MnLRT...Moving Minnesoootans Through the New Century
Published Friday 11 Feb 2000, Star Tribune
Editorial: Making tracks -- Killing LRT would hurt state competitiveness
? Copyright 2000 Star Tribune. All rights reserved
It was good to see Gov. Jesse Ventura maneuvering his considerable bulk into Minnesota's transportation debate last week, making an appearance at the Senate Transportation Committee, then hosting a tumultuous town meeting in south Minneapolis.
As Metropolitan Council Chairman Ted Mondale likes to say: "This governor gets it" on transportation. We only hope the Legislature does. For the sake of the state's future, it should set aside whatever grievances it has with this governor and begin to repair the damage that years of neglect have brought to both transit and roads.
Legislators must get beyond small rivalries and begin to understand that the basic unit of competition in the new global economy is the region. Like it or not, the Twin Cities region (including all of Minnesota) is locked in a contest to secure a prosperous future by attracting and retaining the best jobs and the most talented workers. These are people who can choose to live anywhere. Increasingly, they are choosing places with a high quality of life. Increasingly, they are choosing livable, walkable communities with good roads and, especially, with modern transit systems.
It's here that Minnesota has fallen woefully behind. Decades of infighting between urban, rural, highway and transit interests has served only to help Minnesota's competitors.
No, Ventura should not have vetoed those bridge projects after the Legislature adjourned last spring. But in the bigger scheme of things, it matters little whether Mankato gets a new bridge before Hibbing, or whether the governor or Legislature wins some short-term power struggle.
What matters is that Colorado voters easily passed a $2.16 billion package last year to expand Denver's light-rail system and to add new freeway lanes; that Salt Lake City's new LRT system opened last December to overwhelming demand; that Dallas can't extend its LRT lines fast enough to satisfy commuters; that Seattle, Portland, St. Louis, San Jose, San Diego and even Houston (last of the big-time highway spenders), are pushing ahead with rail starts or extensions. These are Minnesota's competitors, regions that are facing squarely the transportation/ sprawl dilemma.
Ventura was right when he told legislators that this session offers "an unusual opportunity to make up for lost time." He was right to urge them to look ahead rather than to refight tired old battles on lightrail. Truth is, LRT has already has left the station, and happily so. The Hiawatha Line should be running by 2004 and, after that, a network of other bus and rail projects should begin.
It's hard to imagine that responsible Republicans will much longer take seriously Rep. Phil Krinkie, R-Shoreview, who has sued the governor and convinced his caucus to revoke the state's $100 million commitment to Hiawatha. Surely the larger Legislature knows the competitive damage this would do to Minnesota.
Krinkie and his allies were badly overmatched at last week's town meeting. They are reduced now, it seems, to dark, fanciful conspiracy theories, wild accusations and gross distortions of "big-rigging" and "boondoggles."
"Sometimes I'm ashamed to be a conservative," said Paul Weyrich after hearing Krinkie's presentation. Wey rich, an important intellectual influence in the rebirth of modern, Reagan-era Republicanism, sees the conservative nature of transit investment. It saves billions over time by reducing the need for redundant infrastructure on the metro fringe. And it saves big social costs by connecting urban communities to jobs in the prosperous suburbs.
"An extraordinary opportunity," Weyrich called Hiawatha, noting its connections to Minnesota's highest traffic generators: 140,000 downtown Minneapolis workers, 50,000 at the University of Minnesota, 8,000 at Fort Snelling, 93,000 travelers a day at the airport, 118,000 shoppers at the Mall of America, not to mention projections of 67,000 new jobs along the route by 2020.
"What we're talking about here is a dramatic shift in public policy," Krinkie complained. Indeed. Minnesotans have finally joined other Americans in realizing that the highway monoculture doesn't work, and that it must give way to more balanced investment if future prosperity is to be secured.
Ventura's transportation program isn't perfect, as his foolish cap on tab fees attests. But he's on the right track.
? Copyright 2000 Star Tribune. All rights reserved