Joe Doakes of Como Park covers some familiar territory:
The Met Council announced it wants to spend $32 million to build light rail and low income housing along transit lines, because they believe the population is changing to more seniors, minorities and smaller households so these projects are not only necessary, but wise.
That’s precisely the wrong approach. Instead, they should put smaller busses on the routes and vary the number by ridership (more during rush hour, fewer mid-day). They should work with cities to strip down housing codes so foreclosed properties can be resold cheaply as starter homes.
But the infallible alliance of government and its non-profit hangers-on has decided that’s what it needs; “low income housing” and hideously expensive rail transit!
Doaks touches on something that hit a little close to home:
Example: in 2007, Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity and the Greater Frogtown Community Development Corporation built Dale Street Townhouses, a 16-unit row house fronting on Dale Street near Thomas Avenue, five blocks North of the light rail station to be built on University Avenue. It’s supposedly “affordable housing” but a neighbor told me yesterday there are unsold units because the asking price per apartment is well over $100,000. And that’s the subsidized price for low-income applicants who qualify, that’s not the cost of building the unit. For the same money, they could have bought twice as many foreclosed homes, slapped a coat of paint on them and resold the houses to struggling families who then could have built their own sweat equity.
I worked on those houses, when I did “Habitat” for a local company, back in 2008. The townhouses – basically stacked-up rowhouses – cost waaaay more than $100,000 to build, even with all the freebie labor. And this was right after St. Paul passed its idiotic vacant building ordinance, which on the one hand ensured a glut of vacant buildings ensuring all of our houses’ values would plummet without cease, and on the other hand made it virtually impossible to put most of those homes on the market without an absurd amount of expensive repairs.
And I asked the Habitat guy – a supremely earnest young guy – what sense it made to be spending this kind of money on a building like this in a city clogged with vacant buildings.
He just shrugged. It was above his pay grade.
The Met Council’s plan is precisely the same plan they’ve always had – to create a densely populated urban center to mimic New York City, whether the population wants it or not. Theirs should be the first budget slashed when the Legislature reconvenes.
It’s got my vote.
The apparently haphazard “construction” of the between-downtowns light rail, with its fits and starts, helps make it a foregone, done deal. Some “clearing” in the past made sense, like the Faust and turning the Belmont into a cop shop. And I would say the Asian Americans have revitalized Frogtown just fine more or less on their own. The Met Council got nothing on the Airports Commission, who spent a small fortune on billboards a few years back informing us the organization was celebrating its 50th Year. Wouldn’t hurt my feelings to see both of them dry up. I wouldn’t be so hard on the earnest Habitat guy: he was getting a real world education at a very economical price.
Operating subsidy for one year for Hiawatha and NorthStar: $29.4 million. Governer NutJob’s bonding request for SW light rail line: $25 million. Cost of doubling the freeway capacity of 494 between the Fish Lake interchange and 394: $50 million. Choice #1, light rail social engineering. Choice #2, actually spend transportation dollars on: actually improving transportation.
So Obama wants to “reclaim American values”. I wonder where he learned about American values? It couldn’t have been growing up in Indonesia. Couldn’t have been from attending Punahou academy in Honolulu. Couldn’t have been from his Marxist father or his socialist mother. Maybe he learned about American values from his grandmother the banker.
“An economy built to last” means “no quick fixes for the economy”. With this guy prosperity will always be just around the next corner. I suspect his economic gurus have given him the bad news that there will be no further recovery in time for the Fall election.
But the Wall Street types are doing okay. Great Job, Obama!
Slash? What happened to “eliminate”? Why should MetC exist at all?
Because they regulate sewage. Divine irony.
Met Council does do a pretty good job with regulating sewage, but has a tendency of changing it’s goals when it comes to public transportation to keep the amount of money/power it has on the rise…….. buses…… no no LRT! And some housing, yeah lets do that!
“But the infallible alliance of government and its non-profit hangers-on has decided that’s what it needs; “low income housing” and hideously expensive rail transit!”
Who doesn’t want “The Projects” back? And when you think of old, expensive, inflexible solutions to modern people transport problems, who doesn’t think “Railroad”.
Well those Projects in North Minneapolis were something to behold. They had standing sewage in the basements. Another triumph of Met Council sewage management.