuck with it. What do we do now? There's the Northstar rail commuter line, which is now being scaled back in terms of area covered and passengers served (but not in cost). There is talk of the next light-rail line running from downtown Minneapolis to downtown St. Paul. If we do build that line, it's going to cost at least as much as the Hiawatha line, and it's not going to reduce congestion much (there's only so many folks who live in either downtown and who want to commute to the other) and will likely drive some University Avenue merchants out of business. Supporters say other businesses will eagerly take their place once the line is operating, and they may be right, but that's not much comfort to the folks who lose their livelihood in the meantime. What I want to know is: Why do supporters of light-rail transit insist on building lines where they won't help solve congestion problems? We (the public) own right-of-way from Minnetonka to downtown. It's an abandoned rail line currently used as a bike trail, I believe. Why not build a line along this corridor, where it could haul commuters from the western suburbs downtown? Even more startling: Don't make it an expensive to build, expensive to maintain electric line. Instead, use diesel-electric locomotives. Use the money saved to build another, or even another two lines elsewhere. Now I know environmental purists are filling the air with heavy coughing as they read this. Why, they would ask, would we fill the air with horrible hydrocarbon fumes when we could have non-polluting electric trains? The infrastructure required to power electric trains is very expensive, and very ugly. New-technology diesel motors are not only very fuel efficient, they're nearly non-polluting compared to the motors available just a few years ago. These locomotives need not be the huge, noisy ones that pull freight trains, since they only need pull a couple of cars over flat terrain. They might be as small as the motors used to move buses. What's more, our electricity is about 70 percent hydrocarbon generated here. While the train itself emits no pollution, the power plants which generate the electricity do. If we avoid the problems which pushed up the cost of the Hiawatha Line (electric motivation, airport tunnels) we can build a lot more miles of track and genuinely begin to solve some of our congestion problems. And if we are going to have more trains--or PRT's or whatever--we have to find a way to do it that costs less. Whether you like it or not, the suburbs are going to become more powerful politically. I don't see these folks backing another $50 million per mile train, especially when there is no visible benefit to their communities. But if we proposed a less-expensive system, with lines running from, say, Woodbury to Chanhassen as well as lines from the suburbs to the core cities, we just might get their attention long enough to sell them on the idea. I have a friend who would cheerfully pay $5 each way to ride an express bus from Eagan to Eden Prairie. It may happen soon--and would be even better if we had transit stations in a few key locations (Best Buy, the airport, the Normandale complex) where the bus could get on and off quickly, and passengers could walk over the freeway in an enclosed overpass. Sure, this isn't as sexy as a high-tech PRT or a really cool train like the Hiawatha Line. But a few successes with proven, inexpensive systems would go a long way toward building the trust between city and suburb when it comes to making all our lives easier. M. G. Stinnett Jordan REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait.
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