Today is the 20th anniversary of the opening of the Metro Transit Blue Line – 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 – unwillingly and in most cases unwittingly – to further Minnesota’s political class’s obsession with feeling like a Big City.

It was a relatively quiet year on the rail lines – if you leave out crime at the train stations and on board the trains, of course. But the trains didn’t run over anyone new.

Still:

• The Blue Line has mowed down 20 so far – including a pedestrian and a cyclist on back to back days just a few weeks ago. That’s an average of almost one death per year.
• The Green Line has harvested 13 victims in 11 years – the first just six weeks after the train started operating, mostly pedestrians trying to navigate the badly-designed street-level crossings. Over the past year, the line clamed a pedestrian this past March. There was also a murder on a Green Line trade last November, right after Thanksgiving.
• The Northstar line has five fatalities so far. The last was in 2019 – which, to be fair, was about the last time anyone rode the Northstar.

That’s 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’re “running” a big city with all the trimmings. 

Let’s take a moment today to remember these innocent victims of government narcissism and megalomania.

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Saturday, June 21st, 2025 at 6:00 am and is filed under Planes Trains and Automobiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.