The dust is still settling around here after the State Legislature decided to raise gas taxes on Monday by 8.5 cents a gallon. It’s got all the Democrats at the Capital patting each other on the back about how well we’ve “dealt” with Minnesota’s transportation woes. Frankly I’m still a bit pissed about it in this economic environment. I’m looking for responsible spending, while I absorb a 25% pay cut at my company due to this environment our legislators keep buying stuff. Yesterday night I passed the an empty light rail car and got all pissed again…
I count myself under that label of Liberal, I’m an unashamed Democrat, it’s just I’m also not the bottomless money pit my party thinks I am.
The Liberals in America LOVE their light rail. A town can hardly earn its “sustainable green urban euro-paradise” without having some sort of light rail in place. Why even the Big D, Dallas Texas, home to Cadillac’s, cheap gas, big oil (or as they say ‘awl’) and pathological hatred for taxes and public welfare projects, even Dallas has fallen under the bewitching spell of the Urban Choo Choo.
Well, it’s no different in here in Minnesota. We’re three years into our romance with the iron horse. We have fantastic clean and timely line running from the Mall of America, under the airport and up the old Hiawatha Highway, straight into the heart of downtown Minneapolis. The Hiawatha Line, as we call it, has a ridership of about 40,000 persons per day. That’s a lot of people off the roads an onto the train. And, there’s more to come.
This week the Met Council, that unelected Board of Governors who like to dictate urban policy here in the Twin Cities.. patting themselves on back all the time about our great quality of life and their role in making this the one of the more tax burdened places in the country, have approved a new rail line for our urban trains. They’ve approved an 11 mile line between the downtowns of Minneapolis and St. Paul. The projected price tag to meet the needs of the projected 30,000 people who they’re expecting need to make trip between the center of Minnesota’s working universe (Minneapolis) and the ghosttown of St. Paul every day… 1 B with a B billion dollars.
All I can say is WOW. That’s 90 million dollars per mile. Whew that’s some expensive transportation. I wasn’t even aware there were people stranded between or cities. Not to worry dear friends, we’re repeatedly told, this rail system puts the Twin Cities in the “big league” of world cities providing our citizens with clean, efficient transportation for years to come. So far that’s great news if you live in South Minneapolis or Bloomington and need to a cheap way to get to a Twins game. Heck I’ve that’s what I’ve used it for, and for that.. it’s pretty dang cool.
And, it’s a GREAT deal. For about two and half bucks I’m transported to the front steps of the Metrodome. The deal is made even sweeter for us riders when you consider the actual cost of the ride is closer to $10.00 each way, the difference picked up by the taxpayers of Hennepin County, the State of Minnesota general fund and our great Met Council. Call that about $75 million a year. That does NOT include the original 600 million dollars to build the system. Which BTW is a lot longer than 11 miles. Why, when the new rail line goes up, if the same costs hold and the Met councils projections hold as is.. we’ll be spending almost 125 million dollars a year to subsidize our train riders.
Now we’re talking real money, and exactly where some of the anger about this tax hike is coming from. I guess I just don’t understand our rush to buy this super-deluxe boondoggle when buses and HOV lanes would better serve most of our population. As I’ve said, drop one freak’n mile from that MSP line and you’ve got 90 million.. that’s a lot of bus improvements. But then, we wouldn’t be a supporting our great Minnesota Lifestyle, we’d be back on track to becoming a cold Omaha as I’ve heard. Well, with a projected state deficit of 1 BILLION dollars this year, maybe Omaha is all we can afford.
2 Comments
February 27, 2008 at 11:33 pm
Amen. Biggest waste of money in transportation. I’ve never understood why a FIXED rail system is better that dedicate bus and HOV lanes. Take the same right of way that the choo choo runs in and pave it for buses. First, it’s cheaper, second it is more flexible because the buses could leave that right of way to enter other routes.
Double check your “ridership” numbers, too. They usually count “trips” which is different. You ride downtown and back and you are counted twice.
The whole light rail obsession is based on another fallacy: the “central city model”. It assumes people live in the ‘burbs and work downtown. Well at least in Portland, Oregon, as many people (or more) commute suburb to suburb for work, not downtown. The key to the whole mass transit system, light rail, is based on false assumptions.
Ironically, one of the first casualties of light rail is the bus system. They cut routes to force riders onto trains, or only route the buses to train stops.
Finally, in the Portland area light rail is really being used not for transportation planning but for land use planning. Areas around light rail stops are rezoned high density in an attempt to increase density. It’s called “Transit Oriented Development” and planners (oh, don’t get me started on planners) love the IDEA of transit oriented development. The reality is that it doesn’t really work. It attracts only certain kinds of buyers and is often not supported by the market.
Portland is light rail freakin’ mecca, we even have different types of light rail, for example the “Portland Street Car” downtown. PUHLEEZE.
I ride the train solely to save money on parking when going to Portland Beavers baseball games and Portland Trailblazers games. That’s it. Yet, as you’ve indicated, I get to subsidize it.
As you can see, you struck a nerve. And I didn’t even get to how light rail in Portland serves as the crime superhighway, transporting thugs from area to area.
Stepping down from soapbox now.
February 28, 2008 at 8:07 am
I was guessing that I’d hear from you. Portland repeatedly is held up as one of the great successes of light rail. Regarding your transportation for thugs…
While we don’t have such people in Minnesota, when I was living in Pleasanton CA, the completed BART out to P-Town and the results were very interesting, contrary to the bill of goods that the shopping center in town was supposed to flourish, the traffic that came of BART wasn’t exactly what you wanted to see.
On the other heand the P-Town police found BART convenient for dropping off derelicts with fares to San Francisco.. at one time there was a kitty fund at the Police station with train passes…