Re: City Budget
Russell asks how a city budget can ignore inflation. Look to Saint Paul, where Normie has led the council to a seventh year without an increase in the dollar amount of the property tax levy. I disagree with this approach, but that's the way it is now. In one of the posts, it was said that adjusting for inflation doesn't hurt, but that's only true for those with incomes that rise with inflation. Many retired folks have pensions that don't change year to year. Bruce Gaarder Highland Park Saint Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: lrt and 5th street
Let's see, Mondale and Tinklenberg have been quoted in the papers as saying that no more than $458 million will be spent on the trolley. Now, we have a $25 million overrun on the airport tunnel, $55 million overrun for building the Lake Street station above Lake Street, no agreement with the federal government on purchasing land and buildings from the military (south of highway 62), two lawsuits down and two more pending. And no federal full funding agreement yet. Of course, it takes Congressional action to actually make the funds appear after a full funding agreement is announced. I'll have to see if there is a line item in the trolley budget for litigation. Let's see, the trolley management committee has decided to transfer the $55 million Lake Street cost to the highway budget, so they can say that money is not going for the trolley. (See the official minutes). In addition to Tim's comments about the intersection of 5th Street and 3rd Avenue, there is also 4th Street (where the contra-flow bus lane to handle the buses that now run on 5th Street) and 3rd Avenue. Admittedly, 4th Street won't be as much work as 5th Street. And then there will be the period when 5th Street is totally closed for the utility companies to move their lines and equipment. And the time that 5th street is totally closed for laying tracks, if it ever comes. One lane might be kept open during some of this work, but left turns from 5th Street will definitely be out at track laying time. So, why start work on 5th Street? So that you can say that the trolley must go on, because so much money is already invested in it... If you want a good laugh, get a copy of the study that Minneapolis had done to consider the impact of lrt, bike traffic, and pedestrian traffic on overall downtown traffic for the next twenty years, especially to see whether turning 5th Street into a transit mall (and closing it at one point) and putting the contra-flow bus lane on 4th Street would have a significant impact. The report concludes that it won't, and backs it up with projected traffic counts that show such amazing things as 400+ vehicles disappearing in the space of a block, and 5th Street carrying in one restricted lane next to the trolley 40%-60% as much traffic as it does today with a width of five lanes. It also concludes that there would be more impact on afternoon rush hour than the morning rush hour from these changes. I guess that that's because the backups trying to exit I-94 onto 5th Street won't be in downtown, they will be on the freeway. Bruce Gaarder Highland Park Saint Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tim Connolly wrote about lrt, 5th street, and the Avenue of the Arts: > Richard Carney notes that the newspaper stated the > closure of 5th Street in Mpls. for moving of water > mains in front of City Hall and wonders if this is not > "putting the cart before the horse"? > > I would have to answer YES. a resounding YES! > > You might expect that sort of response from an > opponent of light rail but as one who has counted on > "the check being in the mail" in the past I am a firm > believer in caution in these matters. I hate to sound > like one of these dolts who can only refer to overused > movie lines from popular culture but "Show me the > money" might be entirely apt at this point in time. > > What time is it, you ask? In a word, or two, I would > say: "Crunch time!" Oh, there I go again. > ... > At a time when light rail might be coming to 5th > Street it only makes sense to schedule these projects > to coincide with one another. I can only envision > closing 3rd Avenue one year , then 5th street the next > when the intersection of 3rd Av and 5th st. will be > torn up all over again.
Re: moving water mains before lrt is approved
In addition to what I said about trying to build up the sunk costs so as to say "we can't stop now...", there is the legality of signing the "full funding agreement" with the federal government. Once that is signed, the project must either be completed at all costs, no matter what the overruns are, or the federal money must be paid back in full. That's why there is such a rush to get the FFA signed. Take a look at this link in Seattle, where the estimated costs of the lrt are already 55% over the original estimate and rising. See the articles about calling for an audit and the citizens' oversight panel report. As in Minneapolis, the trolley is estimated to have less than a 1% impact on the number of auto trips. http://www.gt-wa.com/RTA Bruce Gaarder Highland Park Saint Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: response to CM McDonald re: city budget & use of TIF
Carol Becker looks at how hard it is to reverse commute (city to suburb) on Metro Transit and bemoans the lack of what she thinks would be adequate funding. If she feels that way, she should be fighting the Hiawatha lrt line, which is now a documented $95-99 million above the official, "we won't spend more than", $548.6 million budget. The Met council's dream of doubling the number of buses by 2020 was projected at only $440 million. So the area is well on its way to spending 50% more on replacing buses with rail when it could do so much more. Interestingly, the recently released report on the possibility of improving transit in the Riverview corridor in Saint Paul refers to the 2020 expansion plan and assumes that it will be implemented, then projects that the number of transit boardings in 2020 will only be about 40% higher than the 1995 figure. The 1999 results were already about 15% above the 1999 numbers, so that 2020 figure would only be about 21% above today's numbers. You need to go farther than the council's quoting of our area's rank in per- capita funding of transit because such a comparison includes areas like Portland which is way above the median expenditure nationally and throws off comparisons. What is know in statistics as an outlying data point. Bruce Gaarder Highland Park Saint Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: construction and traffic
Craig, The construction is aimed at getting you out of your car and into transit. (only partly a joke) Your read this in many cities such as Portland, where the explicit long term plan is to not do anything to make cars and trucks move better, so that congestion gets worse and worse, so that (the planners think) you will climb on the bus or train or move into an apartment next to where you work. Read the justifications for building lrt: the population is going to grow by 60% in the next twenty years and there will only be 25 miles of new roads built. The PLAN to not do much about roads is taken as an absolute and then the planners say what you could do SINCE you aren't going to do more with roads. The lame idea that expanding roads does no good because they are congested in the rush hour when they are finished is used as a reason for not building roads. In reality, it does a lot of good because if you expand a two lane road to a three lane road, the road carries 50% more traffic per hour when expanded. If you hate cars, then you don't want to mention that result or you treat it as evil. Bruce Gaarder Highland Park Saint Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED]
prt, lrt, brt, *rt
In reality, the feds won't really commit to the "full funding grant agreement" until lrt HAS been shoved quite a ways down our throats, such as the tens of millions of dollars, if not more than $100 million, spent on studies and process already spent. Once that has been signed the feds and "responsible" officials, either the line is built at any cost or the $275 million that the feds contribute must be paid back. Quite a deal for something that will reduce congestion in twenty years by less than one percent and air pollution by less than one percent. I expect that so much extra congestion and pollution will be caused during the construction period that it will be more than what is saved in twenty years of operation. As far as prt being a feeder to lrt, I expect that you will hear from proponents such as Steven that the average wait between trains (as you transfer from prt to lrt) will be about the same amount of time as would have been needed to continue to your destination on prt. Not to mention the time it would take for lrt to actually travel the rest of the distance. Remember that lrt will average less than 22 mph. Of course, the lrt crowd would see that a prt implementation would make it very obvous how poor a solution lrt is to most problems it is supposed to address. Right now, the lrt forces are gearing up to shove a central corridor lrt (along I-94 or University) down our throats. How about prt along there? But I think that prt folks have said that you need to install a good chunk of network to make it pay off, that a corridor approach like lrt is too limiting. I have mentioned a site maintained by a University of Washington professor that covers several alternative visions of intelligent transportation systems, including more types of prt than Taxi-2000. Be advised that there are some projects out there that seem not to be grounded in reality, like the one who technical types informed me that auto air conditioners and heaters run solely on electricity and thus could plug into the carrier platforms of their system that you would drive you car onto to be whisked through the sky at 60-100 mph. I advised them to go to a car dealer (since it was fairly obvious that they did not own a car) and ask for an introduction to what lies under the car's hood. As far as why there isn't prt installed and running, well, there are many things that might come into play. Insurance and liability, the industrial/ planning complex that pushes rail, the government agencies that would see the importance of the mass transit system diminish (and thus their own importance based on the number of employees and budget). I have read that a Swedish study showed that prt was a popular idea, but I haven't heard that they have signed a contract. Steven mentioned 85 mpg for prt, but autos, in limited numbers, are already approaching 70 mpg. Technology will continue apace. Bruce Gaarder Highland Park Saint Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED] Jon Kelland wrote: > This seems to be a case that if in impressive enough > test track were develpoed with reasonable costs, it > would catch the popular imagination and sell itself. > Instead, we have LRT being rammed down our throats, > without having federal dollars committed as of yet. > > I suppose that any PRT development at this point will > have to work off of the assumption the LRT will be in > place (at least this initial line) and work as feeders > and then cover the rest of the metro area...which > might not be a bad deal (for the taxi 200 folks, not > the general public) since the (assumably) private > investment will work well off of the publicly financed > line from downtaown to the airport and mall.
Re: Hi-Lke shopping center
John Rocker says that he would like to see privately funded redevelopment at Hi-Lake. The city and the Met council have set aside $9 million so far to support redevelopment near the train stops. I expect that at least 1/3 is aimed at Hi-Lake, since there are only four "catalyst" stations in the whole route, according to the state's lrt fact book. Remember, after the first ten years of lrt operations in Portland, the level of development around stations (except for publicly built sports facilities and a convention center) was so low that a ten year property tax abatement was made available to developments within 1/4 (or maybe 1/2) mile of a station. If Hiawatha lrt survives the many court challenges, you will see it being given credit for new development at the Megamall, the airport, and downtown. Counuting the $55 million being written off to highway funds for the Lake Street lrt bridge, the budget is $680 million. Funny how the low bid is 20% under the next higher bid... A few quotes from the 1994 Met Council report "Keeping the Twin Cities Vital: Impacts of Light Rail Transit on the Fully Developed Area". "LRT and other major transit capital investments can serve as a long-term development tool to channel a portion of new regional growth along specific transportation corridors. New development would occur over time, primarily around stations. The full development potential would only be realized probably after 10 to 20 years of LRT operation, and would occur ONLY IF THERE IS AVAILABLE LAND AND AN OVERALL REGIONAL DEMAND FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, AND ONLY WITH AGGRESSIVE PROACTIVE CITY INVOLVEMENT IN ATTRACTING DEVELOPMENT." (caps were italic in original) "However, in virtually every city with rail transit, even in Toronto, where intense residentiall and mixed use development has occurred around the rail stations, the amount of new development induced to concentrate around stations has been only a very small fraction of all new regional development." "A comprehensive economic development plan would work with LRT as its centerpiece if coupled with land use planning, financial incentives to attract investment, provision of necessary infrastructure, land clean-up and land assembly, community involvement, zoning and other regulatory controls." "However, no significant level of net new employment is anticipated in the region because of LRT, nor in these LRT corridors, beyond what has been forecasted, unless cities are extremely aggressive in channeling new job growth around stations." Bruce Gaarder Highland Park Saint Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: light rail and Metrodome games
Beyond what David posted, the design specs for Hiawatha lrt sets the capacity of the electrical substations to be sufficient to run 3-car trains no closer than 5 minutes apart. And that was the original, I'm not sure whether it was cut back to save money. That means that even if there was a special track for the dome, the trains couldn't go anywhere quickly. Remember that the round trip from the Nicollet Mall was supposed to take 62 minutes, 75 with layover time. That'll be a few more with the extension to the warehouse district. I don't know whether there is going to be a cross-over point between the dome and the downtown end of the line. The extra cars could come from the Cedar-Riverside yards, but might have to go all the way to the end of the line to cross over to the right tracks. Some cars will be occupied with scheduled runs that departed downtown before the game, so you would have 2 to 6 cars not available for the fans' specials, depending on how many cars per sccheduled run. So, even if you had the trains configured with three cars (meaning 5 to 6 total trains), you could serve around 360 riders per train. A total of 2,160 riders per set of trains with the following schedule for a game that lets out at 6 pm: Time Cumulative riders 6:00 360 6:05 720 6:10 1,080 6:15 1,440 6:20 1,800 6:25 2,160 then a wait until the scheduled trains that left before the game come back, probably no earlier than 7:00. Needs a big waiting area. And the numbers above only work if you can load 360 people in less than five minutes. Bruce Gaarder Highland Park Saint Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED]
lrt
Jack asked who ever said lrt would be any help at the dome. If you go through the various documents and puffery about "why it should be built", you find city staffers advocating for the separate siding and others talking about it eliminating congestion at games. I agree with Jack that it's stupid to think that it would have any real effect on congestion at games. Guess what, those pushing for lrt or a busway on West 7th Street in Saint Paul are using the Wild as a justification. They are even less likely to have customers using such a line than the dome does. Richard Carney asks who will pay the overruns. By definition, if a federal Full Funding Grant Agreement is signed, the city, county, and state are on the hook for all overruns because the terms require that the project must be completed and operated for the full term of the agreement (20 or 30 years) or all federal funds granted by the agreement must be repaid. As a side note, they tried a big push in San Diego to get people to use the trolley to go to a big game (world series or superbowl). Even the mayor rode it. Had a big problem when the line totally stopped something like 30 minutes before game time. It was eventually restarted (possibly by only having so many trains in operation at one time) and people got to the game just before it started. I think that there were more problems after the game. The mayor said that he wouldn't use the trolley again to get to the stadium. Bruce Gaarder Highland Park Saint Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: lrt, prt, and a dome
Steven gave you some math one how many people prt could carr,y in theory, from a game. At a rate of 120 cars per hour, with many going a fair distance, what is the total number of cars needed, since you would also be expected to serve the normal system needs as well as the sports fans? I had made a comment about the lrt folks not being likely to want prt as feeders. I guess that I didn't express it well enough, since Steven didn't see my point. Let's say that you use prt to feed lrt at Franklin, Lake, 38th, 46th, Minnehaha Park, and whatever the other station is near the VA hospital. If these prt lines extend west across town to Hennepin and there is just one north-south prt line, say along Nicollet, the time to take prt west from the lrt to Nicollet and north to downtown is probably less than taking the lrt to downtown from that stop. It almost certainly would be faster from Cedar, for example. And you wouldn't need to transfer. So the only way that the lrt pushers would back prt feeders is if there were no north-south lines. But I don't think that they would back it anyway... Bruce Gaarder Highland Park Saint Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Greenway cleanup, new types of taxes
Ann Freeman wrote a while back about all of the junk that citizens cleaned out of the Greenway trench (just before it opened?). I found that interesting because I thought that constructing the Greenway should have included such clean-up. M. Hohmann wrote about shifting the tax mix and thought that more taxes on fossil fuels would be a good thing, with diesel being the most highly taxed and gasoline being less so, because it is cleaner. I read something a while back in the paper about the state's tax department looking ahead to the more fuel-efficient cars and wanting to shift away from that tax because they foresaw collections dropping dramatically in the next 10-20 years. In addition, there is much work being done on what is called bio- diesel, made from soybeans, I think. Would that be a fossil fuel? It is far cleaner burning than diesel. And would transit buses be taxed to move them away from conventional diesel? I doubt that Metro Transit pays any taxes... Bruce Gaarder Highland Park Saint Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Library referendum
Eric Riese never has trouble parking in the central library's little lot. I rarely find on-street parking within three blocks, whether on weekdays or on Saturdays. I can park in the lot once out of every 30 visits. There is usually a car or two waiting for a space to open up. I am usually within 1/2 block when I visit a branch. I am glad to see the Hosmer number jump up like it did. Councilmember McDonald talks about limiting TIF to the block that the library is on. Maybe I missed something, but surely the library itself pays no property taxes. Wouldn't it be better, if TIF is to be used, to apply it to an adjoining block where the library isn't the major tenant? Maybe you can't use TIF if the building isn't within the TIF district, but for projects for tax-exempt buildings, it seems unreasonable to limit the district to the block that the library is on. Bruce Gaarder Highland Park Saint Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: library referendum
Ann Wurdeman thinks that nice libraries are the reason that people use the suburban libraries more. I see heavy use in some Saint Paul branches that are far from nice and spacious. There was a posting about the difference in emphasis between the Minneapolis and Hennepin systems a while back. It said that Hennepin has more fiction among other differences. That might explain some of it, they certainly tend to have more copies of "popular" books. Try doing a search on a popular new mystery on the various systems and then look at the number of people in line with holds. I've seen 400-500 on some titles in Hennepin. I use Saint Paul, Ramsey, Hennepin, and Minneapolis libraries heavily. I do online searches to find books and get them from the most convenient place. Sometimes I pick them up on my lunch hour, sometimes on the weekend. How many Minneapolis libraries are open on Sunday? Even the Southdale branch is closed on Sundays in the summer. I think that some Hennepin branches are even closed on Saturdays in the summer. Most Ramsey and Saint Paul libraries are open weekends. Many non-fiction books are only in one system or even one library. Of course, a lot are in the colleges and universities, but I haven't yet tried to borrow from the U via inter-library loan and I don't know how well that works. Having more books on the shelf is good, but there are issues with putting books out that nobody will check out, even if they are available. Are there any frequency distributions of the number of times that books have been checked out? It would seem that you could set some minimum number of checkouts per year before a book would be out in the public area. I also wonder how well compact shelving will work, since at present, there are usually? people in each aisle, which you can't have with compact shelving. Would I support the referendum? Don't know, don't have to figure it out. I did post about the cost for the upcoming refurbishment of the Saint Paul central library, which is a lot less than the Minneapolis replacement. It seems that you have to try to assess whether your are going to get full value for the dollar or whether it is "gold-plated" specs. Bruce Gaarder Highland Park Saint Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: automated dialers and recordings
It was suggested that the invitation to leave a message would allow these automated messages. Rich Chandler suggested that he might put a message saying that no solicitations were wanted... I very strongly doubt that whatever is driving these automated systems has the capability of interpreting what is said in the the message that answers the call, so it wouldn't make any difference what the message says. Bruce Gaarder Highland Park Saint Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: automated dialers and recordings
I attributed a comment to Rich Chandler that was made by Rich McMartin... Sorry about the mixup. Rich Chandler says that he doesn't get these calls because he has an unlisted number. I have an unpublished number (one step past unlisted) and I still get calls from blind dialing, where they don't know/care who the number is assigned to. Since it's the last gasp of electioneering, I'll point out that my polling place changed since last year and I got helpful postcards for both the primary and general elections listing the approved DFL candidates and where I should go to vote...the old polling place. Bruce Gaarder Highland Park Saint Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: turnout and ballot design
Russ Peterson complained about the ovals on the ballot. It must be a Minneapolis thing, the ballot I filled out yesterday in Saint Paul still had the arrows. Of course, the ballot was so tall that the ballot privacy folder didn't shield all of the votes as you slid it into the machine. Bruce Gaarder Highland Park Saint Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: turnout and ballot design
In my post yesterday, I referred to privacy folders and Andy asked what I meant. I was referring to the cardboard sleeves that the ballot is enclosed in when it is given to you. It is meant to keep others from seeing how you voted as you feed the ballot into the counting machine. Tuesday's ballot left a couple of inches of votes visible because the ballot was much longer than the sleeve. Bruce Gaarder Highland Park Saint Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: privacy folders
I wasn't trying to start a long thread about the folders., just making an observation. The way that they are supposed to work is that enough non-voting length sticks out at the top to get sucked into the machine without showing your votes. Indeed, there isn't, so far as I know, much privacy if the ballot needs to be re-fed because it didn't read correctly. The person ahead of me had to try three times, taking the sheet out of the reject slot and putting it back in again. The more candidates/issues on a side, the more likely thst the ballot will grow to be too long for the folders. There are probably some kind of standards about how large the type must be to make it readable by the most people. We certainly don't need 8 point type on the ballots. I'm a little surprised that just getting ballots copied at Kinko's would work, given the likely requirements for length and ink colors. Not to mention that the original sheets probably are numbered and need to be accounted for. Just because Kinko's copier said that it made exactly 1,000 copies doesn't mean that it might not be off by 1 either way. Bruce Gaarder Highland Park Saint Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED]
URBs of all kinds
Dave Dix has made a good point about Minneapolis' transition into
entertainment. A good book on this is "Fantsay City: Pleasure and Profit
in the Postmodern Metropolis" by John Hannigan. Available at some of the
college libraries, Mpls ("for use in the library") and Hennepin.
The comments on the list about small towns and cities, suburbs, and exurbs
brings to mind the often quoted surveys that most Americans would like to
live in "small towns", whatever that means, that are used by urban planners
(out of touch) to show why we should spend lots of money to build "walkable
communities". The examples here show that those who do live in small towns
won't be lured into the city by 1930s stytle "small town" imitations.
As someone else said, people live where they want to live. You may not
want to live in Woodbury, but a whole lot of people do. What makes you
so much "better" than they are? If you don't like a place, don't move there.
I grew up across from the tennis courts at Powderhorn Park, lived a couple
of years in Edina, lived seven years at 37th and Colfax, and have been in
the Highland Park area of Saint Paul for twenty years. I wouldn't move to
most any suburb because they aren't central enough for me. In most weeks,
I travel to three of the four quadrants of the metro area, depending on
what my purpose is.
Another good book is "The United States of Suburbia: How the Suburbs Took
Control of America and What They Plan to Do With It" by G. Scott Thomas.
Remember that we had suburbs here a hundred years ago. There is an
interesting statistic that says that most people have lived within a half
hour commuting distance of their work for 150 years and more, and that this
behavior may possibly be traced back to the time of the Romans. Whether
the commute was by foot, horse, cart, streetcar, bus, or auto, the average
time has remained in the 20-30 minute range.
Bruce Gaarder
Highland Park Saint Paul
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Leaves in the street
I don't know whether Minneapolis has an ordinance against putting leaves and grass clippings in the street, but Saint Paul does. I don't know whether it is enforced. I do see lots of people putting leaves in the street, especially commercial lawn services... Bruce Gaarder Highland Park Saint Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: parking meters
The official position that people park too long at meters (undesirable) and that they should be driven into ramps by (1) raising meter rates and (2) removing meters is self-defeating. Yes, you will have fewer people driving into the downtown area, but they also won't be doing business there if they can help it. I expect that the plan for the new library removes the lot with meters and replaces it with a ramp that matches the rates of other ramps. I often drive into downtown on errands that take 15-20 minutes including walking from and to the meter. It has become much harder now that there are fewer meters (in total) and many that have hoods because of onstruction. I won't pay the ramp rates for the first hour to honor a downtown business with my dollars when they are 10-15 times what I need to put in a meter. I can't remember the details of the study that the city commissioned to "prove" that closing most or all of 5th Street for lrt and part of 4th Street to handle the buses that will be moved from 5th, as well as changes related to "The Avenue of The Arts". I think that the study suggested removing even more meters. There are places where there isn't enough capacity on the sidewalks for the people who are there now, much less than in 20 years. Of course, the study showed how realistic it was by predicting that 5th Street with lrt and one lane for traffic would carry 40% to 60% of today's vehicles during rush hour in twenty years. The fancy new meters can handle card in addition to coins. I thought that would be great, no running out of quarters (another sore point: meters that don't take dimes and nickels). But the only time that I checked, it cost $10 to get set up on the plan and there weren't many places that you could get them, maybe only one. Needless to say, with it costing 40 quarters to help out the city and it being inconvenient to boot, I keep a little bag of quarters in the car. I always have them and they are a good backup if I need to pick up a paper out of a street box. The paper boxes seem to be able to handle other coins, as well. At least the city hasn't installed the meter upgrade that is available. It is a device that is able to tell when your car leaves the space. It then clears the remaining time on the meter, so that nobody else can park on what's left of your time. The other thing that I kind of expect is that meters will be equipped with cell phones or radios that can signal a meter monitor when your time runs out, so that they don't miss any fines. It's so inefficient for them to just drive around looking for expired meters... The lrt, if it survives the current court cases, will let you get into downtown to walk, if you drive to the GSA building or the Megamall, pay $1.50, and spend 1/2 hour getting downtown. That's obviously so much better than driving into town and parking at a meter. Bruce Gaarder Highland Park Saint Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE:police...
Does Holle Brian feel that her neighborhood is under-policed, over-policed, or appropriately-policed after being mugged in her kitchen? Does she feel that the police responded in an appropriate time and manner to her 911 call? Jordan Kushner suggests shooting the car's engine and tires if it is driving straight at the police and being used as a weapon. I suggest that this won't do much good at the speeds that were likely encountered, unless the police are carrying assault weapons. Handguns don't have the power to penetrate the engine block at any distance, and the car won't be disabled unless you hit something like the distributor or engine computer. You would probably puncture the radiator, but that won't stop the car until it overheats. You can still drive on flat or nearly flat tires at highway speeds, they just tend to catch fire after a while, as well as shredding. As far as electing the chief of police, aren't there some stories across the country about problems in that arena too, where the city then went to appointed chiefs? I seem to recall such, but don't have anything at my fingertips. Bruce Gaarder Highland Park Saint Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED]
re:police
The likely result of being shot wile trying to run someone down is the sudden lack of ability to control the car, keep the gas pedal on the floor, etc. It is highly unlikely that the shot person will think anything like what Rosalind wrote, if indeed they are able to form any thoughts at all, perhaps being instantly dead. Just consider what you can aim at in a car coming straight at you, namely a head in the windshield. Not a likely candidate for a leg wound... I do wish that Minneapolis would have kept its drug dealers and police on the west side of the river, though, instead of having a shoot-out on West 7th. Bruce Gaarder Highland Park Saint Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED] Rosalind Nelson wrote: > Regarding the two recent shootings, Bruce Gaarder points out that shooting > the engine and tires probably won't stop a car. I don't see how shooting > the driver accomplishes that, either. The driver is not likely to think, > "Gee, I better move my foot from the gas pedal to the brake before I die so > nobody else gets hurt."
Re: Leahy and lrt
Tim wondered about how Art Leahy quitting might affect the lrt project. I don't know whether they hired a deputy for lrt yet. I believe that they did hire an lrt maintenance director already, which I thought seemed far in advance of need, since there won't be anything to maintain for two or three years. The Federal Transit Adminitration has submitted it for approval. This can have three results: approval, rejection, or (most likely) approval by 60 days of inaction. That's why Met council was so happy about it being submitted before December, because the 60 days inaction period would extend past the January 31 dealine for state funds. Once the feds and state/local authorities have signed the full funding agreement, the budget overruns will begin to become visible, since a full funding agreement commits the feds to a fixed dollar amount and the state, county, and cities will have to pay everything else, no matter how great, to finish the line and operate it for the 20 years projected or pay back everything the feds paid. I don't understand why the city was in such a hurry to build the 4th Street contraflow bus lane ($865,000) before the project was approved, since it would be at least a year before it would be needed due to closing 5th for construction. After all, we still don't know where the Cedar-Riverside stop will be located. In a related topic, Portland recently announced the results of improving bus service along a certain route by the unprecedented track of doing what the riders wanted, such as more frequent service, schedules posted at stops, longer hours (I think), and more straight-forward routes. Ridership is up by 20%. Around here they think that ridership might go up 25% by spending four times as much on lrt as they would on a better bus service. So, we'll get a 5% increase in ridership for a 400% increase in spending. Same kind of ridiculous idea on the extension of lrt to Apple Valley as opposed to a busway. Bruce Gaarder Highland Park Saint Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Discussion on TIF
According to the Star, there will be "a two-hour forum exploring whether the public is winning or losing from a development strategy called tax-increment financing" Monday 12/4 at 7 pm at the Olin-Rice Science Center. Lyle Wray - Citizens League Susan Haigh - Ramsey County Kenneth Kriz - Humphrey Institute Pam Neary - former legislator Olin-Rice is a block west of Snelling, about half-way between Saint Clair and Grand. It's at the south end of the academic buildings and at the northwest corner of the football field. You can probably visit the web site at www.macalester.edu for a map. Bruce Gaarder Highland Park Saint Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Comparing libraries
I read the coverage of the new Ridgedale library and how use has increased. It made me wonder if anyone can contrast what they got for their $22 million and what Minneapolis will get for the dollars to be spent on the downtown library. I know that there are branch projects in the overall figure, so I know that I don't have a grip on what the difference is. Bruce Gaarder Highland Park Saint Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED]
TIF decertification
Maybe I don't understand this, but how can tax capacity for the whole city, as defined by Jack Kryst, be only $54.7 million? Maybe he meant BILLION? After all, 1,000 homes at $60,000 would be $60 million (before homestead credits). I have to believe that the city receives more than $54 million in property tax revenues. Bruce Gaarder Highland Park Saint Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED] Jack Kryst wrote: > > After discussing the really big numbers that describe the City's estimated > market value I suppose the tax capacity numbers seem small. The City's total > captured tax capacity is approximately $54.7 million for tax collected in > 2001. $31 million is a big piece of the total. Keep in mind that we are > talking about tax capacity, the number to which the local tax rate is > applied to determine the amount of property tax a property own pays.
Re: bus driver beating
I think that I replied in private rather than posting about the lrt security issue. The transit police force is expected to expand by about 1/3 when the trains start. That means, if I remember correctly, 30 police officers to handle 10 2-car trains, as opposed to about 90 for 900+ buses. Looking at Tim's posting, while a full lrt train might carry 250 riders, the ratio above means that each train could have a police officer at all times, while each bus could have an officer about 1/30 of the time, if all officers were riding at all times. Those figures are based on round-the-clock operations with all officers riding instead of doing other things, so maybe the bus figure (given shorter hours and fewer buses operating off-hours) could be about 1/10 of the time. To me and to a bus driver, the trains will have more than 10 times the protection of transit police. Passenger miles aren't a good measure for security. Vehicle miles might be. Remember that rush hour figures predict 2,500 trips per peak hour in the peak direction. So if you use 2.5 hours of rush am and pm, that means that about 15,000 of the daily trips will be to/from downtown during rush hour and the other 10,000 predicted for 2020 will take place during the other 15 hours of operation, or no more than 670 per hour in both directions combined. Dividing that by 4-6 trains per hour in each direction, might make you believe that each non-rush train would be carrying 50-85 riders. You'll look hard to find that when you stand by the tracks. It's actually fewer when you factor in reverse commute traffic during rush hour. Of course the starting year figures are about 3/4 of these figures. Bruce Gaarder Highland Park Saint Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tim Bonham wrote: > It seems obvious to me that the bus drivers & riders will come out much > better than LRT in this. After all, you will have 1 LRT driver for several > hundred passengers, vs. about 2 or 3 dozen passengers / driver on the bus > system. So based just on these numbers, the bus system is likely to be > spending much more per passenger mile on security.
