Foung Hawj

Congratulations to Foung Hawj in winning the Minnesota Senate seat for District 67.

He will do great things for our district and our state.

Winning

A bus driver commented on the previous post to say that I've won.

I have great respect for bus drivers. Bus drivers are the public transit backbone of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. They are the host, cashier, security guard, information desk, and driver with full steering and braking capabilities. Next to teachers and farmers, bus drivers have the most thankless job.

About winning, I respectfully disagree.

The current concept of the Gateway Corridor is a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) along Hudson Road with light rail as either a secondary choice or a future replacement of the BRT.

The concept is flawed and likely to change.

Hudson Road in Saint Paul is mostly residential, although less residential than previous alternatives (3rd Street East, 7th Street East, & Minnehaha Avenue). Hudson Road has families, kids, and the elderly.

Rapid transit does not belong on residential streets.

Here's a Google satellite view of houses on Hudson Road.

Interstate 94 used to be US Highway 12, a highway that climbed the eastside hills instead of cutting through them. Before it was US Highway 12, it was Hudson Road. Remnants of old Hudson Road are a dashed line. They are incomplete. How would a transit line connect the pieces? How would Hudson Road and Old Hudson Road connect? How would a transit line bridge the Johnson Parkway valley at I-94?

Buses can be steered and are expected to stop on a dime. Buses make sense for residential neighborhoods. But the concept of Bus Rapid Transit is to have the bus lanes separated from other traffic. Picture two lanes with bordering curbs on either side. It has been said that BRT hasn't been done before in Minnesota, but I disagree. The University of Minnesota campus bus runs between the Minneapolis and Saint Paul campuses. It runs on a road with no other traffic south of the State Fairgrounds.

If I were a bus driver, I would like the bus separated from other traffic, yeah, providing the snow plows can differentiate between short curbs and snow piles, and not chop the curbs up into the road. I would want to be able to steer around obstacles, a ball or a kid, and not be forced to hit them like a train would. How fast is Rapid on a residential road?

The Gateway Corridor Commission says the bus will travel 9.8 miles (from Oaks Business Park to Union Depot) in 17 minutes. That's an average of 35 mph. That's too fast for a residential road and too slow for rapid transit. Light rail would take 15 minutes at an average speed of 39 mph. Public transit buses (MTC) currently crisscross the eastside of Saint Paul. Buses drive 55 mph on I-94 (that's bus rapid transit). What is the purpose of the Gateway Corridor?

▼ What is the justification of spending millions of dollars on transit consultants?
▼ What is the justification of a construction project that would disrupt lives and businesses?
▼ What is the justification of half a billion dollars for a bus or a billion dollars for a train?
▼ How could they possibly imagine that rapid transit could be safe on residential streets?!?

Maybe the Gateway Corridor Commission works on commission. It's tough to understand why Lisa Weik, Kathy Lantry, and the others are doing this. Their materials mention Oaks Business Park in Oakdale, at 7755 Third Street North, Oakdale, MN 55128, which is owned by the Carlson Real Estate Company of Minnetonka. What is their connection to the Gateway Corridor? Is this the development that the Gateway Corridor will help?

The latest Gateway Corridor plans estimate 9,000 daily riders whether the vehicle is a bus or a train. The Gateway Corridor Commission says 90,000 vehicles cross the I-94 St. Croix River Bridge every day, but the Gateway Corridor will not cross the I-94 St. Croix River Bridge. The ridership is fictional. Conrad deFiebre says the bus ridership would be closer to 6,000 which sounds closer to actual ridership.

Friday morning traffic on I-94

None of this makes sense. The Gateway Corridor Commission has not inspired confidence that they know what they're doing, like when their leader Lisa Weik confused light rail with 1950s streetcars.

It's like arguing on the Internet. How could anyone win?

China Provides the Rail Model

China's system of high-speed rail has become the model railroad for United States passenger rail. Over the past ten years, a rail gap opened between China and the United States, with the United States (supposedly) left at the station. Next week's New Yorker magazine fills in the details.

Boss Rail 

by Evan Osnos
The New Yorker
October 22, 2012

On the morning of July 23, 2011, passengers hurried across Beijing South Station at the final call to board bullet train D301, heading south on the world’s largest, fastest, and newest high-speed railway, the Harmony Express. It was bound for Fuzhou, fourteen hundred miles away.

Beijing South Station is shaped like a flying saucer, its silvery vaulted ceiling illuminated by skylights. It contains as much steel as the Empire State Building and can handle two hundred and forty million people a year, thirty per cent more than New York’s Penn Station, the busiest stop in America. When Beijing South opened, in 2008, it was the largest station in Asia; then Shanghai stole the crown. In all, some three hundred new stations have been built or revitalized by China’s Railway Ministry, which has nearly as many employees as the civilian workforce of the United States government.

When the passengers for D301 reached the platform, they encountered a vehicle that looked less like a train than a wingless jet: a tube of aluminum alloy, a quarter of a mile from end to end, containing sixteen carriages, painted in high-gloss white with blue racing stripes. The guests were ushered aboard by female attendants in Pan Am-style pillbox hats and pencil skirts; each attendant, according to regulations, had to be at least five feet five inches tall, and was trained to smile with exactly eight teeth visible. A twenty-year-old college student named Zhu Ping took her seat, then texted her roommate that she was about to “fly” home on the rails. “Even my laptop is running faster than usual,” she wrote. [continue]


Update: On January 4, 2014, China Railway president Bai Zhongren jumped to his death from a fourth-story window. Zhongren suffered from depression due to his company’s huge debt and corruption scandals. China Railway Group is the state-owned engineering giant behind China's largest railway projects and was the rail model for recent U.S. passenger rail expansion.

Federal Oversight for Light Rail

It's about time.

The U.S. Transportation Department is drafting safety requirements for the nation's light rail trains.

If you've read any information about light rail crashes or the 2009 Federal Transit Administration Study (FTA-CA-26-7007.2010.1) or the Bureau of Transportation Statistics on crashes, you know that there is much work to do to introduce safety to street-level light rail trains.


More information from the Washington Post and Government Technology.

Mai Village Needs Your Help

Saint Paul's Mai Village at 394 University Avenue West needs your help.

The Vietnamese restaurant is facing foreclosure is they don't come up with $150,000 in the next few weeks.

According to Save Mai Village Facebook: A trust fund to save Mai Village is at Western Bank, 663 University Avenue W, Saint Paul, MN 55104. Donations can be sent there directly, payable to "Save Mai Village." Please send only checks and include your name and all contact information. In the event that Mai Village can't be saved, your donation will be returned to you. Donation checks can also be dropped off at Mai Village, payable to "Save Mai Village."

The owners have a notice from the sheriff about an October 24th sale.

Losing this business would be a loss for the entire Saint Paul community.

Minnesota Light Rail Meetings

Here are some upcoming light rail meetings for Saint Paul & Woodbury, Minnesota:

Central Corridor - Capitol Area Public Construction Information Meeting
Wednesday, September 5, 2012, 3 pm

Stassen Building, Room 2000, 600 N Robert Street, St. Paul 55101
Information



Turning Saint Paul's West Charles Avenue into a Bikeway
proposed bicycle boulevard for 31/2 miles along Charles Avenue from North Aldine Street to Park Street
••  a bikeway is currently several blocks to the north on West Minnehaha Avenue (redundant)

••  snow plows won't plow small residential roundabouts (7 roundabouts planned)
••  traffic will increase on Sherburne & West Edmund Avenues (parallel residential roads)

Wednesday, September 5, 2012, 5:30 pm
Saint Paul City Council Public Hearing, Council Chambers, City Hall, 15 W Kellogg, Saint Paul, MN 55102
News, Information, Plans part 1, Plans part 2, & Reactions
Saint Paul Budget: Mayor Coleman's 2013 budget raises property taxes & water fees (Documents)


Gateway Corridor Commission Update  
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Woodbury City Hall, 8301 Valley Creek Road, Woodbury, MN 55125
Meeting topics and dates frequently change. Participants are strongly encouraged to contact Kim Blaeser, city clerk, at 651-714-3500 or kblaeser@ci.woodbury.mn.us to verify meeting schedules and times.
Woodbury Workshop

Saint Paul & Woodbury August 14 Primary Election Candidates

Update August 15, 2012: Congratulations to Foung Hawj on winning the State Senator District 67 - Democrat Primary



Vote for Tom Dimond - State Senator District 67

Here's what Tom Dimond says when asked about the Gateway Corridor plan to run a train on residential streets:
"I served on a transportation task force for District 1. We strongly recommended against LRT running down White Bear Ave and through single family residential neighborhoods. We recommended that if LRT is built it should be located in the I-94 corridor. The plan was approved by District 1. I have attended meetings in Dayton's Bluff District 4 and District 5 and many people had similar concerns. I support the District 1 Transportation Plan."

Or vote for Foung Hawj - State Senator District 67

Here's what the campaign manager for Foung Hawj says when asked about the Gateway Corridor plan to run a train on residential streets:
"We have not really had a chance to develop a policy on the proposed Gateway Corridor, but as we have seen with the Central Corridor light rail, this is very disruptive to neighborhood residents and businesses. Foung believes that any project in our neighborhoods should only be pursued after those most affected by it have a chance to have their concerns not only heard, but also addressed to their satisfaction. He showed that when he brought community concerns to the District 2 meetings about the new Cub Food at Phalen Blvd. and at many other occasions. Foung has been a community activist for the past 21 years. When he gets elected, it will be on the strengths of his community support. He will not be beholden to any special interest groups, but only his community on the Eastside."

Vote for Nancy Remakel - Washington County Commissioner from Woodbury

The Washington County Commissioner representing Woodbury is Lisa Weik, who is the chair of the Gateway Corridor Commission. The Gateway Corridor is a set of transportation concepts in search of a goal that often shows light rail running on the residential streets of St. Paul. According to the April 2012 commission meeting minutes Weik stated, "This is something very real and the timing is right if the east metro comes on line now with a transit system that they haven't seen since the 1950's and the streetcars."

The streetcars of the 1950s and earlier are not the 49,000 lb. (when empty) Bombardier Flexify light rail trains used on the Hiawatha Line. Light rail trains cannot stop quickly; that's not their purpose. Accidents happen.

Nancy Remakel is running against Weik for Washington County Commissioner. She states that she knows the difference between a streetcar and a light rail train.

Vote for someone other than Jim McDonough - Ramsey County Commissioner - District 5

Long time Ramsey County Commissioner Jim McDonough continues to push for the light rail transit line (LRT) to zig-zag through Eastside residential streets, as a means to attract a buyer to the mostly leveled 3M plant (dubbed Beacon Bluff) at Minnehaha and Arcade.

Vote for someone other than Tim Mahoney - State Representative District 67A

Minnesota State Representative Tim Mahoney talked about what great things the Hiawatha Line did for the Lake and Hiawatha intersection and was quickly corrected by the crowd (at the Gateway Corridor meeting in March 2012).


For the best candidate information, go to Vote411.org (League of Women Voters).

Other information is available through the Secretary of State's Office.

Urban Renewal - The Leveling of Minneapolis

Minneapolis and Saint Paul will never look like Detroit. The Twin Cities will also never look like Rome, Athens, Paris, London, Boston, or New York.

Urban renewal on top of urban renewal is a constant in the Twin Cities, as if the past is a snow that seasonally melts away.

The renewal refrain is that action is needed to spur development, whether the action is to put something in or tear something down. Minneapolis has spur scars from more than one hundred years of failed plans and leveled buildings.

Over one hundred years ago, there was another Gateway plan that was something of a disaster.

The Gateway

Minneapolis had been losing lumber and flour milling in the late 1800s. Bridge Square, the triangular area near the Hennepin Bridge, had become a haven of bars and flop houses.

Minneapolis decided to fix Bridge Square by tearing down the bars and putting up Gateway Park.

Opposed to the Gateway plan were William Folwell, former president of the University of Minnesota; Thomas Walker, creator of the Walker Art Center; and Charles Loring, the first president of the park board. Loring argued that the park would simply become a hangout for vagrants, and was philosophically opposed to the park board taking land from businesses.

The land was purchased in 1908. The city leveled 27 saloons in 1½ acres. The Gateway was dedicated in 1915. The building that housed the toilets was inscribed with the words: “More than her gates, the city opens her heart to you.” Problems emerged immediately. Park superintendent Theodore Wirth estimated 8,000-9,000 people used the Gateway toilets daily. The Gateway was insufficient to the task.

Contrary to the desires of the Gateway’s promoters, it did not lead to renewal of that part of the city. But it did become a place to hang out. Instead of flophouses and saloons, the transients had the Gateway.

In 1960, the Gateway was the focus of another urban renewal effort. The park was sold at a fraction of its purchase price, the Gateway building was leveled, as were 40% of downtown district buildings. [source1,  source2]

You Did What?!?

The Metropolitan Building (aka Northwestern Guaranty Loan Building) was one of the buildings leveled at the same time as the Gateway. The first Minneapolis skyscraper, the Metropolitan featured a 12-story tall glass covered atrium with glass floors, similar to those still found at the James J. Hill Library in St. Paul. The rooftop had a garden. It had solar lighting and a green roof. It was green before its time.

The Metropolitan was still in use when Minneapolis decided to tear it down.

Minneapolis has too many parking lots, said the Minneapolis City Council in a July 2012 Star Tribune article. The parking lots are a blight on the city. The Minneapolis City Council will study the problem.

Who leveled the buildings that created the parking lots? Minneapolis did. It always has. That's why the city of Minneapolis owns a majority of its parking lots.

The Battle for Newness

Go to Fort Snelling and read its history. For a fort that never saw battle, it has always been destroyed. And rebuilt. Destroyed and rebuilt. The 1957 highway plan called for its complete destruction. Planners know best.

Retail Plans for Downtown Minneapolis

How many plans have there been to attract retail customers to downtown Minneapolis?
    ♠ Skyways (1962) [1, 2, 3]
    ♠ City Center (1983, $50 million public subsidy)[1, 2]
    ♠ Riverplace (1985)*
    ♠ Conservatory (1987-1998, $85 million)[1, 2, 3]
    ♠ Gaviidae Common (1989, $28 million) [1, 2]
Plus two other loans Brookfield Properties defaulted on, causing Minneapolis to own the Saks portion of Gaviidae.
    ♠ Block E (2002, $39 million public subsidy)[1, 2, 3]
    ♠ Hiawatha Line (2004, $715+ million)[1, 2]
    ♠ Central Corridor (2014, $968+ million)[1, 2]

The Conservatory only lasted a decade. Why are Minneapolis buildings built to last, if they have shorter expiration dates than food?

What's wrong with skyways?

Inherently nothing, but it creates a second-story city of block-sized, unmarked boxes.

What's that box? City Center. What's in it? Nothing. What's in that box? Block E. What's in it? Nothing. So E stands for Empty?!?

There is no character, no class, no interest. No reason to stop and look. No indication of what's in it.

Most of these projects have underpinnings of the Minneapolis jealousy of the suburban malls. Or it is something more. Minneapolis wants to be something it isn't. And Saint Paul wants to be like Minneapolis. That's why it wants its own Gateway fiasco, the Gateway Corridor.



* Representative Phyllis Kahn based her opposition on the use of city-funded tax increment financing [TIF] to support [Riverplace]. "I also consider it appalling to use the public subsidy of tax increment financing for development in an area that is a prime site for private development," she declared. "If this proposal goes through, I hope that every public official who supports it will feel the righteous wrath of a taxpayers' revolt."  - Minneapolis in the Twentieth Century by Iric Nathanson, page 151.

Saint Paul's Trouble Comes From Woodbury

Common sense says that you don't put light rail trains on residential streets with children, schools, and the elderly. But what if the chair of your transportation commission doesn't know the difference between a light rail train of today and a streetcar from the 1950s?

The Washington County Commissioner representing Woodbury is Lisa Weik, who is the chair of the Gateway Corridor Commission. The Gateway Corridor is a set of transportation concepts in search of a goal that often shows light rail running on the residential streets of St. Paul. According to the April 2012 commission meeting minutes Weik stated, "This is something very real and the timing is right if the east metro comes on line now with a transit system that they haven't seen since the 1950's and the streetcars."

The streetcars of the 1950s and earlier are not the 49,000 lb. (when empty) Bombardier Flexify light rail trains used on the Hiawatha Line. Light rail trains cannot stop quickly; that's not their purpose. Accidents happen.

Nancy Remakel is running against Weik for Washington County Commissioner this November. She states that she knows the difference between a streetcar and a light rail train.

Lisa Weik is competing with the rest of the Twin Cities for light rail money, when she isn't bickering with other Washington County commissioners (video June 2011 & July 2011).

Ignoring the Amtrak train that runs through the Twin Cities (stopping midway), the Hiawatha Line is $ 715+ million (what are the downtown changes that has it closed weekends?), the Northstar (commuter) is $ 317 million (with lower than projected ridership & five MP36 diesel locomotives by MotivePower & 18 Bombardier Bilevel coaches), the Central light rail is $ 968 million (so far), the Southwest is $ 1.25 billion to start, Bottineau light rail is one billion dollars (over objections of Golden Valley), Rush light rail is $ 959 million to start, Red Rock commuter has a $ 366 million price tag, and the Gateway zigzagging light rail is $ 1.3 billion. The total of all of these non-Amtrak trains is $ 6.875 billion.

Notice that the commuter trains (Northstar, Red Rock) seem to cost a third of their light rail counterparts. Isn't it odd that the commuter option was rejected by the Gateway Commission because it's too expensive? Maybe they should look at their numbers again. Imagine, putting a train on train tracks and a railroad right-of-way instead of on a residential street!

One of the random ideas of the Gateway Corridor is to relieve congestion on Interstate 94. This is Interstate 94 just east of downtown Saint Paul on a recent Friday morning. Many places would like to have this kind of weekday congestion.

Thanks again to everyone signing the petition on the previous post.

East metro citizens do not want light rail, according to signed petitions, open house meetings, and surveys taken by state representatives. "In a recent survey of her constituents, Rep. Andrea Kieffer, a Republican from Woodbury, [said] most don’t want light rail in the area. Rep. Kathy Lohmer said her survey had similar findings." - Woodbury Patch

To the international visitors of Rip Gateway Corridor:
          Здравствуйте!
          Guten Tag!
          Olá!
          Konnichiwa!

Petition

Gateway Corridor is a light rail plan which may put a light rail train (or high speed buses) on residential streets like East 7th Street & White Bear Avenue.

Front yards should not be rail yards. The $1.2 billion, 25+ ton “light” rail train would run through residential neighborhoods, very close to several schools and hundreds of homes, and cut access to streets and businesses -- zig-zagging from Union Depot to E. 7th St. to White Bear Av., then down to I-94 and out to Woodbury. 

Putting a train on the streets doesn't leave room for traffic, parking, school buses, truck access to businesses, and puts a giant barrier across the Eastside of St. Paul.

Please sign a petition opposing Gateway Corridor (below).
►   If you like to walk or drive the neighborhood or have kids that walk across that path to school
►   If you are a business in the area and have heard what the Central Corridor has done to businesses
►   If you are concerned about light rail accidents when the train is placed in direct contact with homes and schools

Your information will be used for a petition opposing Gateway Corridor. It will not be sold or spammed by RIP Gateway Corridor.

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  Petition -- Opposing Gateway Corridor
  

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  Full Name*
  
  
  
  First Name
  Last Name
• 
  
  E-mail*
  
  
• 
  
  Type these words*
  
  
  
  
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  Should be Empty:
  
  

Thanks to everyone who has signed.

New!  Here is another Gateway Corridor petition.

Spread the word. Here's a flyer:

Signs of Light Rail

 Once upon a time, this sign was the only sign a train needed.

 

 When did railroad tracks and a road become a light railroad?

There seems to be a progression of light rail development in Minnesota:
         -- from the Hiawatha Line running mostly along side of Highway 55
                   -- to Central Corridor running on University Avenue
                             -- to the Gateway Corridor fiasco running on residential streets -- by several schools and hundreds of houses. Running on their property!

What's next -- through houses, through schools, and through playgrounds?

It gets complicated. According to this sign, we can cross the tracks perpendicularly, but otherwise we have to drive along the tracks.

Is this sign telling us that the train is in the right lane or that we should be in the right lane? Which is it?

Do not drive on the tracks. That's clear. Except, how is the train to get anywhere if it can't drive on the tracks?

Do not be a passenger? Do not successfully cross in front of a train? What does this mean?

The rules of the road become far more restrictive with a train on it. No left turn. No parking. No buses. No trucks. Block driveway? There's no room to use a driveway. And many streets will be cut off. Remember, the priority is the train. Traffic lights will be added and will change for the train. Traffic congestion will need a decongestant. The traffic decongestant will cost another billion dollars.

Watch out for the train! If you think the train will always be on the right side of the tracks, don't bet your life on it. If you think your SUV will take the impact of a 25+ ton train, think again. You are no longer the monster truck of the road. You might as well be on a bike.

Children haven't been in many accidents yet, but that's part of the long list of problems with Gateway Corridor's plans for St. Paul. Weekday afternoons, kids walk home from school. That's the way things are in this part of town.

There is no way the train can travel slow enough to brake in time, especially on these sloping streets. Not for children, the elderly, the pets, or the wildlife.

Maybe they can just say no to pedestrians. Or children aren't allowed to live in the neighborhood.

Or have some sort of mandatory Train-Dangers Kindergarten for the neighborhood.

Light rail can't fund itself (for construction or operation) so its reason for existence is ridership. Except the Gateway Corridor project doesn't project having ridership. So its goals are anything. It is a tourist train -- see St. Paul's Eastside! It's a fast commute from eastern suburbs. It's a slow local train. And it's an economic development train, that will close existing businesses.

Beacon Bluffing:  Light rail will run on the street.

Home Depot:      How will that help a Home Depot store? Will the train have a lumber-loading car?

All this for a relatively-quiet residential neighborhood. With trees.

Here comes the 25 ton (when empty) train. How quiet is it? How quiet are trucks? Ride the relatively-level Hiawatha Line through its turns. Then imagine the elevation-changing, zig-zagging Gateway Corridor train. Not quiet. Then imagine the trains and the tracks aging. Not quiet at all.

Light rail accidents happen. When the route is kept away from people and vehicles, there are fewer accidents. Accidents will be colossal if planners put tracks on residential streets.

But the signs will stop people from doing stupid things, right?

Stop Gateway Corridor.

"We talked about changing the T signs to M signs to represent Metro as in Metropolitan Council and Metro Transit. Well, a certain person from a certain Capital city said that M also stands for Minneapolis. That's the last time I bring cupcakes to a meeting, you know, the ones with the bright artificial-colored frosting? Some of those went flying like paintballs, marking everything and everyone. When the giant paintballs were gone, I found out that the T signs are TO signs, as in, 'I'm going TO somewhere' or 'I'm going TO get more cupcakes.'"

Gateway Corridor Nevermore

Quoth the raven: "Nevermore"

After that squawk, the raven continued:

"Nevermore will there be Gateway Corridor"

Take my front yard
turn it to a railroad yard
Take my front door
drop it as a station floor

Make my neighbor a convenience store

Buy off another as an ambassador

Commission a planning fool

To lay tracks small feet from school

tracks cross paths those small feet roam

and run by small feet from homes

Don't you know this means war

It's not like the trolley that came before

That was never a school class war

The gore, the gore, the gore

The train wasn't to blame, you underscore

It can't stop or steer; it's not responsible for

Four dead on the school bus; there might be more

The grief outpour...

Is that what you deplore?

Is that what you abhor?

Is that what you're sorry for?

Gateway Corridor.

Light Rail Ridership

There are certain unspoken and spoken rules about riding a light rail train.

The Light Rail Seating Rules:
1. Priority seats should be used by people with disabilities and senior citizens. They are located in the center of each train.*
2. If you sit in those seats, watch standing passengers to see if someone is in need.
          "You look old; you need to sit here."
          "I'm not as old as you."
          "You're older."
          "I'm not sitting there."
3. Don't put your feet up on empty seats.* 
4. Don't sit in the aisle seat when the window seat is empty.
5. Don't set belongings in an empty seat. Trains don't have spots for belongings, except bikes.
6. Don't slouch or cross your legs, making it difficult for people to get by you, says Chad in Denver.
7. Don't expect a seat. Light rail trains are not designed to seat everyone or even half the passengers. A full train is mostly standing passengers.

*  Announcements of rules 1 and 3 occur regularly when riding the Hiawatha Line in Minneapolis.

If the train is empty, I will sit. Otherwise, I stand, and I move out of people's way. That's my rule. Because to me, I don't care if a seat has a sign on it or not, if someone else should have a seat instead of me, I'd rather leave the seat empty than sit where they should be sitting. And I don't want to make a production out of offering my seat, so I stand. My rule, not others.

Houston has made the news for removing seats. Denver probably could too.

Minneapolis could remove empty seats too, most of the time. Driving empty seats around costs money. And when the trains are full... when leaving the Metrodome after a Vikings game, fewer seats could allow more people to pack in. Not pack as in the Packers...

Light Rail Riders
The Waterloo light rail advocates at Snapsort put together a humorously named infographic LRT For Dummies. Part of the graphic compares train and bus potential ridership by vehicle:

The funny thing is, I've never seen a train pass another train (going the same direction). And cars can't use train tracks when the train isn't there.

The Interstate 94 bridge between Minnesota and Wisconsin is now wide enough for car and truck traffic. Take away two lanes for a train. Trains could not compete with the potential traffic carried by the same two lanes, even if only cars drove in those lanes. The opportunity cost of the land (roadway, tracks... private residences) is the potential for mass transit (or otherwise), not the occupancy of vehicles.

Light Rail Advocates on Ridership

Ask light rail advocates if they use the train.
          "No, I wish! The train just doesn't go where I'm going."
          "No, I'm doing this for you."

Right. Not to free up the highway for themselves. They're doing this for me.

And for the Portland, Oregon coyote.

Light Rail News

As the Gateway Corridor light rail plans twist and turn through St. Paul in ways no railroad would design a track, it'll be a wonder if trains stay on the tracks. That's also a problem in Los Angeles.

Nortrak, a rail manufacturer, is arguing with Los Angeles on non-standard rail modifications to the Expo Line. The Los Angeles Times reports:

"The junction with its tight turn is a design that has never before been approved for MTA's passenger rail operations. The track intersection also does not conform to standards recommended by a national rail engineering group that sets design and construction guidelines for the industry.... The troublesome junction could, at least theoretically, increase the odds of a derailment should it contribute to a wheel failure or cause a train to jump the tracks at the Washington Boulevard turn..."

The story about flaws in the Expo Line is worth a read, in relation to the conceptual flaws of the Gateway Corridor.

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Crime is up and down University Avenue. KAAL-ABC, Austin, MN reports St. Paul police say the number of people getting robbed on the street is up along the Central Corridor light rail route, typically at bus stops and on street corners. In the past month, more than half of all the robberies in St. Paul were on University Avenue. But the construction is causing the number of other crimes to go down. Police have seen a 22 percent drop in in shoplifting in April through June of 2012 because some businesses are harder to get to. Arrests for prostitution and gang-related activity are also down this year.

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Light rail advocates claim the train will help the community, like the Rainier Valley in Washington.

Seattle's King 5 reports "light rail is driving up rent prices and driving out working class residents who are the lifeblood of the community."

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Phoenix's KPHO-CBS reports 118 accidents for the new Phoenix light railroad since 2009. Of those, 22 drivers left the accident scene.

The Ups and Downs of the East Side

If Gateway Corridor light rail comes to Seventh Street and White Bear Avenue, it won't last.

It would take less than a decade to be torn out and even less than that to be called a Colossal Failure and a riderless menace to the public good.

The conceptual flaws start with putting a train on a residential street (35 mph in a 30 mph zone) with hills and valleys, and no effective stopping distance (essentially no brakes). The result would be accidents and deaths on a scale beyond the current level of light rail accidents.

Accidents and deaths aside, the system flaws will include:
     ▼   high costs & cost overruns
     ▼   low ridership & system inflexibility -- is it for commuting or touring or selling old 3M property?
     ▼   neighborhood barriers & business closings
     ▼   noise -- the rumbling of 25+ tons of train, the squeal of wheels on rails as it makes ridiculous twists and turns, the DING-DING chimes...

Light rail would scar the neighborhood. The neighborhood is still scarred from the trolley.

Drive Seventh, slowly. See the houses lower than the road? See the houses higher than the road? (Would you like to deal with the flooding issues and the lawn mowing issues?)

The slope of Seventh Street was changed for the trolley. It will have to be changed further for light rail. The trolley weighed nothing compared to light rail. Trolleys were light rail, more than light rail is light rail. Light rail is heavy.

Seventh Street is hilly, and it used to be hillier and wetter. The Mississippi River used to run through it.

Here's a topographical map of the East Side of St. Paul.

Notice how the railroads used river beds for their routes, instead of climbing bluffs and plunging into river valleys and climbing bluffs again, only to plunge back into valleys again, etc.

This map (above) shows a course of the glacial runoff, proto-Mississippi River #1, filling the Battle Creek valleys.

This map (above) shows a straighter-than-present-day, proto-Mississippi River #2, stretching north (along Etna & Barclay), connecting Lake Phalen (shown), Round Lake, Keller Lake, Gervais Lake, Kohlman Lake, then arcing eastward to Willow Lake, Gem Lake, Goose Lake, and White Bear Lake. Over time much of the proto-Mississippi River valley was buried in material, leaving behind a string of lakes and depressions (kettles).

This map (above) shows a zigzagging proto-Mississippi River #3 filling the Phalen Creek valley to Lake Phalen. This map does not mean to indicate that the areas between the proto-Mississippi River valley are high and dry. No. The neighborhood of Dayton's Bluff is porous with underground springs and sometimes above-ground springs.

This map (above) shows the path that the Gateway Corridor Commission likes to show as a potential light rail path. Notice how it drops from Union Station into the Phalen Creek valley (proto-Mississippi 3), then rises up Dayton's Bluff, then down to Earl Street, then up and down again (proto-Mississippi 2) and up to White Bear Avenue, then down to I-94, then down into the Battle Creek valley (proto-Mississippi 1), then up to Ruth Street and down again to Sun Ray shopping center to pick up groceries at Cub Foods and take them by train to Woodbury.

It's a ridiculous concept. The sanity of its planners should be questioned.

I question their loco motives.

Abrasive Advertising

The first step of advertising is a good name.

Gateway Corridor is in Cincinnati, Ohio and Greensboro, North Carolina and Seguin, Texas and might surround East St. Louis, Illinois. Since St. Louis is the Gateway to the West, the name makes sense, because East St. Louis would be the pathway (corridor) to the Gateway to the West.

In St. Paul, the idea of the Gateway Corridor is a meandering, roller-coaster train with a borrowed name, "rebranded and repositioned" by the Tunheim Partners.

They're confusing St. Paul with Minneapolis's Gateway Park (a.k.a. Skid Row or the Piss House). Or they think the Central Corridor is the gateway drug to the Gateway Corridor.

Here's the ups and downs of it. Starting at the Union Depot, the Gateway Corridor roller-coaster starts down a little (all roller-coasters do this), then it heads up (NE) to Mound,  then down (NW) to 7th, over the footings of the 1884 Seventh Street Improvement Arches (National Register #89001828), then up to 7th & Arcade and down to 7th & Earl, then up and up (E) to White Bear (Food Planet), then down (South) to I-94, and then up (East) to Sun Ray.

Committees, congresses, and commissions take reasonably educated people and turn their minds to something with the consistency of toxic waste. So the Gateway Corridor Commission (hopefully they aren't earning a commission on this) took the Gateway Corridor name from some other place and decided that commuting should be like a roller-coaster. Why?

Are they trying to park a train in front of Food Planet?

Or is the Gateway Corridor a way of selling off the old 3M property in St. Paul, the Beacon Bluff?

A St. Paul Port Authority committee thought up the name Beacon Bluff. The 61-acres that had been the 3M headquarters (1910-1962) had manufactured Scotch tape and sandpaper, but the committee couldn't use 3M Land or Scotch Tape Fields without risking trademark infringement lawsuits. The land lies near Dayton's Bluff and had been used to make beacons, so since it was late in the day and people were hungry, they decided on Beacon Bluff.

The ad for the property shows an aerial view of the struggle to get trucks to an interstate. Beacon Bluff is on the far right. Trucks take the steep 7th Street hill down to I-94, not that that would get goods moving east-bound, or trucks can take Phalen Blvd. to I-35E, not that that would get them south-bound. The ad covers over the Dayton's Bluff neighborhood with a closeup of the property, since the neighborhood doesn't provide any direct transportation route. The only thing that could make trucking worse would be to plant a passenger train in the middle of the road.

Wait. There's more! The St. Paul Port Authority wants to make Beacon Bluff a shrine to 3M with monuments to sandpaper --

and outdoor tape dispenser lounge chairs --

Careful, that's the double-sticky chair!

And a shrine is fine, except for the inconsistency that somebody left toxic chemicals behind --

and the neighborhood is one of St. Paul's poorest. How will a 3M shrine give jobs to the area?

But then again, how would a Gateway Corridor roller-coaster and light rail line help the neighborhood to get jobs at any businesses that fill the Beacon Bluff? Or is that the bluff?

Beacon Bluff is a marketing plan in St. Paul for the old 3M property that some people think would sell better if a light rail roller-coaster (Gateway Corridor) went by it.