Mark Snyder wrote: Shockingly, the Minnesota House did the right thing for once and voted down a lamebrained proposal to privatize Metro Transit. Unfortunately, they also wimped out and voted down a proposal by Rep. Karen Clark that would have brought the buses back by forcing ATU and Met Council to go back to work under the terms of the old contract while continuing negotiations.
Mark Anderson: Hopefully they'll come back to this next year. I don't know if it makes sense to privatize the bus line right in the middle of the strike; we've got enough turmoil at the moment. (Although it certainly makes sense to discuss the idea -- the strike would probably be over with by now if we'd had the foresight to privatize earlier.) And privatization isn't something one does (successfully at least) just by passing a law -- that's how the semi-privatization of the California utilities got into trouble. We need to study how to go about doing it, and then line up several competitors interested in the business, before changing the system. I may have to encourage Rep. Buesgens to look into this for next year. Thanks for printing this, Mark. It's interesting to see all the Republicans that were against it. Goes to show you that even Republicans don't have much more respect than Democrats do for the free enterprise system. I think it's a disease of being a politician of any stripe. For those who have make a career in government, it hard for them not to think that what they are doing is the most important business in the State. One more reason for initiative and referendum -- it's just too hard to get state workers to vote against their own profession. I don't know how long Rep. Buesgens has been in office -- but it's a good idea to get him moving to improve our system before he turns into another big government advocate. Mark Snyder continues, quoting a Republican: It's puzzling to me that he would say that because study after study shows we're one of the most efficient transit systems in the country,� [Rep. Frank] Hornstein countered. �We just went through a very thorough sector by sector route evaluation in which certain routes were dropped and others were added. It�s making a good system better in terms of efficiency.�" Editorial comment: By the way, folks interested in seeing comparisons of transit costs per passenger can find a summary at the ATU 1005 web site: Go to http://www.atu1005.com/Transit_Community.htm And click on "Click for for a summary of Bus Costs by Provider for Fiscal year 2002" If you thought the 'burbie lines were cheaper, sorry, but you're wrong! Mark Anderson: I'd love to see the studies Rep. Hornstein is talking about. Do you have any idea, Mark? Of course he's just saying that the Twin City system is better than the other gov't systems in the country, which isn't saying a lot. For those of you who didn't follow Snyder's link -- all it gives is other MN bus routes. What a surprise -- it costs less (per trip) to carry passengers a mile or two in Mpls than to import them 10-20 miles! I'd like to see the comparative cost per mile, but I suppose the union wouldn't be real interested in those statistics. Although the link didn't prove anything since it was cost per trip, I did find it interesting to see the high cost per trip of some of the suburban routes. If we can trust the union numbers, it is apparent that the suburban lines are highly subsidized too, because I'm sure they don't charge several dollars per bus ride. Mark V Anderson Bancroft 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. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
