B… B… B… BOONDOGGLE!!!!!!!!!!!!! — ‘Uniquely Minnesotan’
Posted by Andy on August 1st, 2007
Lightrail is going to bankrupt us if we let the social engineers continue to push the agenda.
Key bridge in light-rail plan can’t hold trains
The $932 million price tag for the Central Corridor project may soon get bigger.
In the first major wrinkle to emerge during preliminary engineering for the planned 11-mile light-rail line connecting St. Paul and Minneapolis, engineers have concluded that the Washington Avenue Bridge - the point where the line crosses the Mississippi River - cannot carry the weight of light-rail cars and needs major upgrades
In a draft report released to the Pioneer Press under the Minnesota Data Practices Act, the consulting firm URS says the bridge’s deck - the surface over which cars pass - needs to be strengthened to support several 107,000-pound light-rail cars passing over it at once.
“It is an issue that is very addressable and resolvable,” said Metropolitan Council project director Mark Fuhrmann.
The Met Council also is studying the steel girders that are the backbone of the bridge. The girders do not meet current building codes, and URS is generating computer models to see how well they would withstand added weight. The girders might need to be augmented, or perhaps replaced.
Built in 1965, the Washington Avenue Bridge connects the East Bank and West Bank campuses of the University of Minnesota. If the Central Corridor is built, the two decks of the bridge will carry rail, vehicle, pedestrian and bicycle traffic.
The engineering report did not detail the price, but new decks can cost tens of millions of dollars. The Met Council has asked URS to estimate
Can you say money pit?
Stop the insanity. Stop the trains.
I have a common sense, solution for the social engineers. Why don’t you try ramping up the bus routes along these proposed LRT routes? Try that for a year. See if it affects traffic and commuting patterns in a good or a bad way. (REMEMBER, THAT IS HOW THESE LRT’S ARE BEING SOLD TO THE PUBLIC, AS A TRAFFIC SOLUTION)
If the buses seem to have an impact for the good, study whether the buses are the solution, and if any adjustments can be made to perfect it.
If the buses fail, and no one is riding in the areas you want to put the trains, scuttle the utopian plan for the Twin Cities metro area.
Seriously, with the fact that around or at least half of the Twin Cities commuters are coming from outside the 2 urban cities, and do not work in the 2 urban cities, mass transit in the form of light rail trains won’t work.
I would be glad to sit down and straighten out anyone who is convinced that trains are the solution for all transportation problems in the twin Cities. Pawlenty, Molnau, MNDOT, Met Council. You set up a half hour with them, and I will hammer home how the people along the proposed lines are not the ones to go to for studies and why to build it.
Step back and think critically. Use your head and common sense.
I know a lot of people want to be just like New York and Chicago, but I doubt most Minnesotans or Twin Citians do. Do we really want to deal with all the crap that they have to? More importantly, do we want to pay tens and tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to be like them, when that money could have been used for the public good, to keep us uniquely Minnesotan.
“We know today that the $932 million is too rich and that we’re going to have to appreciably reduce that by some amount to ultimately access and qualify for federal funds,” Fuhrmann said.
Even the lightrail crack dealers know that they are pushing pipe dreams.
Just say no to light rail.
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August 1st, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Andy, i know you just love a good rant, but the Washington Avenue Bridge has been planned to be replaced long before the light rail plans were in place…
just an FYI
August 1st, 2007 at 10:15 pm
I don’t think improved bus service along the corridor is going to tell anyone anything of value, as buses generally don’t have the drawing power of rail. Call it the “romance of the rails” if you will, or call it revulsion at diesel exhaust, but trains in general draw more riders than buses, even in New York.
What you seem to be saying is, in any case, cancel the rail projects.
From what I’ve gathered, rail projects tend not to alleviate road traffic problems, but instead increase overall people-carrying capacity for the routes they follow. In other words, they won’t pull cars off the road. Probably the only thing that would is for people to decide not to use their cars. Of course, if they’ve got no other viable option, they won’t do that, will they?
Rail transit would also have to go hand-in-hand with a urban recentralization strategy—to try to pull growth back into the city centers, as opposed to further sprawl.
Another option that almost no-one considers is electric trolley buses. They can serve as sort of a half-step between nothing or diesel-bus service and electric rail service. They require a significant infrastructure investment, but not nearly as much as rail and construction is not nearly as disruptive and is much faster (basically, it’s stringing miles of electric wire). Electric buses still don’t have the romance of the rails, but they are generally cleaner and quieter than diesel buses, so in terms of overall ride quality they’re a step up. The main issue is with being able to route buses off the overhead line grid, but with advancing hybrid technology (say, pure electric drive with tuned-diesel onboard generation for off-grid service) it’s workable. Equipment costs for a hybrid bus would be likely significantly higher than for diesel buses (newish tech is never cheap), but off-grid operating costs would be lower, and on-grid lower still, likely enough to justify the expense. Electric power is generally more efficient than chemical and mechanical, so less overall emissions as well. It’s an idea, anyway.