Residual Forces

Did I Miss When They Banned Roads?

Are people really stupid enough to think that we can build trains to solve our transportation needs? No seriously do the bureaucrats who set policy really think that we can have a car-less Twin Cities? I’m reading through a Strib Editorial and a Commentary by one of the liberal special interest lobbyists and I am just flat out amazed at their lack of ability to see the real world before their eyes.

In this Editorial, the Strib is whining about the budget shortfall and blaming any potential cuts solely on Pawlenty. Well maybe the Strib needs to take a step back and think about what the budget deficit would look like if the DFL Legislature had gotten to increase all the spending they wanted and tried to? Our state government would be far worse off if Pawlenty had not reigned in spending last session.

Had Pawlenty done what people like me had hoped, and held government growth to inflationary rates (or less), not double digit budget growth, who knows, maybe we wouldn’t have so much trouble trying to fund the bloated budget, despite all-time high revenues being collected.

Does the term, “We have a spending problem” sound familiar?

You see, this Editorial notes that the MVST (Vote Yes Amendment) revenues are down because we citizens, aren’t buying as many new cars as they had hoped. Despite their claims to be creating a permanent revenue stream for transit, they didn’t. A lot of us knew it was a stupid idea to fund transit with taxes on cars. Just think about it, if people can’t afford a car, they would possibly need a bus to take, but since they didn’t buy the car, they didn’t pay the tax to fund the bus.

Which came first, the tax or the revenue?

So here we have another example of raising taxes or dedicating certain ones to fund specific projects is a failure waiting to happen. The shortsighted nature of the socialists in St. Paul and the Strib just can’t be by chance. I can’t accept that they are pure populists who aim to tax and spend on the latest project that is popular.

I think it is all part of a grander plan. They aimed to expand transit beyond any dedicated tax’s ability to fund it, and with Pawlenty’s help they have done just that. The train has left the station, I just hope we can stop it from becoming a runaway freight train. We’re pushing looming shortfalls in transit funding off onto our children.

Yes, yes, we’re building boondoggle choo choos that will cost tens of millions a year just simply to maintain. They won’t provide transportation solutions. If we dedicated 100% of the State Budget for a biennium solely to build all the choo choo train lines that are on the minds of the social engineers, the system still wouldn’t provide a service that would accommodate Twin Citian’s fast paced and frantic lives.

We don’t live A to B lives.

The argument of reducing congesstion is laughable at best based on the reality of Hwy 55 after Hiawatha. Plus if these mystical new choo choos did make enough stops to be convenient enough so people could almost have A to B to C to D to A service, it would be stopping so dang much the trips would take 3 times as long as they would by car.

So the social engineers may get their dream of getting us out of our cars so we’re not in it when we should be with our families, but unfortunately, we’ll be sitting on some stupid choo choo train next to a bum who smells like urine. And then there’s that fact that we just noted earlier, as in since we didn’t buy a car, there’s no money to operate the trains.

In the Commentary, we get to see some grand revisionist history like only a special interest lefty could dream up. The author is the head of transit for livable communities, in other words, another liberal group who wants everyone to live in the same socialist utopia with big shiny and bright choo choo trains.

Before the 0.25 cent sales tax was passed, government officials, the business community and transit supporters outlined a need for a bare minimum of an additional $100 million per year for transit to maintain current service and meet the needs of the region’s growing population.

Um, the bill that they passed couldn’t do that. In fact they wrote it so that the sales tax increase couldn’t be used to pay for the current bus service. It can only be used for new ‘transitways’. Did this lefty get left out of the tax increase conference call? She does go on to point out another dirty little secret of all these transit dreams the social engineers have.

As Metropolitan Council Chairman Peter Bell has stated, both today’s bus service and tomorrow’s hoped-for rail lines are now threatened if the governor (Bell’s boss) continues to call for general fund cuts to transit.

In the Editorial I linked to above, Bell claims that if Minnesota cuts bus services, that the Feds won’t send money for choo choos. (Maybe they should look at the bus routes pre and post Hiawatha!) I’ve also heard that the Fridley station for Northstar could also put the project at risk. I’m not sure why yet, but it sounds like Minnesota is trying to get that rolling under the cover of dark so the Feds don’t know about it. For some reason the Feds just don’t send out checks from the Treasury and let local bureaucrats spend it willy nilly on failing or destined to fail projects.

We need to face the facts here and stop the pie in the sky social planning.

Roads are the key to solving our congestion. We can barely afford to pay for the buses on the roads, now sure, a skeptic like me has to think buying all those “green” buses may have skimmed a bit of the operating revenues, but I’ll admit we do have funding problems. But take a look at all those buses in this photo from the Strib story on their rollout. We’re going to have 172 of them at $557,000 a piece. Thankfully the Feds pick up most of that tab, but is still $95,804,000. That’s a lota green! 

We’re spending too damn much money in this state and nationallyon a bunch of hooey! We waste more money in this state than we have shortfalls in bus funding. The Legislature is set to bond for $70 million for another choo choo that will add another double digit million dollars in operating costs for Metro transit. That’s more money diverted from practical transit solutions (buses) to Poggemiller and Kelliher’s desired government issued vehicle (Central Corridor will pretty much runs from ther front doors to their offices at the state Capital).

Roads, roads, roads, roads.

Why won’t anyone mention roads? Roads are what we drive on. Trains aren’t flexible enough to stop at the drug store, grab some milk, drop the kid of at school, get to work, meet an old friend for lunch, back to work, then to the soccer field or hockey rink to see your kid’s game, then off to Space Alien’s to celebrate the big win, and get home in time to get to bed to repeat the same basic thing the next day.

We could raise taxes 100% in Minnesota across the board, but we’re never going to be able to afford the choo choo system that would benefit us all, let alone solve our transportation needs. The choo choo system that would make a dent into getting cars off the roads, system wide, would cost tens and tens and tens of billions of dollars. We can’t afford that.

I repeat, when the heck did they ban roads? Roads are the cheapest way to help the most people. We don’t need to build a train, operate it, and have it go to everyone’s doorway. We just need to quit wasting money, investing in boondoggles, and add lanes!

Roads, roads, roads, roads! There’s a far cheaper way to help people get around, they are roads, we should try prioritizing their funding for a change.