{"id":1774,"date":"2007-12-12T09:16:11","date_gmt":"2007-12-12T14:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=1774"},"modified":"2020-12-21T05:35:06","modified_gmt":"2020-12-21T11:35:06","slug":"northsoak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=1774","title":{"rendered":"Northsoak"},"content":{"rendered":"

I support mass transit options that can be teased into some <\/em>kind of economic sense.<\/p>\n

Which means I oppose almost all of them.\u00a0 In almost all cases, mass transit is like big box schools; they serve their main purpose badly, but they are <\/em>superb monuments to the governments that built them.
\nNow, the Metro’s two big “commuter rail” projects, the Northstar and the Red Rocks lines, could<\/em> be exceptions.\u00a0 They are very, very <\/em>different from the Ventura Trolley and the proposed Central Corridor lines in that<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. they use existing tracks (to say nothing of right-of-way), the same ones that all the freight trains use today.\u00a0 Other than stations, a few extra switches and sidings, they can be <\/em>very cheap to build.<\/li>\n
  2. The rolling stock – the cars and engines – can be <\/em>relatively cheap.\u00a0 Indeed, it’s possible to buy used engines and cars from other commuter rail systems, refurbish them, and get them on the road for a fraction of the cost of buying new.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Via those factors – and given decent ridership – it’s actually possible, in theory, to make a commuter rail line self-supporting. <\/em><\/p>\n

    Now, the Taxpayers’ League once made a case against the Northstar; the lynchpin of which being that the line’s ridership was going to be much lower than estimated.\u00a0 The study took place, of course, back when gas was still below $2 a gallon; suburbanization and exurbanization shows no signs of slowing.\u00a0 I don’t know any updated numbers, but I’d suspect they’d be worth a second look.<\/p>\n

    But it’s the other part – the tendence to “monumantalism” – that will continue to cause problems.\u00a0 And the Strib feeds the monkey without killing it<\/a>:<\/p>\n

    Moments after Thomas Barrett, the U.S. deputy secretary of transportation, signed an agreement Tuesday committing $156.8 million in federal funding toward the $320 million Northstar line, Sen. Amy Klobuchar said what others have hoped for a decade:<\/p>\n

    “I want it to go to St. Cloud,” she said from Washington in a taped message that was played to an audience that included Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Congressman Keith Ellison, state legislators, and officials from the three counties involved, Anoka, Hennepin and Sherburne.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Getting a “Klobuchar Wing” tacked onto a monument is good “Free” campaign publicity.<\/p>\n

    Watch for more pols to find way$ to tack their name$ onto this project, jacking the co$t$ waaay higher than they need to be.<\/p>\n

    \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I support mass transit options that can be teased into some kind of economic sense. Which means I oppose almost all of them.\u00a0 In almost all cases, mass transit is like big box schools; they serve their main purpose badly, but they are superb monuments to the governments that built them. Now, the Metro’s two […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,104],"tags":[208],"class_list":["post-1774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-minnesota-politics","category-trains-and-automobiles","tag-a-klo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1774"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22410,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1774\/revisions\/22410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}