Transit and taxes

The last time I saw Mayor Coleman the Second live and in person was at the sign unveiling for the Phalen Village Cub Store.

A few years ago when Ted Mondale was the Metro Council chairperson, he met with people from East Side organizations in an office at Payne and York, right on what was then the #14 bus line.

They both arrived at these events by car.

Outside of perhaps some kind of publicity shot, has anybody seen Governor Plenty [or his predecessor, Governor Janos] or R.T. Rybak on a bus or light rail?

Ugly Truth about Transit: THOSE WHO PUSH IT THE MOST NEVER PLAN ON USING TRANSIT THEMSELVES. Nor for that matter do most of those whose jobs will come from building new railways or busways.

Another Ugly Truth about Transit and Freeways both: WHATEVER THE INITIAL INTENTION INVOLVED IN THEIR CREATION, THEY FOSTER ECONOMIC SEGREGATION. We should note that there is one notable difference between the road projects and bus/train projects. The former are needed to get people to other of the country’s and the region’s cities. The second cannot do that. We need roads to connect Saint Paul to Minneapolis, Duluth, Chicago, or even Salt Lake City. No MTC bus will do that. Greyhound will, but they need roads. The problem with the way we built our freeways is that we put too many interchanges too close to the city. If 35E had been built with no interchanges between Larpenteur and Forest Lake or 94 with no way to get on or off between McKnight and Bayport, there would have been fewer people finding Vadnais Heights or Woodbury as fit places to live.

We say people drive too much and should use transit more. Americans aren’t about to give up their cars quickly. The car provides us with freedom [as in flexibility] and Americans have come to love that freedom. The answer is not to have us driving less often, just shorter distances. Driving three miles to work uses a lot less energy than driving forty.

Just ponder for a minute: We spend billions of dollars from a variety of taxing jurisdictions building, operating, and maintaining our transit systems. What could we do or could we have done had we spent similar money making all areas fit places for people of all strata to live, work, and recreate?

Big changes in attitude and focus on the part of federal, state, metropolitan, and municipal planners and doers will be required. Money spent on things like housing diversity, local job creation, good schools everywhere, and keeping places of shopping, recreation, and worship nearby will reduce that desire to go forty miles or more each way to work. Money will be needed for things like soil correction and local street improvements.

But continuing to throw money at transit, such as is being proposed in a new sales tax for transit does not seem like the way to a good future.