* enga0005 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [020327 00:47]: > This recent press release by the Met Council says that our politicians are > out of touch with our transportation needs:
[warning, long, get something to drink first if you need it.] Theres the public aspect, but with what I hear from the business aspect of light rail, they are against it in some areas. There is going to be a pretty big glut of people against anything deticated lane-wise in the central corridor (mpls<->st. paul) unless it isn't on university. Theres some postings at the used book store on the west side windows at Snelling and University. Of course, they are targeting LRT as the evil, without covering the fact the only alternative really being looked at is a deticated busway, with the only exception for deticated lanes to be around the UMN/washington ave area. The main complaint is that they will lose 30% of revenue while the street is under construction for LRT. I don't know the next time they are going to do anything to university ave, however. I'm biased towards LRT in the central corridor for two reasons: Reduced congestion on washington avenue. One of the plans calls for putting the LRT under the street through the UMN campus. The Regents have stated that this is an acceptable route. Of course, how the heck it gets paid for is beyond me. Incresed reliability and volume to/from minneapolis<->umn and minneapolis<->st. paul. Having LRT will, I think, create a more stable timetable for the area and be able to lure people to catch buses downtown instead of the current practice of having lots of buses come to the UMN campus. This should spell out a few more rides to/from minneapolis proper and benefit downtown users. Of course, this is all speculation. However, I feel the biggest turn off is when a bus coming from st. paul is 10+ minutes off and theres a large gap between 'regularly' scheduled buses. I've gotten downtown missing a connection and waiting for a half hour at least in icky weather. Having something like LRT with a deticated ROW will make this less likely. I've got mixed feelings on the Northstar Line. I think its a good use of funds, but I worry that it will be difficult to promote st cloud<->mpls usage depending on what schedule they choose. I would love to see it make a good schedule to get to the airport and back, avoiding parking down there would be a nice perk. At my vicinity to the Foley park and ride, I just don't think I would personally make enough use of the line unless it was as cost efficient as a bus trip unless, of course, there is a substantial time savings per trip. For people further out towards Elk River I feel that it will be a boon, but I haven't heard any direct statistics about the Northstar Coach line that has been running there since last fall(right?). Ridership of that bus line might be indicative of ridership of a limited service commuter rail line. However, I really don't like this fear that politicans have in taxing for anything anymore. I don't want to hear in a year that they can't do some critical activity because they refused to tax anyone to save face. I did read an article in either the Pioneer Press or the Strib about the people involved in Northstar, I disticntly remeber that there was lots of former politicians involved in pretty cushy consulting positions. I also remember reading that some politicans are just unhappy with the amount of marketing involved. I feel that the rejection by some is much more political than economical and not about choosing a mode of transportation. The MNDoT head said on a local radio station that someone needs to come up with all this money for busing since its touted as the future and modern method of transit over LRT/CR from what I remember. Also, note that some claim that the house bill does "nothing": ---- Rep. Al Juhnke was the lone DFLer voting for the bill. He told reporters that "the bill does nothing," but that he wanted to get it passed and sent to a House-Senate conference committee. http://www.startribune.com/stories/587/2127744.html ---- Of course, one of the Republicans who want to run for Governor thinks theres enough money being dumped into light rail that it will magically become 2-3 times (at least) as much and eliminate bottlenecks in some of the most heavily engineered parts of the system. Parts that you just can't widen, but need to make new bridges, move ramps, and other very expensive costs. From that same radio show, the MNDoT guy stated that the worst bottleneck is where on 694 there is only one through lane that goes all the way through the 'bypass'. Oh, did I mention I've got an opinion on all of this? I feel that: A) balanced spending on transit and roads is a good idea B) trusting and asking for reports from non-political research professionals are worthwhile instead of trusing partison politics to design transit systems. This bothers me the most because of the whole 'open up the sane lanes thing'. Opening up the sane lanes is like doing this: /------------------------\ / \ -----/ flow of traffic ----> \------------------- -----\ / \ / \------------------------/ Where you go from 2-3 lanes to 5, and then all into *one* to get thorugh the 94 tunnel. Anyone who works with data technologies will tell you your bandwidth is *limited* by the smallest pipe. Note that the smallest pipe in this case is a *large* project to 'widen'. Whereas talking about sane lanes and opening them up and getting smacked down by the feds (funding sources for sane lanes allow them to smackdown this sort of nonsense) looks a heck of a lot better in the papers than actually spending money to fix this 'problem'. (don't even take the people who 'go past into the city' into effect, they are too miniscule to even make a difference in this.) C) Multimodal transit is required to increase volume in the system to the rate required in the next decade. I hope others here are interested in either debating and hashing out acceptable transit solutions. I know this was very heavy towards transit instead of roads, but if someone comes up with good road ideas, I wont complain. I was really unhappy with the smackdown of the crosstown project over the worries about adequate volume and cost outweighing having to demolish more area for highway ROW. I haven't followed this recently, however. I've seen some really nasty points of view about people who live near highways, however. Is this really something that should be promoted, however: tearing down perfectly fine 'affordable' (I truly don't know, guessing) housing to reduce price of a project and enhance services for others? Does the enhancement in services create a larger cost or lifestyle benefit to the metro area? It's a hard business, I think, and I'm not even thinking of the politics yet, yick! Anyhow, I better get back to what I was doing. I want to hear others input on these thoughts. Feel free to bash, comment, etc. -- Scott Dier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.ringworld.org/ home:(soon to be) Coon Rapids work: UMN, east bank, not speaking for employer. _______________________________________________ Twin Cities Metropolitan Issues Forum http://www.e-democracy.org/tcmetro Rules: Sign posts with real name. You may not post more than twice a day.
