It depends on who's quality of life you're trying to improve. If you want to improve the quality of life for homeless drug addicts on their way to the Twin Cities for an easier life, or you worry that Minnesota's AFSCME members won't be able to afford their new family lake cabin, then government needs to cost more. If you're trying to improve the quality of life for working private-sector taxpayers and small business owners, then government is already overfed.

RBMN - you are a fucking pig for saying that. It's bigots like you who are ruining life in Minnesota for the rest of us. Crawl back in your hole, Mountain Man. Would you like me to itemize all the subsidies that "working private-sector taxpayers and small business owners" get? Huh? Do you dare me to explain where fire and police come from? Tax increment financing? The roads and roads and roads that you drive every day?

How dare you characterize city dwellers are drug-addicts. Fuck you, fuck the horse you rode in on and fuck your mother twice on Sunday, you white hood-wearin' piece of rat shit.

Wow, Blogestoa, go figure - a cowardly anonymous commenter calling people names.

Amazing.

Why don't you go hang out over at Kos with all the other people like you?

Proudly showing a Minnesota public school edjimication hard at work, he is.

You know, I could say something like "Blogesota sounds like a snot-flavored carbonated beverage" and I still would not have lowered myself to the level of his/her/its discourse.

WEll, one thing about the new posters that have shown up recently...they make the regular leftists that come to this site look reasonable and MUCH more intelligent than I thought before...reading a post from Slash or Jeff Fecke would be a refreshing change...

Colleen,

Very true. I've actually thought about doing a post where I beg forgiveness from the likes of Mark Gisleson, Luke Francl and Ollie Willis. Their blogs and crowds are downright refreshing compared to these - words fail me - dullards.

"The last time the DFL controlled things, they let the road system go to hell while pouring money into the light rail boondoggle."

So the Pawlenty should get a free pass on ignoring a legitimate state government issue like transportation because the DFL didn't do a good job in the past? If you don't think we need additional road funding that is fine, but this argument is weak.

Furthermore you imply that the DFL somehow starved the roads to build the Hiawatha line. It is simply not true. Ventura-Ind made the LRT happen and all but $100 million (which could buy us about one highway interchange) came from sources other than the state. Since state governing (legislature and the governor) is what this article is adressing, that would seem to be the only relevant financing to criticize with respect to LRT since the county, airport, metro council and federal funding used for LRT couldn't possibly have come at the expense of the state funding MNDOT to build roads. Whether the $100 million in state funding was shifted from roads or not would be debateable but it surely isn't enough to improve our road system in any noticeable manner.

Correction: $20 million for LRT came from MNDOT and $100 million from the State so the relevant total is $120 million.

$120 million in state money, on top of the balance of 3/4 billion from the Feds which could have been used MUCH more productively than building a trolley from downtown to the airport.

And, believe it or not, I'm not necessarily talking roads, although the way the area economy is built, roads could have used the help from whatever echelon of government.

I support some variety of the North Star and Red Rocks commuter rail lines, by the way; I've seen data indicating both of those lines COULD come somewhere near being cost-effective at some point.

Or if you MUST have LRT, why not build it down existing rights of way from Minneapolis to, say, Eden Prairie? Y'know - actually move people from where they ARE to where they NEED TO BE? (Both ways, as it happens; lots of low-income jobs in EP depend on core city residents, as do many downtown jobs on burbanites).

Any of those options sounds - let's be frank, as it were - less stupid than the way we just burned through $800-odd-million dollars.

The total cost including federal money is $715 million.

I'll agree that Hiawatha wasn't the greatest route ever but the funding issue remains the same. Had we not spent the federal money another metro-area would have. I realize this may not be the desireable situation but from a purely pragmatic standpoint in the short term there was no other outcome for the federal money than to be spent on a transit project. The state tax take on the federal money that went to local business through construction/design etc. (not the cars which I believe came from Mexico) probably would net out the state portion to $70 or $80 million and that is without considering any multiplier effect on the infusion of cash into our local economy.

Over time it will probably be worth it, I've got to be optimistic since the money is spent afterall. Additionally when the highway loop was built much of it wasn't built where people were either. For example the area in Maple Grove where 494/694/94 and 169 are all in close proximity had under 15,0000 people when those interchanges were built. Look at the old photos of the Met where the mall is and it was basically a farming area when the highway went in. It basically made the suburban land ripe for development that has taken nearly 30 years to really fill in in the case of Maple Grove. I think there is a lot of redevelopment potential along the Hiawatha corridor over the next couple decades. We'll see I suppose but generally development follows infrastructure investment. Urban neighborhoods in the TC followed the streetcar lines, suburban housing followed highways etc.

A route to Eden Prarie (SW corridor) would probably make a lot of sense but also cost a lot more since the ROW is not controlled be governmental entities. I think the central corridor would make some sense too if we tie into the commuter corridors you mention.

By the way I think road investments are absolutely vital to our continued economic growth but the transit piece is equally important.

The total cost including federal money is $715 million.

I'll agree that Hiawatha wasn't the greatest route ever but the funding issue remains the same. Had we not spent the federal money another metro-area would have. I realize this may not be the desireable situation but from a purely pragmatic standpoint in the short term there was no other outcome for the federal money than to be spent on a transit project. The state tax take on the federal money that went to local business through construction/design etc. (not the cars which I believe came from Mexico) probably would net out the state portion to $70 or $80 million and that is without considering any multiplier effect on the infusion of cash into our local economy.

Over time it will probably be worth it, I've got to be optimistic since the money is spent afterall. Additionally when the highway loop was built much of it wasn't built where people were either. For example the area in Maple Grove where 494/694/94 and 169 are all in close proximity had under 15,0000 people when those interchanges were built. Look at the old photos of the Met where the mall is and it was basically a farming area when the highway went in. It basically made the suburban land ripe for development that has taken nearly 30 years to really fill in in the case of Maple Grove. I think there is a lot of redevelopment potential along the Hiawatha corridor over the next couple decades. We'll see I suppose but generally development follows infrastructure investment. Urban neighborhoods in the TC followed the streetcar lines, suburban housing followed highways etc.

A route to Eden Prarie (SW corridor) would probably make a lot of sense but also cost a lot more since the ROW is not controlled be governmental entities. I think the central corridor would make some sense too if we tie into the commuter corridors you mention.

By the way I think road investments are absolutely vital to our continued economic growth but the transit piece is equally important.

"The total cost including federal money is $715 million.

I'll agree that Hiawatha wasn't the greatest route ever but the funding issue remains the same. Had we not spent the federal money another metro-area would have."

Which is, I think, a flaw in *federal* transportation funding policy.

" I realize this may not be the desireable situation but from a purely pragmatic standpoint in the short term there was no other outcome for the federal money than to be spent on a transit project."

And I think we might both reasonably ask if this was the *right* project, even if we're married to the idea of LRT.

Personally, I see that we could have gotten BOTH the Northstar and Red Rocks lines up and going (with some money left over, if we'd bought used rolling stock, if I remember the figures correctly) for the same money, and had TWO commuter lines that would actually serve two highly-populated, high-growth, high-congestion areas (the NE corridor and Woodbury/Hastings to the downtowns) rather than a show trolley.

" The state tax take on the federal money that went to local business through construction/design etc. (not the cars which I believe came from Mexico) probably would net out the state portion to $70 or $80 million and that is without considering any multiplier effect on the infusion of cash into our local economy. "

Which is true of any outside money spent here, regardless of its usefulness. If the Fed decided to drop half a bill on a pet rock factory, the multiplier effect would make a lot of local rock suppliers and box manufacturers prosperous - but would it be the best use of half a billion tax dollars?

"I think there is a lot of redevelopment potential along the Hiawatha corridor over the next couple decades."

And it'll remain to be seen if light rail is a benefit or liability toward that kind of redevelopment. The Taxpayers league says "no", I've seen other sources that disagree.

"A route to Eden Prarie (SW corridor) would probably make a lot of sense but also cost a lot more since the ROW is not controlled be governmental entities. I think the central corridor would make some sense too if we tie into the commuter corridors you mention."

Fair enough. The main point is, we had several other options that COULD have been better than the Ventura Trolley. Some of us were yelling about it eight years ago!

"By the way I think road investments are absolutely vital to our continued economic growth but the transit piece is equally important."

Dunno about "equal". I don't think the population density will EVER get to the point in the Twins where rail is anything but a useful, highly-subsidized convenience.

"Which is true of any outside money spent here, regardless of its usefulness. If the Fed decided to drop half a bill on a pet rock factory, the multiplier effect would make a lot of local rock suppliers and box manufacturers prosperous - but would it be the best use of half a billion tax dollars?"

Agreed - but the LRT has some usefulness its more a question of degree.

"Dunno about "equal". I don't think the population density will EVER get to the point in the Twins where rail is anything but a useful, highly-subsidized convenience"

Not equal funding, equal importance to have transit in the urbanized areas and along major corridors (Hiawatha not necessarily being one) I'm just saying that a roads only approach as is often advocated could be quite disasterous for the nearly 700k people in the central cities even if they aren't all bus riders.