Before I respond, I want to make it clear that I strongly support rail
based transit. However, I believe that it has to be done right in order
to truly serve our population, both in service and in cost. My beef is
not with the concept, but with the leadership and the system which designs
and operates transit lines.
The argument for a metro-wide source of money to pay for the bonds
associated with LRT has a number of serious flaws, which begin and end
with the Metro Transit and its governing body, the Met Council.
The basic idea is that the current funding mechanism places an
unreasonable burden on the county where it is located. While that is at
least arguable, the point remains that the costs of constructing and
operating these lines is shared by the counties and the state, acting
through the Met Council. The legislature may seem slow to support these
lines at times, but they are at least an elected body. Counties may wind
up with an unfair burden, but the commisioners are at least elected. The
Met Council can make no such claim.
The Legislature has responded appropriately when presented with a line
that needs to be funded, such as Hiawatha or Northstar. What they have
been slow to do is to throw money at the haphazard planning process in
place today, as directed by the Met Council. This is a good thing.
The Met Council, with its lack of electoral mandate, necessarily takes a
tremendous amount of time and money to accomplish even the simplest of
planning tasks. It has all the responsibility of transit with no real
authority to accomplish it ΓΒ and thus has to build consensus around every
small piece of the process. The glacial pace of rail construction that
seems so frustrating is a result of a system of designing that is directed
in an abstract manner at the top. Concensus building may not seem to be a
good system, but it is the only check against an unelected regime that has
never shown an interest in a truly systemic approach beyond the lines they
have drawn on a map.
Such a top-down approach has been shown to be a feeding frenzy for
consultants, lacking in direct input from the people whose lives will
change because of transit. It places the technologies and infrastructure
far ahead of the riders whose needs are ultimately what a successful
system is all about.
We need to have a greater push from the cities ΓΒ and the people who live
in them ΓΒ to develop a comprehensive system that will serve our needs at a
human scale. This has started to happen with MinneapolisΓΒ study of
streetcars, and the refocus of the University Avenue LRT. But that
process, done at the rider and street level, is what needs to be
emphasized systemically if we are to develop the transit network we need
to wean ourselves off of cars.
Creating permanent funding sources for the current system will only extend
the wasteful and unreasonable approach that we have in place now. Make no
mistake about it - a metro-wide sales tax will not only raise enough money
to operate rail lines, but to pay for the bonds to construct them as well.
The proposal is to take the current unaccountable and largely unelected
system and feed it with a lot of money. It would replace a system in
place today where nothing happens without a groundswell of grassroots
support for any given transit corridor.
The Legislature has shown that when such an effort takes place, they will
respond appropriately. This is a very good thing. The alternative is a
forced approach that will almost certainly turn an essential project into
an excess akin to the Urban Renewal process of the 1960s. We should learn
from that experience, and be very careful what we ask of our leaders.