Joe Doakes wrote to alert me to Saint Paul’s city government springing into action:
I realize [St. Paul mayor Chris Coleman is] a busy guy, too busy to personally visit every Mom and Pop operation he’s putting out of business; still, you’d think he could have found his way down there before this. It’s been two years.
I wonder if he’ll take the bus?
Joe Doakes
Como Park
Joe linked to h this piece in the PiPress:
Business owners along Central Corridor Light Rail construction on University Avenue will have a chance to voice their opinions and concerns to St. Paul mayor Chris Coleman this afternoon.
The Asian Economic Development Association is hosting the Little Mekong Walking Tour at 2 p.m., Aug. 6, starting in front of 88 Oriental at 291 University Ave.
Topics of discussion include the impact of construction on current and future businesses in the area. A number of businesses have expressed their concerns with dramatic drops in business as the light rail construction has tied up traffic and limited access to their shops.
The tour will visit businesses in Little Mekong, an Asian culture and business district on University Avenue.
How many of those same businesspeople do you suppose attended the Met Council’s rounds of perfunctory “public meetings”, held over the past decade to gather public “feedback” about the project, to be recorded and shelved while the Met Council went ahead and built the same precise misconceived project they’d always intended to?
And I wonder how many of them even thought about voting for someone other than a DFLer – the party that regards them as interchangeable reliable votes, and their businesses as chattel – at the time?
Time to think about it, guys.
Same folks who think a publicly funded Vikings stadium is just fine. And Target Field, TCF Bank stadium, Target Center, Xcel Center, a new park for the St. Paul Saints…
I drive the Hiawatha Corridor almost daily. I’m still waiting for the economic boom along the avenue. All I see is half-empty trolleys tying up traffic. There are a few apartment complexes along the route, but no businesses that anyone can say sprang up as a result of the choo-choo and it’s implied “economic multiplier.”
Anyone want to correct me?
Sorry, Stink, but you’re mistaken. The Star Tribune today reported a major surge in economic activity at the Lake Street station. It’s so vibrant they’re installing new cameras to video all this new business.
Well, technically, robberies; but still – money is changing hands that wouldn’t be, but for the light rail, not to mention the multiplier effect of police overtime and hospital billings. So we’ve got that going for us.
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