James Oliver
Smith Jr
One aspect
of the Southwest LRT Corridor discussions here in the Twin Cities that is the
most disconcerting is this notion that LRT is the only mode of transportation
that is subsidized and that it should be evaluated strictly on the basis that
it is subsidized. Up front, we need to be realistic and aknowledge that _all_
modes of transportation are subsidized and that _none_ of them pay for
themselves when _all_ of the real costs are accounted for. This is true for
LRT, buses, freight trains, airplanes, trucks and _even_ cars. As a matter of
fact, every study I have seen, that accounts for all of the real costs of the
automobile (roads, parking, traffic control systems, bridges, law enforcement,
regulations, legal systems, city, state, federal planning, fuel exploration,
extraction, refining, distribution, not to mention environmental impact) is by
far the most heavily subsidized mode of transportation we have. Even parks,
bicycle trails, lakes and parkways are subsidized and I don’t hear any
expectation that any of these resources should ”pay for themselves”. These are
all public works projects that need to be budgeted for, maintained and planned,
just like transportation systems. Does anyone _really_ think that any mode of
transportation or recreation costs nothing? The automobile seems to be getting
a free pass in these discussions. We, collectively, not only presume that
societal infrastructure to support cars will be funded without question, we get
upset when it starts to fall apart when maintenance doesn’t keep up due to
drastically reduced budgets. There are many websites with a plethora of data
that analyses the comparative subsidies of all modes of transportation and, in
general, the least subsidized are LRT and “big rail” subway systems because
they are more efficient, provide higher capacity transfer levels and have lower
long-term maintenance costs with a smaller environmental impact than the
automobile. An LRT line exceeds the passenger capacity of six lanes of freeway,
with much less long-term maintenance, in addition to providing more consistent,
reliable, cost-effective service on a per-person-per-mile basis. I find it rather
ironically, sadly humorous that a few people in a couple of neighborhoods are
disturbed by “20 seconds” of train
visibility when most of us see multiple trains all day every day and everyone
sees countless cars everywhere every day, including the lakes, parks, parkways
and bicycle trails, while cars present the most intense impact on the
environment of all modes of transportation. When the Green Line starts (and it
can’t start soon enough as far as I’m concerned) every neighborhood is going to
be seeing and hearing every train all day, everyday and I am going to cherish
that sound, because it is the sound of many fewer cars on the streets and much
improved public transportation in the Twin Cities. It’s also interesting that
the potential removal of a few homes can potentially derail a project of the
magnitude of the Southwest LRT corridor, while whole neighborhoods couldn’t
stop I94, I35W, I35E, I394, I694, or I494 corridors. This entire discussion is
truly distorted. I’m also surprised by statements to the effect that SWLRT will
only be “one way”, servicing _only_ the suburbs and not Minneapolis. I have
used public transportation while living in Minneapolis and working in Eden Prairie
and I rode buses that were full people who lived in Minneapolis and worked in
the very suburbs to be serviced by SWLRT. It will be a two-way transportation
system. As to the notion that LRT is going to “ruin” such public works projects
as the lakes, bicycle paths, parkways and parks, there are LRT systems going
under, around, beside, over lakes, rivers, parks, forests, parkways, bicycle
paths and even ocean channels all over the world, in some of the most beautiful
cities and countrysides on the planet. It is not as though tunnels and tracks
are unsolved problems. The Twin Cities is the 16th largest
metropolitan area in the United States. They rank in the top ten of
metropolitan areas in many categories (quality of life, cycle friendliness,
environmental stewardship, greenspace, etc), but not in public transportation.
It is quite a ways down the list. A metropolitan system cannot build public
transportation on buses and cars alone. You can’t build enough lanes to service
high levels of traffic (and the Twin Cities has one of the fastest growing
levels of congestion in the United States). Studies have shown that roads reach
capacity around 2500 cars per lane per hour and each additional lane is going
to add to that already heavy subsidy for the car/bus/truck roadway. LRT and “big
rail” subway is needed for the heavy lifting. Buses work best as a supplement
to the high capacity rail lines. The sad part about the Twin Cities is that in
1922, at the height of the trolley system we once had here, we had 530 miles of
track. No one in Minneapolis was further than 400 yards from a station. We have
had nothing like that since the 1950s when that system was dismantled. If we
had preserved, maintained and upgraded that system we would have one of the
best public transit systems in the country. Instead, we are in the position of
having to reconstruct what we once had. Let’s not ruin our chance to climb back
into a decent transit system. This selfish thinking that LRT is only going to
benefit one community is simply ridiculous. We will all benefit from it. We all
need it. The idea that there is some route that is going to cost less, disrupt
less, be seen less is simply a fantasy. All potential routes will be expensive,
will disrupt much during construction and will result in a change to some community,
but nothing in the SWLRT is going to come close to the cost, disruption and
change that came in the wake of the Twin Cities interstate system for the
highly subsidized automobile.
Josjr (2013
1018)
