urbanMSP

Y'know, we used to have good corporate citizens; companies that did things for the city/region/state even if it cost them a little. 40 years of extreme capitalist rhetoric has destroyed our collective memory of it. Now, "it's just business," and, "this is normal business practice," and "they're just looking out for the company.'

Yes, that's exactly the problem.

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Well, to be completely fair, 40 years ago when a company did something as a ‘good corporate citizen’ they probably also had a reasonable expectation that they would subsequently win that next contract to build a bridge. Purely on the merits of their quality bid, of course...

SW Journal has much more detail in their coverage.

http://www.southwestjournal.com/news/20 ... ral-court/

Dylan Thomas has been doing consistently great reporting on SWLRT. Tip of the cap to him.

Y'know, we used to have good corporate citizens; companies that did things for the city/region/state even if it cost them a little. 40 years of extreme capitalist rhetoric has destroyed our collective memory of it. Now, "it's just business," and, "this is normal business practice," and "they're just looking out for the company.'

Yes, that's exactly the problem.

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Y'know, we used to have good corporate citizens; companies that did things for the city/region/state even if it cost them a little. 40 years of extreme capitalist rhetoric has destroyed our collective memory of it. Now, "it's just business," and, "this is normal business practice," and "they're just looking out for the company.'

Yes, that's exactly the problem.

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I think your recollection of the past is rather romanticized.

Perhaps. But businesses spearheaded the creation of the Met Council, still one of the most empowered MPOs in the country.

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At least in the Twin Cities, I can understand the feeling that we had stronger cooperate citizenship in the past. Not only the Met Council, but the Daytona Company started the 5% club, and a lot of local companies participated. The 5% club required that companies give 5% of their pretax profits back to the community, which was the most allowed by law. It was a pretty impressive thing that I think showed the strong community focus of the companies. It wasn’t until I lived in other places that I realized how unique this concept was. There are many horror stories in the histories of many companies around the country, and I completely understand why there is distrust of big business. However, I haven’t heard such tales regarding the twin cities business community as often until recently.

Here's a Times article from about 10 years ago about the 5% club. It still exists! Although it also has a 2% tier now. And to their credit, I'm pretty sure most of the major downtown businesses have come out strongly in support of SWLRT. It's much easier to support things when they don't directly interact with your core business.

I'll be curious to read more...

Lunda-McCrossan is low bidder for Southwest Light Rail Transit work
*LOCKED*

Its $800 million civil construction bid was $3 million higher than the initial bid the Met Council rejected as too high.

I'll be curious to read more...

Lunda-McCrossan is low bidder for Southwest Light Rail Transit work
*LOCKED*

Its $800 million civil construction bid was $3 million higher than the initial bid the Met Council rejected as too high.

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Not really kosher.

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SWLRT price increases to $2 billion


Totally saw that coming.

sunk cost fallacy

the idea that a company or organization is more likely to continue with a project if they have already invested a lot of money, time, or effort in it, even when continuing is not the best thing to do:

Economists would point out that the sunk cost fallacy is irrational, and could be described as "throwing good money after bad".

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dic ... st-fallacy

Still worth the cost.

Still worth the cost.

100% agree. Critical transit options for residents in Minneapolis, Saint Paul, and the SW Burbs. So many jobs, housing, and more.

Hopefully this means they're actually accepting a bid and we can put shovels in the ground.

Sunk Cost Fallacy only applies if you think (a) we could somehow still build the Uptown route even after spending all this money on design and engineering and federal approvals and fighting all these political battles, or (b) the no-build option is better than finishing the line.

We all wish they would have gone for the Uptown route, but I'm also fairly confident that building on this corridor will become political poison if we don't get this done now. It's still a good project even if it's not the optimal possible project.

Yep, this feels like preparation for finally accepting a bid and getting construction moving. Original bid target was probably ~100 million lower, but that just doesn't seem attainable in the current construction climate.

Is it, uh, too late to...
1. Eliminate 21st St Station
2. Single track the LRT between West Lake and Penn Ave
3. Not do the shallow tunnel, but instead run a single track of LRT next to a single track of freight
4. Save piles and piles of money?