{"id":87631,"date":"2024-06-21T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-21T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=87631"},"modified":"2024-06-24T09:28:52","modified_gmt":"2024-06-24T14:28:52","slug":"its-transit-memorial-day-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=87631","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s Transit Memorial Day"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>UPDATED 6\/24 &#8211; I miscounted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>Today is the 19th anniversary of the opening of the Metro Transit Blue Line \u2013 the beginning, or re-beginning, of light rail transit in the Twin Cities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So on this anniversary, let us remember the people who gave their lives \u2013 unwillingly and in most cases unwittingly \u2013 to further Minnesota&#8217;s political class&#8217;s obsession with feeling like a Big City. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was a relatively quiet year on the rail lines &#8211; if you leave out crime at the train stations and on board the trains, of course.  But the trains didn&#8217;t run over anyone new.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Still:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The Blue Line <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Metro_Blue_Line_(Minnesota)#Safety\">has mowed down 15 so far<\/a> \u2013 eight pedestrians, three bikers, a man in a wheelchair, and three people in cars. There was <a href=\"https:\/\/kstp.com\/news\/man-dead-stabbing-light-rail-train-near-bloomington\/5620517\/\">also a stabbing death<\/a> in the winter of 2021 on the Blue Line, and three more murders at stations along the line. That\u2019s an average of almost one death per year. <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Metro_Green_Line_%28Minnesota%29#Safety\">Green Line has harvested 11 victims in ten years<\/a> \u2013 the first just six weeks after the train started operating, mostly pedestrians trying to navigate the badly-designed street-level crossings. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox9.com\/news\/light-rail-strikes-cyclist-1-person-dead-st-paul-crash\">most recent, a bicyclist, was just last May 29<\/a>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Northstar line <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Northstar_Line#Incidents\">has five fatalities so far<\/a>.  The last was in 2019 &#8211; which, to be fair, was about the last time anyone rode the Northstar.  <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s 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\u2019re \u201crunning\u201d a big city with all the trimmings.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let\u2019s take a moment today to remember these innocent victims of government narcissism and megalomania.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>UPDATED 6\/24 &#8211; I miscounted. Today is the 19th anniversary of the opening of the Metro Transit Blue Line \u2013 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 \u2013 unwillingly and in most cases unwittingly \u2013 to further [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-trains-and-automobiles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87631","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=87631"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87788,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87631\/revisions\/87788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=87631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=87631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=87631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}