--- Jason C Stone <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
[snip]
> However, this is an illusion of low impact on property owners. The impact on
> many lives will be overwhelmingly negative. MNDOT should compensate impacted
> property owners in the amount of the difference between pre and post
> construction market value. Are we so cold that we would literally take money
> from unfortunately sited homeowners? I'd like the city to ensure that the
> expansion plan protects the financial interest of the hundreds of homeowners
> that will realize painful losses in net worth due to pressures applied
largely > from outside the city. This situation is a complete parallel to the
issue of
> airport noise in terms of its impact on city residents and city living.
Something about this doesn't feel right. If the city put a park next to your
house instead would you pay the city for the increase in property value? In
some ways, yes, in property taxes. Thus to maximize your profit your would sell
as soon as possible after the price jump. If your house value goes down will
you pay less? Again yes, in property taxes and again, timing is important. The
case here is reversed however, the longer you stay, assuming a one time hit to
the property values and nobody doing anything insane to property taxes you
would come out even or even possibly ahead. Or if the slope in property tax
rate doesn't differ enough it could take an inordinate amount of time to recoup
the difference. Taking into account only two time points is distorting the
picture and makes the situation very ripe for abuse. My point is that this is a
complex topic and fairness is the goal, but an impossible one.
> I am puzzled why there has been no attempt to smooth traffic & eliminate
> congestion by staggering 'standard' work hours. As part of a metro-wide
> effort, shift work schedules slightly and create a more even flow of traffic
> over a slightly longer duration than the dreaded Rush Hour. This notion
> alone could alleviate the need for further highway expansion for years. Not
> rocket science...
Unfortunately probably impossible on several levels:
First, many jobs have dependencies on other jobs and companies and thus need to
work at the same time. Not all of course, but many. As a single, and thus
mostly useless, data point, I would shift my schedule if I could, but instead I
am starting to bike to Eden Prarie from Mpls.
Second, it would need to be more than slight and that would be hard to get
people to do. Rush hour already starts in the worst places around 3:30 and
lasts until 6. (For some reason the morning rush hour is shorter, which I don't
get, but I'm sure there is a logical reason.) Thus you would need to skew
things by hours, which is a large change to get people to swallow. Also, due to
the current spread in rush hour you can see that some people have already tried
staggering their hours, so your suggestion is probably already being
implemented on a smaller scale.
Third, you are asking an entire metro area to change when a quick fix affecting
a small portion will do. I intentionally phrased that to irk some folks. I know
it isn't a quick fix and the entire metro area is what should change but that
will be perception.
Fourth, it is much harder than rocket science because you have to deal with
people, which are much less reasonable than physics.
What do I think should be done? I don't know. Has any other city adequately
solved this prbolem? Every city that I know of, even outside the US, has huge
traffic problems in their metro areas.
Regards,
Ken
Whittier
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