A frienc of the blog emails:
I think the Ayd Mill Road bikeway passed tonight. I’m not opposed to the bikeway concept. But I cry at the level of insensitivity of some council members. There are many people who “budgeted and planned” to feed their families, pay their rent, run their business and suddenly a pandemic occurs. So, they take that money that the budgeted and planned for and stretch it out to do the basics.
And while reliable, safe transportation is a basic, a bikeway that basically leads no where is really not paying for basics.
But, as it stands, there continues to be less and less reason for people to come to St Paul and more and more reasons to head elsewhere, so I guess might as well make a bike path that serves the leisure class. And to CM Jalali’s point, they’ll certainly “deserve it” when there is absolutely nothing left in St Paul.
The other day, a media story noted that the Covid crisis was forcing the Twin Cities’ mayors to stop playing Sim City and start focusing on the basics.
That didn’t last long.
They made the mistake of never connecting it up to I-94 just like they made the mistake of never making I35E a real highway between downtown Saint Paul and the West 7th.
Yea, I feel your pain. Bloomington fully funded a renovation of the Old Cedar bridge across a marshland. It can only be used by bikers and pedestrians. It does connect to Eagan, who wanted nothing to do with it. Almost $15 million was spent on the “feasibility study”, courtesy of left wingers like Ann Lenczweski. Then, they spent more to refurbish it, when tearing it down and rebuilding would have cost less, with lower maintenance costs going forward. So, about $25 million later, residents have been assessed for improvements and hardly anyone uses the bridge, especially in winter.
boss
the old cedar bridge is down in Peev’s neighborhood I’m sure he’s happy to pay for it and does in fact use it every day. Peev? Peev?
The Ayd Mill Road was always a road to nowhere. It was never connected because the Mac-Groveland and Victoria denizens didn’t want to hear freeway traffic in their neighborhoods. And the short lived movement in the early 80s to turn the roadway/trench into a low income housing development terrified them to the point that doing nothing with it became the standard consensus decision whenever the issue came up. If you want to scare the piss out of that crowd start talking Low-Income High-Density Housing along the new bike path.
Pig, it’s probable that teh Peevee strolls the bridge, marveling at the natural beauty government has given it’s citizens, with Jane Goodall, who lives just around the corner.