Gina makes good points, as does David. I don't think that you should blame Metro Transit (and met council) for most of the problem. The city of Minneapolis declared, quite early in the process, that there would be no park-and-rides within the city limits. As far as I know, that included the Hi-Lake stop. Hate to defend the met council.
Cast your minds back to the station area "planning" meetings that were carefully orchestrated to guide the people (or "sheeple" as someone I know in Houston calls them) towards expressing preferences for the urban planner's dreams. How do you think the neighbors would have reacted to plans to put 50-100 space parking lots in at each station? It's correct to think that the city and met council dream of high density housing near the stops. Hasn't the zoning been changed to prohibit "new" auto-oriented businesses near the stops? The city, as is the case with most good-sized cities, pretty much hates on-street parking downtown and would rather force you into pay parking. Who cares (from their point of view) that this drives away a lot of short-stay customers, who don't have time to take transit to get there in the middle of the day and don't want to spend $2.50 to park for a 5 minute errand. Portland put a moratorium on construction of new parking ramps downtown for a number of years until the merchants pretty much said "no new parking, we leave." It was funny to read the met council PR that informed us how most of south Minneapolis is "within four blocks of a bus line that connects to the lrt." Let's see, four north-south blocks is 1/2 mile. Consider the lot of someone wanting to go from 34th and Hiawatha to 24th and Hiawatha, They will still take the #7. But what about those who used to ride the 7 south of 46th, along 34th Avenue, 42nd Avenue, and 54th Street? Take the train to the nearest stop and walk. Visit www.EffectiveTransit.org The Independent Unsubsidized Voice of Citizens for Effective Transit in the Twin Cities * lrt isn't a potato chip, you can stop at just one * Bruce Gaarder Highland Park Saint Paul MN [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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
