David Greene wrote: Check the Met Council's 2030 transportation policy plan. It's all right out there. We have the system planned. We just need to build it.
BTW, the 2030 plan is a delay in the original schedule to get things done by 2020. We really need to hit the 2020 date. The projection is 1 million new residents by 2030 but so far our metro area's growth rate has been FAR beyond what was projected for the past 5 years or so. Mark Anderson: I thank you for pointing out this plan. I will need some time to read and think about it before I comment in detail. But just looking at it briefly, it doesn't appear to fix very much. It plans to double ridership by 2030, which doesn't seem sufficient to have much effect on congestion. And I have doubts that they can achieve that anyway. DG: First off, to mitigate congestion, we need to build mass transit (LRT and buses) along key corridors. Metro-wide trip numbers are not relevant. What's relevant is the volume along specific corridors, as the Met Council demonstrates in the TPP. Highway-only folks like to drag out the tired argument that public transportation only makes up 3% of metro trips currently. What they hide is the fact that it makes up at least 40% of trips to downtown Minneapolis. We will never reduce congestion. The level of congestion we have today will remain with us as long as we have cars. All we can do is slow its growth. MA: Well, I'll read the Met Council plan, but at this point I'm not convinced that key corridors will take care of the problem. There's been discussion on this List before about how little traffic is going to or from downtown. I suspect such traffic is a relatively small part of the total congestion. In my own experience, I commuted every day from 1980 until 2004 from Minneapolis to Eden Prairie or Minnetonka. The congestion for the last ten years has been tremendous and gets worse every year. I don't see how mass transit will make a dent in that corridor, including the routes discussed in the Met Council plan. I agree that congestion cannot be eliminated, but I don't believe we can't reduce it somewhat by fixing some bottlenecks and adding some lanes. DG: I used to think this too (MA: Hiawatha a bad first choice for LRT) until I started using it when it opened. The cars are full during rush hour and steadily used throughout the day. I took a train to city hall one afternoon and it was standing room only at about 1:30pm. Weekends have steadily high levels. Standing room only trains are quite common. MA: Full trains are good; it reduces the need for subsidy. But I thought the purpose of the train was to reduce auto congestion and to serve the people that travel in that corridor. There never was that much congestion in the first place on Hiawatha, in comparison to other corridors. It would have been much better to put LRT where there are heavier levels of commuting. DG: Then you'll enjoy the Southwest LRT that's planned! (MA: In response to my comment on driving the Southwest Metro) MA: Only if it goes where I need to go, which seems pretty unlikely. Autos are a lot more flexible. LRT and buses only make sense when lots of people are coming and going to and from the same place. I think that doesn't happen a whole lot in the Metro, but I'm willing to be convinced otherwise if the Met plan makes a good case. I suppose it's possible that real good mass transit could encourage denser development in the path of the bus or train, thus resulting in a future population pattern more conducive to mass transit. I will remain open to that possibility -- I'll see what the plan says. DG: I'd rather build a community where I don't have to rely on a car. MA: Believe it or not, I like having mass transit available also. One reason I live in the city is so I can get places on the bus. But that doesn't mean we should write a blank check for it. Most of the arguments I hear are that we have to have more trains and buses, regardless of the cost. I don't believe in mass transit at any cost. We need to compare the respective costs of auto vs bus vs train transit. And I do think this cost should take into account non-monetary benefits and costs of auto vs mass transit as well as the actual cash spent. Peter Vevang wrote: 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. MA: I don't think we need 4 to 6 lanes to every highway; I suspect a lane or two to each would take care of the problem. If we can't add more lanes, then where is the Met Council getting all those corridors for new LRT lines and dedicated bus lines? I wonder if the bus or train lanes will carry more people than the equivalent space for a highway would carry. I doubt it. And I do see extra space to build on our highways. The two highways I know best, 35W and 62, both have a bunch of grass on the sides and the middle of large sections of highway. No reason we couldn't put more road there. We might also have to expand some bridges to complete the lanes. PV: ...the point of mass transit is to have a viable city. MA: It's this type of comment that I don't understand. It implies that mass transit should be built no matter what the cost. Bankruptcy doesn't make a viable city. Minneapolis is a viable city right now without great mass transit, so you are obviously wrong. Jim Bernstein wrote: The current congestion problem can not be solved by building more roads. There is no large city in the U.S. where road building has solved congestion. In fact and ironically, building more roads only creates more congestion. Cities like Dallas and Los Angeles which have aggressively built more roads but have not been able to build their way out of congestion. MA: Is there any large city where mass transit has "solved" congestion? Of course not, every large city will always have congestion; it's a function of high density and unavoidable. But one can definitely make congestion worse by NOT building roads; we've proved that right here in our home city. Your comment "building more roads only creates more congestion" is one of nonsensical clich�s that many people have come to believe just by repeating it over and over. It's ridiculous and makes no sense. You seem to be saying that building more highway lanes will result in a proportionately more cars per highway mile than we have now. There is no evidence and certainly no logic behind that supposition. Mark V Anderson Bancroft 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. 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