Maybe Minnesota's "infrastructure" would be in better shape if they weren't designating so much for "light rail" projects.
They clearly have been spending big bucks on light rail in Minneapolis:
October 1999 Sabo Secures Additional $43 Million for LRT
Early last week Minnesota U.S. Representative Martin Sabo announced that $43 million had been secured as part of this year's Federal transportation funding package for the Hiawatha LRT line. This funding is included in an appropriations bill that will be sent to President Clinton by mid-October. The $43 million comes on top of previously secured federal funding, funds from the State of Minnesota, and additional funding from local sources.
September 1999 Federal LRT Funding Request Stamped
28 September 1999 - Overcoming 30 years of political haggling and targeted mis-information campaigns by anti-rail lobbying groups, Minnesota Transportation Officials, including Governor Jesse Ventura, Transportation Commissioner Elwin Tinklenberg, and Met Council Chair Ted Mondale will send the formal request for $274 million in Federal matching funds for the Hiawatha Corridor LRT Line to Washington D.C. today. If all goes as planned the Hiawatha Line, operating between the Mall of America, MSP International Airport, the West Bank of the University of Minnesota, and downtown Minneapolis, will begin service in 2003.
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April 26, 1999 Star-Tribune Editorial: Light rail -- Roads-only mentality is shortsighted ©
These are pivotal days. Political maneuvers will soon determine whether Minnesota enters the next century with a modern, balanced transportation system, or whether it continues down a narrow, highway-only path that will cost more and leave the state at a competitive disadvantage.
If the Legislature fails to approve $60 million to build the Hiawatha light-rail line, Minnesota will have squandered $200 million in federal matching money to begin the crucial first leg of a balanced, metrowide transportation system.
geocities.com
IS it a wise use of the money?
CONCLUSION
So what it comes down to is this.... Why build rail?
• Surely not to reduce traffic congestion, because it doesn't do that.
• Not to reduce air pollution, because it cant do that without reducing traffic congestion
• Not to channel development, because it doesn't do that.
There seem to be two possible rationales.
• The first is to provide an incinerator for federal funding that otherwise would be spent in other areas.
• The second is to build rail simply to build rail --- sort of a 20th century bureaucratic idolatry.
At best, there is no justification for the use of tax funding to build light rail. At the worst, the damage should be limited by the minimum legal amount necessary to qualify for the federal funding that has been earmarked. And recognize what you are getting --- not an alternative to the automobile --- not an efficient or effective addition to your transit system --- but federal funding that would otherwise go elsewhere. It is a sad commentary on the state of public policy in the United States.
In the final analysis, you cannot expect the proposed light rail program or any other rail system to reduce traffic congestion in Minneapolis-St. Paul. Vision is not driving the debate, it is rather fantasy, if not hallucination.
publicpurpose.com |
