Bruce You are well known for your anti train stance. I take offense to your calling it a "toy train".
Chris is correct in pointing out the feds paid for a bit more than half the cost of this train. You then counter with pointing out that MN pays taxes to the feds, thus its really MN money anyhow. You are correct. You then elaborate on the potential inaccuracies of Chris's math on highway costs. You don't seem to mention that the feds pay for a great deal of that as well. Considering the exorbitant amount of statistics, data, and accounting done for transit costs I think most anyone could find the numbers they need to back up whatever position they have about transit. Roads cost money, trains cost money, busses cost money. Some of it is paid directly by the user, all the rest gets paid by taxes in some way form or shape. There are others on here that are more eloquent than I that have quoted how our "gas tax" does not cover the true cost of the road infrastructure you seem hopelessly in love with. I think transit is a no winnable issue, similar to abortion and gay marriage. Everyone has an opinion, backed up by some form of belief or number or statistic. I highly doubt any of us are completely right, or wrong. You have your stance on this "toy train" issue, and I doubt anyone can change it. I drive, and like to drive, and I get a bit crazy just having my car in the shop for repairs. Am I against my taxes going for a "toy train", not at all. I can see that driving is not for everyone. How should handicap persons get around? How should all the drunks that have lost their license get around? How should persons that cannot afford a car get around? How should mentally challenged persons get around? How should the elderly and infirm get around? Are you willing to cart them around in your beloved car? Ron Leurquin Nokomis East Bruce wrote: Another piece that Chris misunderstands is that each real rider makes a return trip, thus daily ridership is 1/2 of the boardings figure. Then you must take into account the fact that each rider will make more than one round trip on the toy train each year, and may take more than one round trip or multiple stop trip in a day. Thus, 9,500 daily boardings turns into at most 4,750 riders per day and if 2/3 of them do the trip each weekday and the rest are some other frequency (down to once a year), you can do math like the following. Chris makes much of the fact that "federal dollars" paid for half of the train building costs. Gee, I wonder where the feds get those taxes, perhaps Minnesota doesn't pay taxes to the feds? Chris makes reference to the cost of expanding highways and says it's about $50 million a mile (doesn't say whether that's lane-miles or end-to-end miles). Let's take an actual project going on right now, expanding I-494 from Highway 5 to I-394, for $111 million. I haven't tried to figure the miles, but estimate about 5, so that's $22 million a mile. The federal and state gas taxes pay for most costs associated with building and maintaining roads. Chris makes personal attacks on politicians who don't see things the same as Chris does, including making references to possible effects of the Shoreview transmitting towers on those folks, but then goes on to talk about moving out of the same area. 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 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
