Mark V Anderson wrote: 2) What makes you think that the politicos believe that we can build our way out of congestion? If only it were so. How many highway miles have been built in the last 20 years, as the Metro population increased by over 50%? If we had kept up with our infrastructure for those 20 years, rush hour might not have expanded to most of the day in Minneapolis.
3) I'd love to hear a real plan for mass transit, so we can truly see how much it really costs. The real question is, "can we build our way out of congestion with mass transit?" I doubt it. Peter Vevang writes: We are reaching a saturation point with our highways. Even if you take the highway point of view, and believe that 'all growth is good' and 'highways are the best option', we still have severe problems. We are in a situation of literal exponential growth in automobile traffic. Not very many people dispute that. Anyone that commutes on highways knows that the traffic jam moves further and further out every year. Your eyes don't lie, traffic is getting worse: Take I-394 for example, despite recent upgrades coming into town, the traffic jam that used to start near Penn or Highway 100 eight years ago now backs up near I-494, and if past experience is any guide traffic is going to be working its way all the way to Highway 12 and from there past Wayzata to Orono. It is not possible to add an additional 4 or 6 lanes needed to improve flow, we have nowhere to put the extra lanes. But even if we could demolish nearby neighborhoods, we couldn't afford it. Imagine the cost of demolishing the large retaining walls, and somehow adding extensions to elevated sections of highway, excavating down 20 or 30 feet in places, and moving all the sewers, power lines and other utilities and installing new storm water systems. We are facing this problem across the metro. We can't add more lanes to I-35W, I-94 or I-394, we don't have the desire or political will to demolish neighborhoods and we would need many billions of dollars to accomplish our goals. That is the reality, we all know it, complaining about it will not change the situation. We know we are in trouble, we know we can't fix the situation with our current strategy of building highways (or not building highways). Given that situation, even if we believe that highways are the best option, why should that preclude us from having rail as a backup to serve commuters that are at the core of the metro economy? That seems like the prudent thing to do to me, to have a backup plan, so that our economic future is secure no matter how bad traffic gets. If that isn't enough, run the numbers: People that believe 'growth is good' should be afraid of the this. This will affect economic growth because the result of congestion is that people won't want to drive as far. A commute to Minneapolis from Orono, Eagan or Chaska for example will become deeply unnatractive. That means any business that wants to locate in a congested Minneapolis will be limited both in its customer base and will be unable to access the metro-wide pool of workers, limiting available expertise and talent. If you accept that as being true, it is clear we need to either fix the highway situation (which cannot be done) or reduce the need for the highways. The benefit of a fully integrated rail system is that any area along the line has metro-wide access to labor and customers. Businesses and individuals have more economic options if they can travel easily. In a way, this issue could be described as being about options, and options are one of the cornerstones of economic freedom. If the legislature does nothing new, that is their choice. But the problem will not go away if they close their eyes. Eventually, the laws of physics will catch up with them. You can't drive on a bridge that has fallen apart. You can't move when you are stuck in a traffic jam. The plan we have now is worse than difficult, troubled or expensive. A 'highway only' plan is a guarantee of failure, it cannot possibly work, we all know it, it isn't working now, and it won't work in the future. We can mathematically predict and measure in real time how badly it will fail, we can model the coming gridlock in a computer and watch it unfold. Eventually we are certain to reach a threshold where life becomes intolerable, the environment begins to degrade, the cost becomes prohibitive or our economy begins to drag. As far as the lobbyists and business interests that are in favor of roads, they will be an extinct species given our current development curve, along with a lot of other businesses and our local flora and fauna. We have 2 choices, mass transit now, or mass transit later. It won't be cheap or easy to build, but we need it. The point of mass transit is not to build our way out of congestion, the point of mass transit is to have a viable city. Peter Vevang NE Minneapolis REMINDERS: 1. Be civil! Please read the NEW RULES at http://www.e-democracy.org/rules. If you think a member is in violation, contact 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 Civil City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[email protected] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
