Subscribe
Talking Turkey on LRT
Planning for light rail transit between St. Paul and Minneapolis has been underway for years. In January, the Central Corridor Management Committee created a 40-member Community Advisory Committee made up of residents and business owners.
Previous articles in Central Corridor series:
Stop by stop: tracing the route of the Central Corridor
Central Corridor finally on track, but questions remain
Central Corridor process and the players
The District 12 Community Council was asked to appoint a board member to the committee, and the council chose Ferd Peters, a lawyer whose office is in south St. Anthony Park.
Recently, Peters responded to several questions from the Bugle.
1. Committees, task forces, city, county and state politicians, Met Council, U of M — it seems like everybody has a finger in the Central Corridor pie. Who’s in charge here? How do all the groups relate to each other?
I can’t answer for the various levels of politicians; however, we need them all. It takes a village to put down a track. Each group is primarily based on the need for community involvement in the entire process. Some groups come with a point of view or at least a theme, such as the business advisory council or committees of the Metropolitan Council.
2. How much leverage do average citizens have in shaping the Central Corridor?
The noisiest ones will be heard. Leverage comes from those who are willing to take action to get their positions taken seriously. There are limitations, though. Some issues have heated up — for example, the perceived need for more stops on University Avenue near the Capitol. This would be impractical; it will take too long to move people from one city to the other, and then the ridership will never reach acceptable levels.
3. A light rail trip between the two downtowns will take as long as an express bus trip. Why do we need light rail?
I sometimes question what will happen to the Number 16 express bus that takes almost the same route. But a bus pollutes and doesn’t get the density of ridership that light rail would.
Perceptions control behavior. Too many people won’t take a bus. A new, clean, fast, well-lighted LRT with clean stations will get more ridership. This is the beginning of creating a “system,” not just a “line.”
Go to Washington, D.C., and ride the metro. All of us (American taxpayers) subsidized that one, which rivals any other European or other U.S. city’s mass transit system. Washington and the surrounding suburbs couldn’t function without it.
4. Is the Central Corridor a done deal? If not, what has to happen to make it go?
It won’t be done until you and I get on and ride it. It has come a long way, but it has a long way to go. Life is a journey, not a destination. We’re on that journey.
I think with our political influence in Washington and the smart people who are working here at various levels of government, it will be accomplished, and we will surprise ourselves on how it leads us to a more attractive and appealing community.
There is a vocal opposition out there, and they must be heard. They make some very good points. But what I find interesting is how often people criticize the subsidies provided for mass transit in general, but they don’t realize that building a public road/street/highway is also a subsidy.
5. What’s the timeline from here on out?
Take whatever anyone is publishing right now as a timeline and add one or two years. Patience is a key component to this whole project.
What I find awesome is that citizens are getting involved in the planning as we enter the preliminary engineering and the design phases. Let’s all cheer the next three years of this complex project that will define our community.
Comments
Yes, and DC has the
Yes, and DC has the congestion it always had. The Metro and rail lines have done nothing to relieve it and never will. There is no way that any light rail or train system will do anything other than create a large siphon and drain on our tax dollars. The noisiest people are the shrill few who wish establish their socialist agenda at our expense. Wake up people and stop this before it is too late!
Actually, the 16A bus is not
Actually, the 16A bus is not an express bus—it is the Minneapolis to St. Paul bus that provides the fine-grained (potentially block by block) service that the transit dependent need. (The transit dependent include: the young, old, infirm, with disabilities, and poor.) Ferd must be thinking of the 50 semi-express bus and the 94 express bus (outside of the two downtowns stops only at Snelling). I doubt the 16 bus will be removed in my lifetime.
To the extent it is true that fewer people will ride a bus than a rail vehicle, we as a society must discuss what are the barriers and what can be done to reduce them. Because the buses will always be with us. (See above about transit dependent.) We need to address issues of classism and racism in society, but also about negotiating (and softly enforcing) “civility in public spaces” so more people will feel comfortable and safe on the buses. Civility may be an old-fashioned word, but its absence keeps many people from “the public square” if they have a choice.
Anonymous uses the term
Anonymous uses the term “socialist” as if it’s a bad thing—or as if highways aren’t a perfect example of socialism, being totally government funded and operated.
It’s too bad that transit promoters have touted reducing traffic congestion as a benefit of light rail, since, as Anonymous above pointed out, it clearly doesn’t.
You can see this in Tokyo, where the streets are crowded despite a magnificantly integrated transit system.
BUT—-and it ‘s a huge consideration—80% of Tokyo’s commuters take the subway or train to work. Look at Tokyo’s automobile traffic and imagine a 400% increase.
What light rail does is provide alternatives for three groups of people: the transit dependent (a group that will only grow as more and more people fall out of the middle class and join the working poor or age into the status of frail elderly), the people who don’t want to drive for either environmental reasons or personal preference, and the people who want to avoid driving in traffic. Yes, rail gives you a choice of NOT fighting the traffic, not paying for gas, insurance, and car payments, and never having to worry about where to park.
I lived car-free in Portland, Oregon for ten years and absolutely loved it. I moved here for personal reasons, and I wish I could be car-free again, but our patchwork of an ill-conceived transit non-system makes it nearly impossible.
Post new comment