Mass Transit for Thee, But Not for Me

Minneapolis Star Tribune reporter Eric Roper and his employer have performed a great public service by simply tracking the public transit use of Met Council board members.

It turns out that fewer than half (7 out of 16 members) ever use their mass transit passes.  It’s liberal hypocrisy of the worst kind.  Roper documents that 10 of the passes have not been used in the past year.

As you know, the regional government agency Met Council—among its other functions—operates the area’s largest mass transit system.  The Met Council also serves as the region’s planning agency and has declared war on the single-family home and the automobile.

The Met Council doesn’t want you to drive, but can’t be bothered to use its own product.  Roper documents that senior staff at the agency use transit more often.

Roper’s article appears in today’s Star Tribune print edition—front page, above the fold—under the headline “Cars rule for Met Council members.”  The members themselves are all Democrats, appointed by Gov. Mark Dayton.  The current membership of the Council include an even greater than usual share of timeservers and seat warmers.

Prominent among its ranks are Adam Duininck, the chief fundraiser for the Alliance for a Better Minnesota, Gary Cunningham, husband of Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges, and three labor union employees.

This would all be less amusing if it weren’t for the Council’s efforts to radically remake the sprawling Twin Cities region into a smaller, densely-packed, transit-dependent metropolis.  A transition to a more European-style city requires that most citizens abandon cars for bus and rail transit.

That our political elites won’t walk the walk should not surprise anyone.

Smart Growth Meets the Road

Now the fun part begins.  For the last many years I have been warning readers about the misguided efforts of Minneapolis and St. Paul to transform their cities from the workaday towns that became the hub of the upper Midwest into…something else:  something where the growth was “smarter” and the new residents more “creative.”  Places that look less like the sprawly, automobile-dependent communities that grew up around them in every direction.

Minneapolis aims for Portland, hits Detroit

This week, newly-installed Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges gave a speech at a joint meeting of the Minneapolis and St. Paul chambers of commerce, “Hodges pushes for transit at business breakfast.”

I didn’t attend the meeting and I am relying on the Minneapolis Star Tribune account of her speech.  The Star Tribune reports,

Light Rail Anger on the Left, Part 2

Report from the Field

Of late, I have been following the struggles of the Southwest Light Rail project, as the regional government Met Council tries to quiet NIMBY opposition to its latest mass transit project, which is meant to take commuters from downtown Minneapolis through the southwestern suburbs.

In Part 1 I focus on the efforts of state Democrats to quell intra-party opposition to the train’s routing, using your tax dollars, of course.

Tonight, the Met Council visited the suburb of St. Louis Park, hoping to quiet critics of a plan to reroute nearby freight trains to accommodate the light rail service.

The Star Tribune declared the locals “skeptical.”  Pat Doyle reports,

A new search for ways to reroute freight train traffic to make room for the Twin Cities’ biggest light-rail line came under fire Thursday night by St. Louis Park residents who opposed earlier plans for moving the freight to their city.

I had hoped to swing by and take in a bit of the meeting, in person, but I couldn’t even get into the packed parking lot.  My man on the scene filed this report from inside the building.

We had between 200 and 300 people in attendance, not counting the hockey game going on elsewhere in the building.

It was an interesting meeting.  This evening’s event was conducted town hall-style, instead of the table talk format used for Tuesday’s Kenwood (Minneapolis) meeting.

St. Louis Park is united that they do not want the reroute.  Quite a few Minneapolis residents also spoke against the reroute and a few even were for the co-location alternative with an elevated or relocated bike trail.  For its part, the Met Council has dismissed that alternative even though it is the least expensive option.

Stay tuned.

Light Rail Anger on the Left

Minneapolis Star Tribune reporter Pat Doyle uncovers a lot of disturbing facts in his piece “Light-rail meeting stirs anger.”  Now I know what you’re thinking: light rail? anger? the Tea Party strikes again.  Not this time.

Doyle reports on a community meeting in Minneapolis called to discuss the routing of the proposed Southwest Light Rail project, which (if built), will take commuters from downtown Minneapolis through some of the city’s southwestern suburbs.

There is a lot not to like among the facts Doyle packs into the short article that leads the paper’s Metro section this morning.  It’s tough to know where to begin, and the headline on the web version, “Southwest light-rail gripe session stirs some anger,” is as good a place as any.

The “gripe session” meeting was called “to help calm critics” in the wealthy enclave of Kenwood, which—not coincidentally—is the permanent home of Minnesota’s Democrat Governor, Mark Dayton.  (Minnesota’s Democrats style themselves DFL—Democrat-Farmer-Labor.)

The Governor’s former neighbors are apparently whipped up into a good-old-fashioned NIMBY (not in my back yard) frenzy.  To quote Mongo from Blazing Saddles, the dispute has “got to do with where choo-choo go.”

Not near them, seems to be the Kenwood consensus.  Doyle writes of the Governor’s former neighbors,

A common argument of Kenwood residents opposed to plans for running the line through their neighborhood, one of the city’s more affluent, is that it won’t provide enough service to poorer communities.

Of course.  Mass transit is a poverty-relief program, so why would you run trains in areas where rich people could hear or see them?  It makes no sense.

The Kenwood meeting was facilitated by consultant Dan Kramer of the firm Grassroots Solutions.

As Doyle reports,

The decision to pay Grassroots for “facilitating” public meetings grew out of closed-door strategy sessions this fall involving Dayton, a DFLer, Met Council officials and leading DFL legislators in response to opposition to the project.

Notice who is conspicuous by their absence:  Republicans.  Democrats, exclusively, got together—behind closed doors—to figure out what to do about their difficulties in selling their Democrat-developed mass-transit project to Democrat voters living in Democrat neighborhoods.  As Doyle reports,

Some of the most vocal critics are DFL activists in the corridor area, who urged Gov. Mark Dayton to intervene.

Intervene he did.  And the solution?  Use taxpayer funds to hire a public relations firm.  And not just any public relations firm, as Doyle reports about Cramer and his firm,

He’s a former aide to Sen. Paul Wellstone, and the firm works for prominent labor unions and DFL politicians.

Maybe it’s just me, but if Gov. Dayton and his fellow Democrats are having difficulty selling the this light-rail project to the Governor’s wealthy, liberal neighbors, perhaps they should not be using taxpayer money to resolve an intra-party squabble.

Cramer’s firm is being paid $22,000 by the government agency Met Council to facilitate a series of public meetings along the route and judging by the headline, he’s off to a shaky start.  Minnesota boasts a plethora of well-financed, left-leaning advocacy groups who support mass transit.  I’m sure any number of these would be happy to facilitate such meetings for free.

Met Council: Doing Real Damage

I have written recently [here, here, and here] about the plans of the Met Council regional government to undertake a radical redesign of the area’s housing and transit patterns under the banner of its Thrive MSP 2040 plan.

For its part, the Met Council says they are responding to changing housing preferences: namely the desire of young millennials and empty-nester baby boomers to live downtown.  But what if the assumptions underlying Met Council’s planning are exactly wrong?

Met Council Rides into Town on a Smile and a Shoeshine

This morning I was able to attend a Twin Cities North Chamber of Commerce forum on the Met Council’s Thrive MSP 2040 plan for the seven-county metro region.

Defending the Met Council’s vision for urban, transit-oriented growth was council member Jon Commers, who represents western St. Paul.  Raising questions about this exercise in central planning was Katherine Kersten of the Center of the American Experiment, a non-profit think tank.

 

The Democrats' Met Council Plays the Long Game

The Twin Cities’ regional government, the Metropolitan Council, is embarking on an ambitious exercise in central planning for a 7-county area under the banner of Thrive MSP 2040.  As reported in local media, the Met Council hopes to completely remake the landscape of the metro region.  The St. Paul Pioneer Press reported last month,

Young "millennials" and the gray-haired baby boomers leading the so-called "silver tsunami" are rejecting big, outer-ring townhomes and looking for more modestly sized housing near transit, jobs and services.

For the seven-county Twin Cities area, population growth will be centered in St. Paul, Minneapolis and the developed inner-ring suburbs for the foreseeable future.

Meanwhile, growth will continue in the less-developed edges--but more slowly than previously thought.

Those are the latest predictions from the Metropolitan Council, which on Wednesday released preliminary population figures that forecast the metro growing by 893,000 residents by 2040

As I’ve written before, this view of the Metro’s future is based entirely on wishful thinking.  There are no trends visible in actual census data that would justify the Council’s shift to promoting core urban growth at the expense of suburban growth.

 

The Met Council’s Wishful Thinking

With some fanfare, the Metropolitan Council issued its predictions on where within the Twin Cities metropolitan area population growth will occur between now and 2040.  Not surprisingly, the Met Council predicts that almost all future population growth will occur in the core cities of the metro area, with little growth occurring in the suburbs and outlying areas.

This prediction is not surprising, because it’s increasingly clear that growth in the urban core will be the only growth that the Met Council will allow to occur in the next 30 years.  The prediction will be self-fulfilling, based on the Met Council’s policy preferences.

Escaping Portlandia

For those of you determined to turn the Twin Cities Metro into a midwestern version of Portland, Oregon, I urge you to read Jennifer Wyatt's account of her impending move from Portland to...(gasp)...Missouri.  Jennifer is chronicling her geographic and psychic journey at her blog I Say Missourah.  From her New Geography piece,

"Ten years ago I would have characterized Portland as a place that had progressive perspectives.  Now I would characterize Portland as a place with few ideas, all perpetually reinforced and more deeply ingrained every day.  People regurgitate a handful of versions of the same thoughts in ever narrowing expressions.  Everywhere you look it is repetition of the same ideas, whether it be on politics, design, or social culture.  People strive to look the same, to dress the same, and to have the same lifestyle...

"What began as a city with progressive and forward looking ideas to develop a new urban course has become a closed container of cultural conformity.  There is a new cookie cutter in Portland, and it is young, alterna-hip, and white."

Read the whole thing.

Has the "Creative Class" Theory Failed?

That's the question posed by Joel Kotkin in his newest piece for the Daily Beast.  The Wall Street Journal included an excerpt of the piece in today's paper.  Read the whole thing.

Minneapolis Falling Behind on Jobs

Joel Kotkin and his colleagues at New Geography have produced this ranking of the 51 largest metropolitan areas on the ability to attract high wage professional, scientific and technical services jobs.  This is the area where Minneapolis has gone "all in" on the creative class strategy. At this point I think it's fair to say the results are in and they are not good.

The metro area of Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington finished 37th of 51.  It's not just about climate, with sun belt cities Birmingham and Memphis finishing 50th and 51st.

Cities in red states dominate the top of the list, taking 8 of the top 9 spots.  State capitals like No. 1 Austin and, to a lesser extent, No. 5 Salt Lake City can get away with their liberal quirkiness as they are surrounded by overwhelmingly red states--in a way that a Providence (No. 48) or a Hartford (No. 45) cannot.

Kotkin describes what draws some to No. 2 Jacksonville,

"Jerry Mallot, president of the local business development group Jaxusa Partnership, suggests that low costs, a high rate of housing affordability and Florida’s lack of income tax make Jacksonville attractive to companies seeking to expand or relocate."

Joel's rankings prove exactly the point I was making on the Sue Jeffers radio show earlier this month.  In a massive example of cart-horse misplacement, Minneapolis believes that by acquiring the accoutrement of the world-class city--mass transit trains, bike lanes, stadia, museums--we will attract the "creative" class of young, single professionals.  Like some South Pacific cargo cult, we apparently do not understand that it is surplus wealth that produces the trinkets of culture and not the other way around.  It is like thinking that building the Colosseum is what made the Roman Empire great.  Leaders of the Twin Cities region suffer from a lower-grade strain of the "world class city complex" afflicting second-tier cities like Chicago.

Kotkin's rankings reveal a different and more useful path to urban proserity:  create the wealth first and then you get the stuff.  Urban hipsters may love trains and are willing to pay premium prices for access to trendy transit, but they have to have the money first.

No. 10, Portland, OR, is the "evolved" city that Minneapolis most wants to become, as we openly envy the land of Portlandia.

Forbes takes a deeper look, ranking the top 200 cities for business and career prospects.  Of the top 200, Minneapolis ranked a dismal 156th in cost of doing business.  Minneapolis ranks well above No. 197 San Francisco, but well below No. 106 Portland.  In chasing Portland's amenities, Minneapolis cannot give up 50 places on the cost part of the equation.

Minneapolis needs to understand that it's about more than $50,000 water fountains:  the city needs to offer good value, too.

Attracting High Wage Jobs

Joel Kotkin and his friends at New Geography rate the largest 51 cities on the ability to attract high wage jobs in the professional, scientific and technical services category.  The Twin Cities metro area fares a dismal 37th.  Time for a new strategy?

A California Warning

Self-described "Truman Democrat" Joel Kotkin writes about how "California’s slow-motion tragedy could end up as a national one."

California's War on the Suburbs, Part 2

This past weekend, demographer Wendell Cox writes about California's continued war on the suburbs in the Saturday Wall Street Journal.  Complete with a six minute video.

The Future of the Single Family Home

The future of the single family is home is looking bright.  Futurist Joel Kotkin explains how the Smart Growth crowd is getting is wrong.

Transit Doesn't Save Energy

You read that correctly:  mass transit does not save energy.  [Pause to allow the heads to explode.]

From whom did I acquire this heretical knowledge?  Surprisingly, it was Barack Obama's U.S. Department of Energy.  Each year the department publishes its Transportation Energy Data Book, a must-have for every well-stocked personal library.  The 30th Edition was published in June 2011 and Table 2-13 makes for interesting reading.

In 2009 (latest data available) the average amount of energy it took (in British Thermal Units (BTUs) to move a single passenger one mile in an automobile was 3,538.  A city bus took an average of 4,242 to move a single passenger for one mile.

Although it may sound counter-intuitive, it really isn't.  When driving alone, I use 25 percent of my (four-seat) automobile's passenger carrying capacity.  Next time you are out-and-about around 9 p.m., look to see how crowded the city busses are:  are they using 5%? 10% of the capacity.  Bus transit fares so poorly because so many busses are driving around with empty seats.  [Note: I prefer the old spelling of the plural.]

The comparison did not always appear so favorable to the car.  As late as 1990, the advantage was with the bus.  But as cars have gotten more fuel efficient (and the bus has not) automobiles are the more energy efficient transportation mode.

The Cato Institutes's Randal O'Toole (The Antiplanner), has run the numbers in more depth, and developed figures for individual cities.  Randal concludes that our fair metropolis of Minneapolis-St. Paul actually runs its transit system (including rail) at a slight advantage to the automobile, with an average energy requirement of 3,333 BTU per passenger mile.  Of course, this 6 percent advantage over the car is purchased with untold millions in operating subsidies from local, state, and federal taxpayers, and billions of dollars in duplicative infrastructure.  With automobile efficiency growing each year, it's not clear how long the transit advantage will last in Minnesota.

As Randal points out, we would be better off, not with more transit, but getting more people into hybrids and other high efficiency automobiles (Prius, 1,700 BTU/passenger mile).

Since much of the recent rationalization for transit "investment" centers on its potential to solve every problem from dependence on foreign oil to global warming, it is past time for a rethink.  Like so much else in that agenda, it falls apart in the face of mathematics.

Lileks on the Suburbs

Glenn Reynolds, the InstaPundit, reprints a passage written ten years ago by Minnesota's-own James Lileks on life in the suburbs.  It was true then and it is still true today,

"Everyone I know who lives in the suburbs loves where they live.  That's why they live there.  The government did not put a gun to people's heads and demand that they pack up, head out on these new-fangled freeways and get out of Dodge.  If people leave a city, there's a reason, and it behooves the city to find out what it was.  Bad schools; small lots; taxes; crime; stupid civic leaders more interested in patronage and extortion than governing - that's why people leave.  And they're not going to come back because a light-rail line passes 15 blocks from their house.  They're certainly not going to be impressed by urban theorists who want them to walk to the corner store every day and schlep home the groceries instead of driving to a big store and buying a week's worth of foodstuffs.  I did that for four years.  I dreamed of a day when I could buy those big 24-roll packs of toilet paper instead buying a single roll every other day because I also had to carry beer, meat and milk."

Bicycles on Snelling Avenue?

Finance and Commerce reports on plans to study the construction of a bike path on busy Snelling Avenue in St. Paul, Minnesota.  Now designated as State Highway 51 and a Truck Route, the road is scheduled for a $2 million resurfacing project this spring.

"Complete Streets" advocates want the state to install bike lines as part of the process.  The F&C article declares, without support or attribution, that the “Complete Streets” philosophy is "increasingly popular."  We'll see how popular the philosophy becomes once speeds are reduced, street parking disappears, and trucks begin navigating 10-foot-wide lanes.

Get ready, Central Avenue in Minneapolis and Highway 96 in White Bear Lake are next.

The Creative Class Wants its Trains, Everywhere They Go

Today's Minneapolis Star Tribune carries an opinion piece from the epitome of the Creative Class.  She represents the very type of person that city planners are trying to attract (or to retain) to our fair burg.  This is how she describes herself,

• Parents live in the "desolate" suburbs of Minneapolis
• Graduated from college last year
• Moved to Munich, Germany

Since abandoning this "colder" and "foreboding" land (her words), she has acquired all the accoutrement needed of a Creative Class member,

• Works at a "hip" marketing firm
• Has "international" friends
• Doesn't own a car
• Lives is a "teeny-tiny" Munich apartment
• Likes to ride Munich's subway

Munich, population density of 12,470/sq. mi., and Minneapolis, population density of 6,722/sq. mi., are very different places.  In addition to having a core city twice as dense as ours, Munich has a metro population of 6 million, twice the size of our 3 million.

Regardless, this young woman believes that Minneapolis should have a subway system, based on her struggles navigating our inadequate bus and light rail network.

Key passage,

"Basically, you can trust the government [in Munich] to get you where you want to be.  It's not why I moved there, but it's why I stayed.  I've seen Munich attract plenty of other young people."

Good thing that, because Germany is among a handful of countries (mostly European) whose population is actually declining.

Nonetheless, she never makes clear whether installing a subway in Minneapolis would be enough to tempt her back to live again amongst us rubes in flyover country.  I'm sure that she is grateful to the taxpayers of the Federal Republic of Germany and its Free State of Bavaria for subsidizing her carefree lifestyle.  She writes,

"I wouldn't be nearly as successful in Munich if I had to make monthly car and insurance payments, if I had to navigate foreign streets as well as a foreign language."

And she would be grateful if we made such transit options available here, for her occasional visits.

Perhaps I'm biased, as my German ancestors were wagon makers.  But my advice to her?  Next time you visit your parents, rent a car.