Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)
Posted: February 9th, 2015, 9:03 am
Which unsung alternative did you have in mind?
Architecture, Development, and Infrastructure of the Twin Cities
https://urbanmsp.com/
Okay, so, what's the unstudied route?"Ah yes, an alternatives analysis is a thorough study of the entire universe of alternatives." Some of you folks are so naive. And it has nothing to do with tunnels.
So why didn't you educate him?Joe Gladke's ignorance.
I really agree with this. What's a better approach?The "universe of alternatives" approach is so backward -- it assumes that you know everything at the beginning of a planning process, but that's never the case.
I also don't know how seriously a line all the way down Broadway was considered. Although if (a big if) a Broadway streetcar happens, that's probably a better outcome anyway.Okay, so, what's the unstudied route?
What is different about tunneling under an airport vs tunneling under a low density residential area? Except that the airport has a surface use that is more expensive to disrupt.Only us naive people refuse to believe tunneling under an airport and excavting a single deep station adjacent to a parking ramp are at all comparable to tunneling through north Minneapolis.
Given that there was an alternative that would have torn down dozens of houses along Penn, how about an alternative that widens the West Broadway ROW? How about an alternative that doesn't skirt the North Loop? How about a BRT alternative that isn't encumbered by padded run times? Those are just a few offhand ideas.Which unsung alternative did you have in mind?
Really? This is your question? What exactly do you want me to say to this? The honest answer is that I felt so dejected by his immediate dismissal when I brought up tunneling that I not only felt it pointless to respond, I went into a deep depression. I did write several responses over the course of a few months, but never felt courageous enough to send them. I went to several meetings for Bottineau, but never saw him in person. Are you satisfied now, David Greene?So why didn't you educate him?Joe Gladke's ignorance.
I doubt any of us on this board have enough information to know for sure -- we can assume that there's a denser network of utility lines through the city neighborhood than the airport, but there is definitely stuff underground at the airport too -- probably a lot of it at a bigger scale but arranged in different ways. Does the stuff in the neighborhood go deep enough to affect a deep-bore tunnel? Would cut-and-cover still be more cost-effective, even if it did mean digging down through water lines, sewer lines, and gas lines (some of which might be old enough to need replacement anyway)?What is different about tunneling under an airport vs tunneling under a low density residential area? Except that the airport has a surface use that is more expensive to disrupt.Only us naive people refuse to believe tunneling under an airport and excavting a single deep station adjacent to a parking ramp are at all comparable to tunneling through north Minneapolis.
Reminds me of how things went for me after politics swooped in to stop efforts at intercity rail in Wisconsin. Too much of the decisionmaking in these situations gets driven by whoever yells the loudest, and that tends to mean cutting back efforts at public transportation because it's seen as "wasteful" by the anti-tax crowd, even though the projects are often the more cost-effective way to get people to move around. Folks are just too afraid of the costs (they manage to turn a blind eye to highway spending, though state DOTs tend to do a masterful job of slicing big projects up into relatively bite-sized pieces, so the spending is often a lot less obvious)....
The honest answer is that I felt so dejected by his immediate dismissal when I brought up tunneling that I not only felt it pointless to respond, I went into a deep depression. I did write several responses over the course of a few months, but never felt courageous enough to send them. I went to several meetings for Bottineau, but never saw him in person. Are you satisfied now, David Greene?
I'm not the one needing satisfying. It's not fair to blame Joe for decisions when you didn't take any action to get what you want. Maybe action wouldn't have helped but I'm tired of the victim mentality on this, SWLRT and basically every other transit project people complain about.Really? This is your question? What exactly do you want me to say to this? The honest answer is that I felt so dejected by his immediate dismissal when I brought up tunneling that I not only felt it pointless to respond, I went into a deep depression. I did write several responses over the course of a few months, but never felt courageous enough to send them. I went to several meetings for Bottineau, but never saw him in person. Are you satisfied now, David Greene?So why didn't you educate him?
IME there aren't thoughtless bureaucrats, but regardless, we don't live in your ideal world. Take action to create it and in the meantime, fight. Everything else is wasted effort.I'd like to live in a world where building sane transit isn't an adversarial processes going against thoughtless bureaucrats.
No, that's not how you do things. You build relationships with the people in power and over time you influence them. You introduce them to new ideas. You debate them. You *listen* to what they have to say. You build trust and mutual respect. You discover your common self-interests. Then you decide together what you can do.Well it's not like we live in a world where you can just take the project lead to coffee and explain everything wrong with not only what he's doing now, but everything he's done for his entire career, and then have him do a sudden 180 and champion a much improved project.