Take the bus, damn it!

by John Van Hecke, August 28, 2009 • I am no more inured to NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) issues than the next person but today, I have a NIMBY problem with a simple solution.

My backyard is the Minnesota State Fair. Yesterday, today and for the next ten days, hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans will experience the Great Minnesota Get-Together. Despite years of inching up Snelling Avenue or creeping along Como, an astounding number of Fair visitors still insist on driving to and parking on the Fair grounds. This strikes me as a self-defeating exercise despite my farm family’s stories of parking on Machinery Hill before daybreak. That was in 1949; it’s 60 years later.

The State Fair is best experienced at the State Fair. Sitting in traffic, anticipating the Fair is an unequal substitute. The State Fair Board, in partnership with Metro Transit, has a neat, efficient solution: free satellite parking/designated bus service and express bus service.

If you really need to drive into the urban core, park at the University of Minnesota’s stadium lots, just east of Dinkytown and north of Stadium Village. Those buses use the U’s Transit Way, delivering Fair visitors closer to the action than Fairgrounds parking will ever achieve. And, really, don’t we all just want to be closer and more readily accessible to that first Pronto Pup or bag of mini-donuts?

See, this isn’t about my selfish neighborhood traffic congestion issues. No, it’s about you, my fellow Fair-loving Minnesotans. Make the most of your State Fair visit by spending your time on the Fairgrounds and not stuck in traffic. The State Fair buses are your friends.