Right Thought, Wrong Timing

I’m waiting to hear the Saint Paul election results today. When you’re a Republican in Saint Paul, you learn to moderate your expectations, of course.

But there’s a sense out there that at least some people are starting to get it. I drove down University the other day, and saw not a few Eva Ng signs posted in shop windows.

Beyond that – I saw an awful lot of dark-red anti-light rail signs posted in the windows of businesses up and down University. “Save Our Jobs and Businesses”, they read, and they are found in a lot of store windows – especially the visibly, identifiably Asian shops that have led the way in the Avenue’s rebirth over the past twenty years. When I first moved to Saint Paul, University was a desiccated toilet of a street from Snelling all the way to the Capitol and beyond.

And while the stretch between Snelling and Lexington is now dominated by big-box retailers like Target, Rainbow, Borders and WalMart, from Lex to the Capitol has become a haven for Saint Paul’s smallest, newest businesses, run largely by the Asian immigrants (and, lately, Hispanic and Somali and Eritrean ones as well) that have made lower Frogtown their home. The stretch of street isn’t fodder for “Architectural Digest”, but it’s largely occupied, largely paying rent and taxes and creating jobs, and in many cases it’s thriving; some of the Vietnamese restaurants that started almost literally as holes in the wall have grown to thepoint where they’re building big, glossy new buildings of their own (Mai Village, on the decrepit old gas station site at Lexington) or taking over bigger buildings from failed enterprises (Trieu Chao and Saigon, both of which moved into bigger, nicer, upgraded facilities; by the way, Trieu Chao makes fabulous Pho, and the banh mi dac biet sandwiches at Saigon are the single best cheap lunch anywhere in the Twin Cities).

As we’ve noted in this space before, and will note over and over again in the future, the Central Corridor is going to crush these businesses. And they know it. Transit proponents poo-poo the notion – Charlie Quimby, who cops to having done some consulting for the ‘Central Corridor Funders Collaborative”, in particular seems to chalk it up to lazy peoples’ hysteria, based on a Google street photo in front of a hair salon:

Now ask yourself: how many customers does the business handle at one time? And how many people change their hair stylist because they can’t park right in front of the door?

Maybe customers who drive will have a hard time reaching this business for their hair styling during construction and after the train is running. But I’m not seeing the problem.

Quimby, like most transit proponents, misses the point; it’s not just that it’ll be hard to park in front of the store; it’s that the neighborhood as a whole will be hard to get to. Coming from the South? Get ready for years of sisyphean nightmares getting north of 94. Coming from the north? Sure, scuttle though Saint Paul’s narrow, crowded side streets to get to the business you want to get to! Or take the path of lesser resistance and go to a business that’s actually easy and convenient to get to!

And if you do navigate Sherburne and Thomas and find your hair salon or Vietnamese sandiwch or used book? Sure, you can park on the side streets – just as Quimby suggests. Except that that part of Frogtown is still pretty crappy and blighted, and even I like to keep my car in pretty clear sight when patronizing stores in that part of town (have I mentioned the banh mi dac biet at Saigon?). And have we forgotten what a wonderful place Fifth Street, or Hiawatha, were for pedestrians when the Ventura Trolley was being built (and for that matter, have you noticed what a boon for business the Trolley has been for businesses and pedestrian traffic up and down its corridor in downtown Minneapolis? I’m being sarcastic, doncha know…).

And that doesn’t even address the ultimate insult; when the train is finally finished, the final goal is to have the areas around the train stops – the little islands at Rice, Dale, Lex, Snelling and Fairview – gentrify to the point where the businesses that do survive won’t be able to afford to stay there or do business anymore!

So yes, I’ll take the word of those whose lives’ savings are invested in these unglamous, workadaddy, hugamommy little shops up and down Uni over that of anyone from the Met Council or its’ sympathizers. They have no skin in the game other than the day in 2014 they’ve marked off their calendar for a token ride through a city most of them don’t come to anyway (other than whisking in to a downtown parking ramp to the Ordway, the Fitz or the Wild a couple times a year).

So I’m happy to see those little red signs.

I’d have been a lot happier to have seen them five years ago, when the project could still have been derailed.

Back when most of those shopkeepers were reliably voting for the same DFL hucksters that are shooting them in the back today.

Lesson learned?

Hopefully we’ll see some sign of that tonight.

Posted

November 3, 2009

St. Paul

Mitch Berg

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Comments

21 responses to “Right Thought, Wrong Timing”

golfdoc50

November 3, 2009

Your comment on transportation difficulties impacting business is right on. Here’s an example from the suburbs, of all places. The medical practice I’m part of used to operate a clinic in Bloomington just across 169 from Eden Prairie at Anderson Lakes. When 169 got “upgraded” a few years ago, meaning limited access ramps got built along with overpasses for arterial streets. We expected disruption during the construction phase, but when the dust settled, our patient visits were way down at that site, which we had operated since 1985. We closed the clinic, the next door dentists closed theirs, as did several other businesses on both sides of 169. There was no change in the number of parking places, but the project (which was needed, IMO; the crossing was a death trap before) killed our business.
nate

November 3, 2009

I’ll say it again–there’s a reason there are no coffee shops on University between Rice Street and Fairview. And light rail won’t fix that.

Seriously, think about this. University is the largest, busiest East-West business street in the city. But in a 24 block distance, starting from the seat of government for the whole state, extending to the busiest intersection in the state, there is not one Starbucks, not one Dunn Brothers, no Caribou, not even a Mr. Coffee or a Dunkin Donuts (there was one but it got converted into an Asian restaurant).

What kind of neighborhood can fill every storefront with a thriving business but not one frou-frou coffee shop?

A working class neighborhood. A thrifty neighborhood. A lower-middle-class-but-working-hard-to-get-ahead neighborhood.

Do you seriously expect the islands around train stations in that neighborhood to support upscale yuppie shoppes like Wicks-N-Stiks? You think people will drive from Woodbury to downtown St. Paul to get on the train to ride to Wicks-N-Stiks at University and Western? Then home again?

There’s a reason there are no coffee shops in that neighborhood. And light rail won’t change it.
Kermit

November 3, 2009

Coming from the South? Coming from the north?
Nope. Won’t be coming at all.
Chuck

November 3, 2009

I realize the corridors are very different, but have to ask…..they said the same things about the Hiawatha line. Everyone along the line loves it. The critics were wrong. Why should we believe the critics about the central corridor. it’s like the Global Cooling crowd who now say Global Warming will kill us all.
Mr. D

November 3, 2009

Everyone along the line loves it.

Well, it’s nifty and useful to people who live along the line. To the vast majority of everyone else in the metro area subsidizing the Hiawatha Line, not so much. While we’re at it, we could spend nearly a billion dollars (and counting) on something that my New Brighton neighborhood would love, too, but would have no benefit to anyone else. Wanna do that?
Bill C

November 3, 2009

While we’re at it, we could spend nearly a billion dollars (and counting) on something that my New Brighton neighborhood would love, too, but would have no benefit to anyone else. Wanna do that?

Nope, not New Brighton. I vote for Crystal. Kermit is close enough that he might be able to get some benefit as well 🙂
Mitch Berg

November 3, 2009

Chuck,

You”re right – the two corridors are very, very different.

The ventura trolley cuts through a blighted, underutilized side of downtown Minneapolis, and runs down a corridor that was cleared specifically for light rail in the sixties. There was almost no business to screw up. On the other hand, the Central Corridor runs smack down the busiest east-west street in the East Metro. Unlike Hiawatha, this is going to cause a lot of displacement.

Everyone along the line loves it.

There are plenty of condo owners in downtown Saint Paul that are thrilled with the Central Corridor, too; the government is buliding them a train right to their doorstep! But for the rest of us?

I live in the Midway. This is going to bollix up traffic in my neighborhood for years to come. Wait’ll the first State Fair after they start tearing up Uni at Snelling!

The critics were wrong.

Well, no. They weren’t.

A ride on the Ventura Trolley costs $6; taxpayers pay $4 of it. For every ride.

What business development has it spurred? The Mall is doing fine; Block E, on the opposite terminus, is going under fast. Cedar/Riverside? Franklin? Lake? Not much going on. There were a lot of condos built up and down the line, just in time for the market to crash. But the only businesses that seem to have benefitted from the Trolley are the Fort Snelling Officers Club, the Cardinal, the Cabooze…

…and the CC is going to be worse. The costs to amortize are already pushing 50% higher (over a billion, compared to 700 mill for the Ventural Trolley); a ride is going to cost at least $9 (maybe more, maybe less, given differences in ridership), +-$7 of which is going to be picked up by the taxpayer…

…and that’s if everything comes in under budget. Which, considering we’ll have to rebuild the Washington Bridge and much of Washington through the U and possibly the entire intersection at Snelling and University, is pretty optimistic.

Don’t get me wrong; I like riding the train, too, when I have to; I sometimes bike to 46th Street and catch it to the mall when biking to the station on Saturdays. I paid for it, so I’m cool with it. It works. But let’s not kid ourselves; it was a waste of money.

But it’s gonna make the CC look solomonic in comparison.

Why should we believe the critics about the central corridor.
Mr. D

November 3, 2009

I vote for Crystal. Kermit is close enough that he might be able to get some benefit as well 🙂

Well if it benefits Kermit, fine. That should always be our primary public policy goal and it’s good of you to keep it in mind, Bill.
K-Rod

November 3, 2009

Just keep it away from Shoreview. My Tahoe is just fine for my less than 3 mile ride to work. 8)
Badda

November 3, 2009

Hasn’t Quimby used similar words (hysteria) to other subjects with a similar lack of reason?
Kermit

November 3, 2009

Well if it benefits Kermit, fine. That should always be our primary public policy goal and it’s good of you to keep it in mind, Bill.
I could not agree more.
charlieq

November 3, 2009

My post was about parking. Hysteria was Mitch’s word.

Merchants in the article I linked to were defining their problem as parking. If that’s how they look at it and respond to it, they almost certainly will have dire business consequences.

The LRT is going to happen, and we can argue all week about whether that’s good or not. But the small businesses that want to survive are going to need help and they’re going to have to do things differently.

All the things Mitch mentions are risks of the project, and in an I-told-you-so world those risks go up. But a business that doesn’t know how to reach out to its customers, have capital to improve its premises, and is located near a street where Mitch won’t park now is on the edge of disaster already.

I’ve been working with some people who are focused on trying to help the businesses and residents who live there now. It seems a lot more productive than bitching about LRT and predicting failure.
Mitch Berg

November 3, 2009

Hysteria was, indeed, my word.

It seems a lot more productive than bitching about LRT and predicting failure.

Oh, no doubt.

But I make no bones about the fact that I believe this project is utterly misbegotten, whether you consider it as traffic management (if you run it down Uni, it should have been a trolley), as fiscally responsible (if it exists at all, as as LRT rather than as a trolley, it should have gone through existing right of way through the Newell, Como and Empire yards, or the Short Line route), as urban planning (do we REALLY want to build a high density “third downtown” in the St. Paul Warehouse district, and gentrify Frogtown?), as engineering (um, making that left turn on Fourth Street is gonna suck, to say nothing of rebuilding the Washington Avenue Bridge sooner than later), as business (noted above) or as politics. Yes, it’s gonna happen; that doesn’t mean I feel any compulsion to pretend that it’s anything but an abomination on any level.

You call it “bitching” – and I suppose negating and minimizing criticism is part of the spin doctor’s game. Duly noted.

I call it reminding people that elections have consequences. And this badly-planned, mis-matched, bad-for-Saint-Paul abomination is a consequence of a lot of really bad electoral choices, in and out of Saint Paul.
charlieq

November 3, 2009

You call it “bitching” – and I suppose negating and minimizing criticism is part of the spin doctor’s game.

My comment wasn’t specifically directed at you, Mitch. It was at a general stream of opinion directed against light rail that is going to do for these merchants exactly zip. In fact, making an effort to patronize them — like maybe walking a block or taking an extra 30 seconds to get somewhere — would undercut and contradict the “it’s gotta fail” argument. That mindset has already decided what will happen, and is now invested in it happening, because it would prove them right — which is always more important than solving an actual problem in society.

And implying I’m a spin doctor, that’s cold!
PeterH

November 3, 2009

Ho Bien put up the new building at University and Lexington, not Mai Village.

Save our Businesses and Jobs website

And I’ve got to put in a plug for a nice take-out/eat-in/buffet or menu place on the west side of Snelling: Kim Huoy Chor . Not sure if that website redirects to different restaurants depending on where you live, but the guy who grabbed that site was pretty clever.
charlieq

November 3, 2009

That place also has free wifi and it delivers in little red cars that look like street racers. This is an example of someone building a business to weather the construction instead of just putting a “Save our Business” sign in the window.
Mitch Berg

November 3, 2009

And I couldn’t be happier for them. But lots of those businesses with the signs on their windows worked plenty hard, too, and built businesses to weather life on University Avenue – no mean feat.

Dealing with life on Uni and Big, Upper-Middle-Class MPR-listening latte-drinking White Brother?

There’s such a thing as piling on.
nate

November 4, 2009

Charlie, have you ever actually been to University Avenue to look at the people we’re talking about, the businesses we’re discussing? You should.

I lived in Midway for 5 years and still own a house there. I rode the 16 to work downtown weekdays. My daughter rode it to the U. I went to the LRT planning meetings at the Hmong Community Center and saw the fraud that is “citizen participation” when the outcome was locked in.

I have seen the grocery carts clustered around the bus stop at Simpson. Why are they there? Because that’s where Rainbow is. Single mothers with toddlers in tow shop at the big box BECAUSE ITS CHEAPER and ride the local bus home. Honestly, sincerely, believe me – that woman will not spend one thin dime at the new Caribou. She can’t afford it. Nobody living between Rice and Fairview can afford it, which is why it’s not there now.

As Mitch pointed out, there’s a tremendous difference between Hiawatha and University, both in the character of the neighborhoods and in the purpose of the public transportation. Hiawatha is intended to get commuters from Out There to Down Town. The 16 bus gets locals to the grocery store and home. They’re completely different needs. LRT works to ship people from end point to end point but that’s not how people ride public transit on University. If you want to get from downtown St. Paul to downtown Minneapolis you take the 94 Express bus on the freeway.

Used to be, Progressives asked people what they wanted then tried to deliver it. Seems that now, they tell people what they’re getting whether they want it or not. At every single LRT meeting I saw, the residents’ number one request was “More cops in Sherburne Alley to fight drug dealing and prostitution.” LRT never finished higher than 5th.

I have a brand new dollar bill right here which I will put up against any donut you care to wager, saying that within 5 years of opening LRT on University will have harmed existing businesses, failed to serve local residents, cost more to build than budgeted, cost more to operate than projected, and at least 50% of the new train station cluster developments will be occupied by government or non-profit tenants instead of for-profit businesses.

Who’ll hold the stakes?

.
nate

November 4, 2009

Wait, you’re talking about the new Asian restaurant in the old Embers at Aldine, the one that replaced South Seas?

They have an off-street parking lot for 40 cars. Not at all the same as the storefronts along University.

Come on, guys, at least pretend you’re comparing apples to apples.
Mitch Berg

November 4, 2009

Who’ll hold the stakes?

I’ll match the buck. Any takers?
Mitch Berg

November 4, 2009

Nate iterates a point I wanted to elaborate on with Charlie:

there’s a tremendous difference between Hiawatha and University, both in the character of the neighborhoods and in the purpose of the public transportation. Hiawatha is intended to get commuters from Out There to Down Town. The 16 bus gets locals to the grocery store and home.

Charlie,

I’m a conservative, but I’m not necessarily opposed to mass transit – merely the way the Met Council practices it. For example, I supported the idea of the Northstar and Red Rocks lines (based on the fact that both could be revenue neutral – presuming the Met bought used rolling stock and resisted the temptation to turn the stations into monuments to their wisdom).

But the “mission” of the Central Corridor is very, very unclear. Nate summed up Hiawatha’s pretty ably – move people, more or less quickly, from a burb to downtown. It does that mission more or less well, albeit at a 66% loss.

So what’s the “mission” of the Central Corridor? There are really two options: Provide commuter access to whisk people between the downtowns (replacing the 94 and maybe the 50 buses and cutting down on traffic on 94) or providing local transit along Uni (replacing the 16 and cutting down on local traffic along University)?

If it’s the former, then building a “fast” train – LRT – with stops a mile apart makes sense – presuming you put the train where it can actually move fast, through the Empire/Como/Newell Yards and over the north end of the “U”, or down the old Short Line Railroad. If it’s the latter, then a trolley system makes much more sense – something that stops every few blocks, and is designed for local transit, and is easier and less disruptive to build down an existing working street.

The Met decided to go for the worst of both worlds; to take the expense and disruption of building down a busy working street, but to build the ‘Sexier’, faster, heavier option that serves the purpose of a busy, working street vastly less well.

And they made that decision without meaningful public input, in a way that ensures the maxiumum deleterious impact on the neighborhoods and the budget, for reasons that make no sense as urban planning, as civil engineering, as economic planning, as traffic management, as anything.

Call it “bitching” all you want. I call it criticism, and it’s not just waranted, it’s vastly overdue. The system is not just broken; it’s deeply stupid.