I agree with Dorie.
Her route is PART of the network CM Dean Zimmermann mapped out for his
ward 6+ (including Hennepin, downtown skyways, West Bank, LRT stations,
Hiawatha, Lake St, Uptown; and all the area inside this large circle).
There is so much diversity in businesses, entertainment, education,
stores, jobs, housing, etc that you would be able to do most every
town-type activity inside it, WITHOUT A CAR. No car insurance. No car
repair, No car depreciation. No licence fees. No gasoline/oil. No parking
fees.
You can easily get to any of this 24/7. 2 in the morning? Rush hour? No
problem. You can live anywhere in this large area (less overall rent
pressure) and get to your area-of-the-moment (West Bank, Uptown,
downtown...) just like that. You can take your bike on the PRT, and avoid
the worst traffic (and threats from being hit by cars, no small problem).
Small businesses would cluster by the stations; they would not need to
provide parking lots!!; more could start and survive, and counter the dead
march to big-boxdom.
Community centers would be in or near the stations. More people would walk
more often; fewer people would drive.
And I think this would be SO popular that people and businesses (and
tourists) would FLOCK to the PRT area. In very short order all the other
wards would be demanding PRT, to stop the drain to ward 6. And then
wanting PRT yesterday would be StPaul, Richfield, Roseville, etc, till it
covered most of the more densely populated parts of the 7 county metro
area. And then you could do MUCH more than before without a car. Why pay
all that money to keep a car when it's easier and cheaper to PRT? No need
for more or expanded metro freeways; no bigger task for MNDOT; declining
need for gasoline and oil; cleaner air; less noise.
Well, but who loses with PRT? MNDOT, car-makers, oil and gas, concrete
companies, road construction, car insurance companies, doctors treating
asthama and other air-pollution sicknesses. And the big-boxes that live at
the ramps by freeways choked with customers in their cars; big boxes that
bust unions and send the profits away to NYC or the Grand Cayman Islands -
those billioniaire owners would lose. Any big development that relies on
freeways to dump vast numbers of transients at their parking lots will
suffer - but we shouldn't have such big developments; most people don't
like them, and they are able to extort corporate welfare from city
councils. And construction labor won't like PRT - it costs MUCH less to
build than LRT, so of course labor wants the option that gives them the
most money (in the short range).
The people who lose with PRT are few, but they have lots of money and
power. They want us to keep to exactly the system we have, basically -
cars and freeways and boxes; continue gutting bus public transportation;
do a little with LRT, but only where malls and big boxes will profit.
What they want is not sustainable, and will fall to pieces shortly when
the price of gasoline doubles and triples in the next years. But they
don't care - they want their money (from us) NOW, and to hell with what is
left, after they take their cash and scram to some secluded isle safe from
all developers (like themselves).
--David Shove
On Thu, 3 Mar 2005, Dorie Rae Gallagher wrote:
>
> Michael Jensvold wrote:
> > I was pleased to see that the latest PRT article ran
> > right next to the obituaries.
> I strongly agree. This is an outrageously stupid idea
> combining the worst features of both automobiles and
> rapid-transit.
> Michael Atherton writes:
Well, I LIKE the idea and the perfect place would be to run it from
Uptown
to Downtown along Hennepin across the river to Main. Ideal for
eliminating
some of the traffic on Henn., ideal for tourists, ideal for sight-seeing,
ideal for just moving people without traffic jams, pollution, road rage,
they
could use their cell phones in private!, could hold meetings in the sky,
have lunch in Uptown and be back Downtown without stress or a sweaty
vest.
Conventioneers staying downtown could frequent the bars in Uptown and
stay
off the road in between, courier service...it might even give new slant
to
Michael's story of the Jag. I see it brimed with all sorts of
possibilities...it could be so popular it might pay for itself. {Park
Board
might want to get involved :+}!
Dorie Rae Gallagher
Nokomis
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