It’s Transit Memorial Day
By Mitch Berg
UPDATED 6/24 – I miscounted.
Today is the 19th anniversary of the opening of the Metro Transit Blue Line – the beginning, or re-beginning, of light rail transit in the Twin Cities.
So on this anniversary, let us remember the people who gave their lives – unwillingly and in most cases unwittingly – to further Minnesota’s political class’s obsession with feeling like a Big City.
It was a relatively quiet year on the rail lines – if you leave out crime at the train stations and on board the trains, of course. But the trains didn’t run over anyone new.
Still:
- The Blue Line has mowed down 15 so far – eight pedestrians, three bikers, a man in a wheelchair, and three people in cars. There was also a stabbing death in the winter of 2021 on the Blue Line, and three more murders at stations along the line. That’s an average of almost one death per year.
- The Green Line has harvested 11 victims in ten years – the first just six weeks after the train started operating, mostly pedestrians trying to navigate the badly-designed street-level crossings. The most recent, a bicyclist, was just last May 29.
- The Northstar line has five fatalities so far. The last was in 2019 – which, to be fair, was about the last time anyone rode the Northstar.
That’s 31 dead, so far. 31 lives snuffed out so that the Met Council, the various governments, and other people who love to play with the dials and levers of government can feel like they’re “running” a big city with all the trimmings.
Let’s take a moment today to remember these innocent victims of government narcissism and megalomania.
June 21st, 2024 at 1:36 pm
For the Blue Line, assuming about 20,000 riders per day riding 10 miles apiece, that means that the deaths per billion passenger miles are about 21, this is about 70% higher than the value for passenger cars. It’s exactly what I predicted when I learned that it was going through a bar district at grade level. Bad things happen when you send 50 ton carriages on a metal-metal bearing surface where intoxicated people walk.
Also interesting is that when my family drove through an area where a Death Train went, we noticed that about three blocks away from the train, the neighborhood was solidly middle class, but the rail area itself was a dead zone. Bad things happen when you bring in anybody who can sneak on the train to an area and prevent the locals from parking at local businesses.
One other thing I’ve noticed about the trains; the last time I rode one, from Fort Snelling to Target Field, I saw not one, but three armed conductors taking tickets. It is as if they’re having a really bad time keeping people honest. For comparison’s sake, I grew up riding the South Shore from NW Indiana into Chicago, right through Gary, and never saw such a thing. So the Twin Cities seem to be particularly rough that way.
June 21st, 2024 at 2:26 pm
How about any murders that have happened at the stations/on the platforms? I can see an argument being made that they might have happened anyway whether or not there was a station/platform there. But I do think the fact that the killing occurred at the station/on the platform was partially a result of the magnet effect on crime those stations/platforms have.
June 21st, 2024 at 2:27 pm
Oops, never mind. That’ll teach me to read your posts more closely before commenting.
June 21st, 2024 at 10:41 pm
[…] DeSantis Announces Massive GDP Growth In Florida – Double National Rate Shot In The Dark: It’s Transit Memorial Day, also, Filed Under “Things That Don’t Happen In Texas, Wyoming, Or The Dakotas” […]
June 22nd, 2024 at 9:43 am
Bike – sorry the comment was in moderation so long.
I rode the Vomit Comet..er, Green Line every day for 18 months. It was…adequate. Not pleasant. Convenient, in a sense – I could get nearly door-to-door service between a bus and the train, presuming the timing worked out. I also thought nothing of going to happy hour or a show at the Dakota, walking to the train and then walking home from the stop long after dark (being a tall armed guy certainly didn’t hurt).
That ended in May 2019. I think I’ve ridden the train twice since then. Once was on a weekday mid-day where I had the thing to myself – nice when it works out!
The other? Let’s just say that already-bad atmosphere has gotten worse.
June 22nd, 2024 at 5:54 pm
In my youth, I backpacked around Europe, hitchhiked in America, rode a Greyhound from Birmingham to Minneapolis . . . just for the Adventure of it.
About 10 years ago, I had to catch a flight and decided to make it another Adventure. Walked from the East side of Como to Dale Street, took that bus to University, rode the Green Line to downtown Minneapolis, changed to the airport train, caught my flight at the Humphrey Terminal.
Took about six times longer than a taxi or Uber. Smelled far worse. Plenty of urban sight-seeing – stumblebums, panhandlers, stoners, yutes just about to turn their lives around – but honestly, once is enough. No more adventures for me.
They could tear up the tracks today for all I care.
June 23rd, 2024 at 8:06 am
^ Funny. I have acquaintances who tried to do the full-monty of taking the Northstar line from the outer northern suburbs to the airport. Same experience. They or we drive now.
We once tried to use that airport train to get the (somewhat) cheaper parking over at the Humphrey terminal. When we returned from our trip, we and 100 other people had to sit and wait for over an hour to go one stop because the train had hit a car (or vice versa) upstream from the airport. We park where it’s most convenient now.