St. Paul, MN
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Suzanne
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Double M wrote: The $900 million would be better spent on buses. They can go to all the suburbs and most of them have park and ride lots. Have you contacted your elected officials to let them know you support adding to the bus budget instead of lrt, or is it a nogo for the 900 million all together. And what of the subsidy the moa wants? Or all the pork in the farm bill, which no one is talking about(15 billion in waste, ie. payments going to homeowners who are not farming, but the land was once used(and is still currently subsidized) for rice. What of the billions the Pentagon has lost because of their antiquated billing system? At least with lrt we get something, we get infrastructure that we know people will use. And what of all the businesses that support lrt? Don't you think they would be all over opposing it if it didn't make financial sense?
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Happy
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pils wrote: <quoted text>
How often do you ride the bus? I don't. I am in the military and home right now. That's not the point. I want more money put into busses because it will benefit everyone whereas LRT will benefit a smaller amount. We would get more bang for our buck with a world class bus service. Express buses like I used to take are the most effective. They're fast and easy to use. LRT is nice but it's too cost prohibitive. We could have many more buses within a few months.
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Bob the Builder
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Red Ryder wrote: Why not just buy everyone a small scooter, a Mao jacket, a big bag of rice,a hotplate and a subsidized 800 square foot studio apartment downtown complete with a wall portrait of comrade Pogemiller? Best post of the day award!
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Crock of Sheeet
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The DFL light railies are going to get their choo choo but at what cost? Can we get that air charter outfit to take these guys to Eveleth in the next big thunderstorm?
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Cash Dollars
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Suzanne wrote: <quoted text>
Have you ever tried to get across the city on a bus? I guess that this statement is claiming that Light Rail is INEVITABLY faster than buses. Not so. The Central Corridor Light Rail Line will be relatively slow because it will have little or NO ADVANTAGE over the car traffic on University Avenue. Specifically, that LRT will be running on University Avenue in a lane right beside the car and bus traffic. Since the planning process is constantly changing, it is not yet clear whether the LRT will be given "semaphore priority" over the traffic lights, that is, the capacity to change them from red to green to favor the LRT. If so, the adjacent car and bus traffic will run right alongside the LRT, taking advantage of the signal changes triggered by the LRT, thus running just as fast as the LRT. If not, the LRT will be stopping for traffic lights just like the cars and buses and so will run no faster than the car and bus traffic. Several published articles have reported that the LRT will have travel times VERY SIMILAR to the current Route 50 bus for the complete trip between Minneapolis and Saint Paul. So, it is basically a $900 million replacement for the existing Route 50, despite all the hype from Metro Transit and other promoters of LRT. In contrast, the Hiawatha Light Rail Line is only "fast" because it was given at least two hugely expensive, disruptive, and artificial ADVANTAGES over car traffic on the adjacent Hiawatha Avenue. These are: (1) A roadbed separate from car traffic on Hiawatha Avenue. That is a very expensive duplication of the Avenue which could have carried express buses from the existing Metro Transit fleet that could use synchronized traffic lights -- without the additional $700 million cost of the Hiawatha LRT. (2) "Semaphore Priority." That is, the signal system that allows the LRT to change traffic lights and stop car traffic on cross streets along Hiawatha Avenue, thus favoring the LRT. That interference with traffic lights has dramatically disrupted car traffic on Hiawatha Avenue, which used to flow much more smoothly in the Old Days, thanks to synchronized traffic lights. Express buses could have used this smoother traffic flow, too. Even with these artificial advantages, when one of the local t.v. stations conducted a "race" between the Hiawatha LRT and a conventional car driving down Hiawatha Avenue, the finish was so close that it hardly mattered. Bottom line, for $900 million in Central Corridor LRT money, we will fail to upgrade the Metro Transit bus system with 1,800 new diesel-electric hybrid "Go Greener Buses" and we will end up with an expensive train that moves through University Avenue traffic no faster than the Route 50 bus. Wow. Some bargain.
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Cash Dollars
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Suzanne wrote: <quoted text>
Why don't people come here? Because we are too old-fashioned and love our cars. Fine, love your cars(hey I love mine), but that doesn't mean I, nor countless others want the oppurtunity to use mass transit and would use it far more if it were quick(which lrt would be much quicker than buses) and convenient.
The savings in having less cars on the road are more than just less cars, it's also less pollution, it also frees up the roads for commerce to flow more smoothly(instead of sitting in a trafic jam for hours).
Why do you believe the Dentral Corridir won't be successful when Hiawatha has shown it can work(and people like it)? Maybe we don't want or need Train Huggers to come here. The so-called "sophisticates" from the so-called "sophisticated cities" are pretentious blowhards. They can stay where they are and ride their "sophisticated" choo-choos. People may "want the opportunity" to use mass transit, but nowadays, they want the taxpayer to pay for it. Not so long ago, mass transit was self-sufficient because it was bus-based and owned by private companies who charged self-supporting fares without taxpayer subsidies. People who rode buses paid for them and left taxpayers alone. Buses take people off the roads, too, and much more cheaply than light rail. But trains and buses take too few people off the roads to make much difference. Worse yet, the growth in transit does not and probably can not keep up with the growth in traffic congestion as long as we stick to the concept of keeping jobs in the central city and forcing everybody to commute downtown to work. Electric bus trollies beat pollution, too. They are powered by overhead electrical cables like light rail, but they are MUCH CHEAPER than LRT because they run on existing roads and don't require multimillion-dollar railways. In addition, some models of electric bus trollies can detach themselves from the electrical cables and run on diesel or gasoline if desired, then return to the cables. The Hiawatha Light Rail "works" only by a peculiar definition of "works." It loses millions of dollars per year because fares are unrealistically low, so taxpayers must make up the difference by paying for subsidies. It has messed up traffic on the adjacent Hiawatha Avenue. It involves rerouting of a couple of dozen bus routes so that they funnel passengers laterally to the LRT instead of taking them directly downtown. It cost taxpayers a bunch of money for park-and-ride lots so that trendy drivers can DRIVE AND POLLUTE to get to the light rail station, then pay an unrealistically low fare to ride the train downtown and beat parking fees all at taxpayers' expense. Finally, it doesn't matter if people "like" LRT. That is no reason to soak taxpayers to pay for it when much cheaper transit solutions can be based on buses. If some people "like" buses and "don't like" LRT, that's just too bad. It isn't worth $700-$900 million to cater to people's childish likes and dislikes when we could buy 1,400 1,800 buses instead.
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Cash Dollars
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Suzanne wrote: <quoted text>
Can you tell me where it was ever stated Light Rail was supposed to replace buses?
And it's not hard to figure out why they can't replace buses. Shoot, look at the political fight to get one. It's hugely successful. Look at the huge politcal fight to get a second.
Are you a bus rider? At various places and in various documents, light rail planners and supporters state that it will replace various bus lines. That's routine, and neither pro-LRT nor anti-LRT groups debate that point. In the case of the Central Corridor, it has repeatedly been announced that if the Central Corridor LRT is built, the Route 50 express bus will be eliminated and the Route 16 local bus will be kept. Most people would say that's "replacing" the Route 50 bus line with an LRT line. We don't need to replace that bus line at a cost of $900 million for an LRT line that will crawl down University Avenue no faster than the Route 50. Traffic lights are traffic lights, whether its a bus or a train. I used to ride the bus regularly, especially when I sold my car and tried transit-only living for a while. I'm much happier with my subcompact car. I can do daily errands in half the time by car as compared to riding the bus. I want the bus system to be reprivatized so that it is self-supporting by fares, like it was for decades until the scheming politicians and government bureaucrats moved in and bought up all or most of the country's bus systems. Leave the suffering taxpayers out of the whole mess.
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Cash Dollars
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Suzanne wrote: <quoted text>
So put your money where your mouth is. You are the first person I have ever talked to that was against lrt, but supported buses. Call the Governor tomorrow and let him know you support buses and to fund them like they ought to be so services and schedules don't need to be continually cut.
And speaking strictly with respect to commerce, people are integral to commerce.
Not only does mass transit free up roads to transport goods and services, those people riding on the bus are going to or ffrom work(employment is again integral to commerce) or shopping, or to visit some entertainment venu(like the folks who ride the lrt to the Twin's games). Yes, people are integral to commerce. And they can pay realistic fares to ride self-supporting bus systems like they did for decades.
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Cash Dollars
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SUZANNE ASKED:
Where do you all live and why aren't you calling your representatives and the media(for your lack of representation in the media). Mass transit comes up year afteryear and it is sch a struggle to ge the buses funded and keep cuts from happening, why aren't you contacting your reps?
COMMENT
Reprivatize the bus system and let it charge realistic fares so that it is self-supporting. Then we wouldn't have to listen to all these arguments about government funding for buses.
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Cash Dollars
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pils wrote: <quoted text>
Buses have more capital expenditures with Metro Transit, and have higher operating subsidies than LRT (and this difference keeps growing with higher fuel prices)- all with no ancillary benefits like economic development.
I doubt you've run thorough cost-benefit analyses. The Central Corridor Light Rail line will cost $900 million and will replace ONLY ONE BUS ROUTE, the Express Route 50. For that amount of money, we could buy 1,800 of the new low-doorway, diesel-electric hybrid buses that would serve A MULTITUDE OF BUS ROUTES in the Twin Cities I am skeptical of the alleged fiscal advantages of LRT over buses, but let's accept that for the sake of the following question. How many DECADES would it take for LRT's alleged fiscal advantages to offset LRT's outrageous cost of $900 million and "pay" for itself in alleged advantages and "savings" over buses?
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Cash Dollars
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Cash Dollars wrote: <quoted text>
The Central Corridor Light Rail line will cost $900 million and will replace ONLY ONE BUS ROUTE, the Express Route 50.
For that amount of money, we could buy 1,800 of the new low-doorway, diesel-electric hybrid buses that would serve A MULTITUDE OF BUS ROUTES in the Twin Cities
I am skeptical of the alleged fiscal advantages of LRT over buses, but let's accept that for the sake of the following question. How many DECADES would it take for LRT's alleged fiscal advantages to offset LRT's outrageous cost of $900 million and "pay" for itself in alleged advantages and "savings" over buses? If anyone ever does that analysis, I want them to compare the cost-effectiveness of continuing the current express Route 50, running on University Avenue, with the cost-effectiveness of tearing up University Avenue and building a $900 million light rail line down that street to replace Route 50. Nothing more, nothing less.
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Suzanne
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Cash Dollars wrote: <quoted text>
I guess that this statement is claiming that Light Rail is INEVITABLY faster than buses.
Not so.
The Central Corridor Light Rail Line will be relatively slow because it will have little or NO ADVANTAGE over the car traffic on University Avenue. Specifically, that LRT will be running on University Avenue in a lane right beside the car and bus traffic. Since the planning process is constantly changing, it is not yet clear whether the LRT will be given "semaphore priority" over the traffic lights, that is, the capacity to change them from red to green to favor the LRT. If so, the adjacent car and bus traffic will run right alongside the LRT, taking advantage of the signal changes triggered by the LRT, thus running just as fast as the LRT. If not, the LRT will be stopping for traffic lights just like the cars and buses and so will run no faster than the car and bus traffic. Several published articles have reported that the LRT will have travel times VERY SIMILAR to the current Route 50 bus for the complete trip between Minneapolis and Saint Paul. So, it is basically a $900 million replacement for the existing Route 50, despite all the hype from Metro Transit and other promoters of LRT.
In contrast, the Hiawatha Light Rail Line is only "fast" because it was given at least two hugely expensive, disruptive, and artificial ADVANTAGES over car traffic on the adjacent Hiawatha Avenue. These are:
(1) A roadbed separate from car traffic on Hiawatha Avenue. That is a very expensive duplication of the Avenue which could have carried express buses from the existing Metro Transit fleet that could use synchronized traffic lights -- without the additional $700 million cost of the Hiawatha LRT.
(2) "Semaphore Priority." That is, the signal system that allows the LRT to change traffic lights and stop car traffic on cross streets along Hiawatha Avenue, thus favoring the LRT. That interference with traffic lights has dramatically disrupted car traffic on Hiawatha Avenue, which used to flow much more smoothly in the Old Days, thanks to synchronized traffic lights. Express buses could have used this smoother traffic flow, too. Even with these artificial advantages, when one of the local t.v. stations conducted a "race" between the Hiawatha LRT and a conventional car driving down Hiawatha Avenue, the finish was so close that it hardly mattered.
Bottom line, for $900 million in Central Corridor LRT money, we will fail to upgrade the Metro Transit bus system with 1,800 new diesel-electric hybrid "Go Greener Buses" and we will end up with an expensive train that moves through University Avenue traffic no faster than the Route 50 bus. Wow. Some bargain. For one moment set the above(and we will come back to this) aside and answer the question I asked. Have you ever tried to get across the city(ies) by bus? I am talking about you specifically.
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Suzanne
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Cash Dollars wrote: <quoted text>
Maybe we don't want or need Train Huggers to come here. The so-called "sophisticates" from the so-called "sophisticated cities" are pretentious blowhards. They can stay where they are and ride their "sophisticated" choo-choos.
People may "want the opportunity" to use mass transit, but nowadays, they want the taxpayer to pay for it. Not so long ago, mass transit was self-sufficient because it was bus-based and owned by private companies who charged self-supporting fares without taxpayer subsidies. People who rode buses paid for them and left taxpayers alone.
Buses take people off the roads, too, and much more cheaply than light rail. But trains and buses take too few people off the roads to make much difference. Worse yet, the growth in transit does not and probably can not keep up with the growth in traffic congestion as long as we stick to the concept of keeping jobs in the central city and forcing everybody to commute downtown to work.
Electric bus trollies beat pollution, too. They are powered by overhead electrical cables like light rail, but they are MUCH CHEAPER than LRT because they run on existing roads and don't require multimillion-dollar railways. In addition, some models of electric bus trollies can detach themselves from the electrical cables and run on diesel or gasoline if desired, then return to the cables.
The Hiawatha Light Rail "works" only by a peculiar definition of "works." It loses millions of dollars per year because fares are unrealistically low, so taxpayers must make up the difference by paying for subsidies. It has messed up traffic on the adjacent Hiawatha Avenue. It involves rerouting of a couple of dozen bus routes so that they funnel passengers laterally to the LRT instead of taking them directly downtown. It cost taxpayers a bunch of money for park-and-ride lots so that trendy drivers can DRIVE AND POLLUTE to get to the light rail station, then pay an unrealistically low fare to ride the train downtown and beat parking fees all at taxpayers' expense.
Finally, it doesn't matter if people "like" LRT. That is no reason to soak taxpayers to pay for it when much cheaper transit solutions can be based on buses. If some people "like" buses and "don't like" LRT, that's just too bad. It isn't worth $700-$900 million to cater to people's childish likes and dislikes when we could buy 1,400 1,800 buses instead. You are working from a premise that cars/tricks roads are the only choice in transportation and everything else is not actual transportation, but supplemental, and I would disagree with that. Transportation is the movement of people or goods and services from one place to another. Single passenger vehicles are one type of transportation. LRT is another. Railroads, airlines, boats, buses, ferries. They are all types of transportation. Have you read this? http://www.citizensleague.org/Citizens%20Leag... I would like to hear you thoughts.
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David
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Judged:
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It seems a lot of people here don't understand why we are doing Central Corridor. That's unfortunate. The reason we're doing this LRT line is to provide a connection to all of the other transitways planned for our region. It quite literally will connect Hinckley to Eden Prairie, Hudson to St. Cloud, Hastings to Maple Grove. The reason rail is the right option here is that by 2030 we won't be able to run enough buses down University Ave. to handle the demand. Gas prices are already skyrocketing out of control. What do you think our world will look like by 2030? Now, there are also secondary benefits to LRT as well. Redevelopment around rail transit has proven to be a powerful economic force for improved access to jobs and higher quality of life. Done correctly, this LRT line can help the communities along University Ave. build wealth and prosper. In short, LRT and buses serve very different purposes. Route 16 will remain to serve very local transit needs. Central Corridor will replace route 50 because route 50 won't be able to handle the demand much longer. Route 94 will in many cases still be the preferred way to go downtown-to-downtown. There's a misperception out there that Central Corridor is targeted toward those users. Not so. The number of riders going downtown-to-downtown pales in comparison to the number of riders going to and from points along the line: the University, Midway, Frogtown and so on. It's these users who are driving the ridership in the corridor. This space is wholly inadequate to fully explain the motivation for the Central Corridor. I encourage everyone to go to metrocouncil.org and read the many public documents there about the whys and hows of Central Corridor. It's not and will not be perfect, but it's absolutely necessary for the health of our state.
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Former DFLer
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Judged:
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David wrote: It seems a lot of people here don't understand why we are doing Central Corridor. That's unfortunate. The reason we're doing this LRT line is to provide a connection to all of the other transitways planned for our region. It quite literally will connect Hinckley to Eden Prairie, Hudson to St. Cloud, Hastings to Maple Grove. The reason rail is the right option here is that by 2030 we won't be able to run enough buses down University Ave. to handle the demand. Gas prices are already skyrocketing out of control. What do you think our world will look like by 2030? Now, there are also secondary benefits to LRT as well. Redevelopment around rail transit has proven to be a powerful economic force for improved access to jobs and higher quality of life. Done correctly, this LRT line can help the communities along University Ave. build wealth and prosper. In short, LRT and buses serve very different purposes. Route 16 will remain to serve very local transit needs. Central Corridor will replace route 50 because route 50 won't be able to handle the demand much longer. Route 94 will in many cases still be the preferred way to go downtown-to-downtown. There's a misperception out there that Central Corridor is targeted toward those users. Not so. The number of riders going downtown-to-downtown pales in comparison to the number of riders going to and from points along the line: the University, Midway, Frogtown and so on. It's these users who are driving the ridership in the corridor. This space is wholly inadequate to fully explain the motivation for the Central Corridor. I encourage everyone to go to metrocouncil.org and read the many public documents there about the whys and hows of Central Corridor. It's not and will not be perfect, but it's absolutely necessary for the health of our state. No it's not. It's a monumental waste of vital resources. The Met council is not elected and wield way to much power. We already had LRT they were called street cars.
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wow
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By 2030 we might be running Jetson style tubes down University Avenue.
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pills
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Cash Dollars wrote: or that amount of money, we could buy 1,800 of the new low-doorway, diesel-electric hybrid buses that would serve A MULTITUDE OF BUS ROUTES in the Twin Cities Back to this again? What is the operating cost of 1,800 buses? What would the ridership be on those 1,800 buses? You realize that capital expenditures for buses have exceeded that for LRT over the past decade in the Twin Cities, right? And that the operational subsidy per passenger-mile for buses is more than twice that of LRT, right? Crude little division of two numbers shows you haven't studied the budget data, probably wouldn't even know where to find it.
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