Shot in the Dark

Mercy Killing

There’s a move afoot to kill off the Northstar Commuter Rail line…

Well, no. There’s a move to finish the job that a misbegotten concept, government bloat and Covid started:

In 2023, it cost taxpayers over $11.5 million to operate, but the line only generated about $325,000 in fare revenue, according to a new study. 

As ridership has dwindled, the Northstar line’s future has become uncertain.  

Before the pandemic, the service carried between 2,200 and 3,000 riders on weekdays. However, during the pandemic, ridership plummeted by nearly 98%, dropping to just 60 weekday riders in April 2020. Today, the line still struggles to attract passengers, with only a couple hundred people using the service.

 

The funny – as in “weird”, not “ha ha” for the most part – thing is, commuter rail was the kind of rail service that should have had some shot at making sense; they use (or are supposed to use)  existing right of way, can use fairly minimal stations, and don’t have to tear up streets or utilities like the light rail lines through the city, and can be designed and purposed to address actual transportation needs across larger metropolitan areas.  

And yet they botched it.

And the bureaucracy’s defense – “practice makes perfect”?  Well…

Let’s see:

  • The Blue Line (2005) went in without much of a hitch (provided you leave out the 30+ year delay between the clearing of the right of way and the actual building of the line)
  • The Northstar (2009) had all kinds of bureaucratic and legal glitches over right-of-way, and of course the customary over-engineering.   Its problems are noted herein.
  • The Green LIne (2014) went 50% over budget, and was a huge waste even at that; “light rail” is designed to be hypothetically efficient with stops every mile, so it can run at 50-60MPH over clear rights of way.  Trolleys are designed to go stop to stop down crowded streets.   The Met Council decided to make a stupid compromise – run a big train down a crowded street; sort of like.using a Corvette to pull a beer wagon.  
  • The Southwest Light Rail is way over double budget and several years behind schedule, with little sign of being ready much before the end of the decade.

So I don’t think practice is doing is much good. 

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Mitch Berg

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Comments

6 responses to “Mercy Killing”

  1. justplainangry Avatar
    justplainangry

    I have a solution – make it free! That will solve the problem. Oh, and practice indeed makes perfect – for more efficient graft and corruption. All paid for by whatever remains of the taxpayer base who are “glad to pay for better MN!”tm

  2. SmithStCrx Avatar
    SmithStCrx

    My wife posted about Northstar on her Facebook page, and several of her Lefty friends lamented its upcoming demise. A comment made by one of her friends that really should know better (His mother and father are solid conservatives. Apparently those lessons just didn’t take.) made the typical claim that we “just need European style infrastructure.” WTF does that mean buddy? The LRT IS European infrastructure. I’m still waiting for a response to my correction. I told him that LRT won’t work in America until we have European levels of density and their stand in line and do as we’re told attitude.
    I do love that LRT proponents basically fall back on the line about Socialism/Communism. We just haven’t done LRT properly yet. It’s not that it’ll never work.

  3. donlokk Avatar
    donlokk

    We rode the Northstar quite often. Not for its stated commuter rail purpose to get to work, but strictly for Twins games. Driving by the near empty Anoka station parking lot and ramp makes me wonder what will go there next. Anoka doesn’t exactly need a parking ramp there.

  4. passout76 Avatar
    passout76

    The Northstar was handy when I was working in downtown Minneapolis but transitioning to my home in Morrison County. Would I say that it was worth the subsidy? No. It wasn’t. Kill it.

  5. bikebubba Avatar
    bikebubba

    My take on rail, light and long range, is that railroads/Amtrak/commuter rail needs to leave the standard models of locomotives/carriages and electric power in favor of having small generators (say semi diesel plus generator) on each carriage to provide propulsion, light, and heat. For Northstar or Amtrak, what this would do is reduce overall train weight by a third, and probably reduce fuel consumption by half, especially in winter. It also would allow the shorter trains that would allow a line to have more frequent service that would make it more competitive with air travel.

  6. Scott Hughes Avatar
    Scott Hughes

    Stick a fork in it! Then stick 2 forks and a wooden stake through the heart of the Met Council, the most worthless money grab ever!!!

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