From the beginning of the planning for the useless monument to the “wisdom” of our sitting government that the Met Council is pleased to call the Green Line, I accepted\u00a0a few things as givens.<\/p>\n
I accepted\u00a0that the\u00a0traffic, never pleasant on University Avenue, was going to turn into a Sisyphean ordeal.<\/p>\n
I accepted that businesses\u00a0more than a block or two from the stops, and businesses that depended on people making impulsive left turns for roughly half of their business, were going to have trouble. \u00a0Didn’t like it, but what are you gonna do?<\/p>\n
I accepted that the parts of University Avenue that weren’t gentrified into ridiculousness would become even more blighted than they were.<\/p>\n
I even accepted\u00a0that the entire thing was a mammoth exercise in picking winners and losers \u2013 the stores, constituents and ethnic groups that were more favored by the city came out better than those that were not. \u00a0It was a great thing for DFL-voting fans of “high density” living along the corridor – white, middle class, middle-aged, professional. \u00a0It was an OK thing for people who owned, or could obtain, or could afford to continue, businesses within easy and convenient walking distance of the stops.<\/p>\n
All I asked \u2013 well, not all I asked, but the big favor to which I supplicated the demons of urban “progress” \u2013 was, whatever else you eff up, at least leave the Russian Tea House alone.<\/p>\n