Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Mn/DOT says more lanes won’t reduce congestion on I-94 between St. Cloud and the Twin Cities. Instead, more lanes will dump people at the choke points faster. And why are there choke points? Because Met Council doesn’t like highways, they like light rail, so they’re not willing to build highway lanes in the Twin Cities.
Most telling explanation why they won’t build more lanes: it’s out of vogue.
Ve vill tell you vhen you kan go und how you vill get zhere, und you vill like it. Or else!
It sounds like an Abbott and Costello routine.
It’s the power trip liberals love to have. They want government to tell you where and how to travel, rather than having government listen to the people and respond to their wishes. After all, a liberal believes that government knows better than you do. And you know what? In the case of liberals, that’s true. (And given how well government is working these days, that’s a pretty damn strong indictment of liberals.)
“a toll lane like the MnPASS system” Take money away from highway funding for stuff like choo-choos, then charge tolls for those that use the roads.
” MnDOT’s Zelle said expansion of the Northstar rail line to St. Cloud could also help reduce vehicle congestion on the freeway.” How cost effective, it’s proving its’ worth today…….snark
Perhaps someone could cultivate a DFL gubernatorial candidate who lives on the far west end of I-94, near the Dakota border.
According to local lore, the big Hwy 33/ I-35 interchange was constructed in the late-80s into the 90’s, during the reigns of Governor Rudy Perpich, at his “request'” to expidite return trips to his homeland (the Iron Range), by
eliminating the long, out-of-the-way semaphore-infested detour through Duluth, up Hwy 53.
Maybe something similar would work in a westerly direction. Of course a GOP governor would never do such a thing …