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Old 04-18-2011, 11:40 PM
 
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I'm sure a couple of you have read Steve Berg's article on MinnPost, but I thought I'd make a post about it. You can read it here.

Any thoughts?

I really do think it's quite astounding that we have more road per capita than Los Angeles, which gets a bad rap about being too auto-dependent (regardless of its truth value).
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Old 04-19-2011, 12:24 AM
 
Location: Twin Cities, Minnesota
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I believe it. Like Los Angeles, Minneapolis' road system is too complex and outdated for it's own good, and there's a HUGE lack of proper public transportation. Hardly any roads go straight through the city without being bottlenecked or interrupted somehow (ie: 35W @ H62, 35W @ 94, 35W @ H36). There are no flyover exit ramps at 494 and 35W. Don't even get me started on the rat trap downtown - there's no ramp from 35W southbound to 94 eastbound and no ramp from 94 westbound to 35W northbound. It's the same scenario with 35E and 94 in Saint Paul. Freeways just turn into residential roads instead of just going straight through town (ie: 77 at Lake Nokomis).

Sure, the light rail is being built between downtown Minneapolis and downtown Saint Paul, cool, but I can think of about 4 more places that it could go instead. Plus, why is the light rail on Hiawatha?!?! Did someone decide that all people in the Twin Cities do is shop at the Mall of America and then go on vacations via the airport? And what's with Hiawatha??? You'd think it would be a quicker way downtown but there's a stoplight every 50 feet which is annoying when the speed limit is high and you're stopping every 30 seconds. And Northstar - yes, because there is no more used commute in Minnesota than Saint Cloud to Minneapolis. Does anyone even use the Northstar???

Why isn't there a highway north of downtown Minneapolis that connects 35W and 94 and 394?

AND ENOUGH ASPHALT!!!! MY WHEELS ARE GOING TO FALL OFF WITH THESE POTHOLES!!!
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Old 04-19-2011, 06:47 AM
 
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I definitely believe it. Of course Los Angeles is far denser than the Twin Cities (and less auto-centric, whatever the stereotype), but if the LA comparison needs to be used for shock value, so be it. It's tough to look around this area without noticing just how sprawled things are, the very low density of many of the suburbs, and you don't have to get very far out until you start running into subdivisions with lots of cul-de-sacs and looped around streets. Just driving around the metro area makes it clear how much this place sprawls at low-density levels compared to many other major cities, so it's no surprise that a lot more roads are needed to serve our metro's land use choices.
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Old 04-19-2011, 06:57 AM
 
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OR just maybe it has to do with the rivers and lakes that break up traffic flow around the metro
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Old 04-19-2011, 07:02 AM
 
Location: Minneapolis, MN
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Quote:
Originally Posted by golfgal View Post
OR just maybe it has to do with the rivers and lakes that break up traffic flow around the metro
I'm sorry, but that is not a legitimate reason for having the 3rd most roads per capita in the country. There is a LOT of room for improvement in the metro area in terms of public transportation, transportation efficiency and density. How can you just shrug off a statistic like that? It's unacceptable in my opinion.
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Old 04-19-2011, 07:16 AM
 
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Other cities also have geographic features that interrupt traffic flow. Pointing out geography is always a valid point, but in this case I don't think our lakes and rivers have much bearing on number of roads per capita.
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Old 04-19-2011, 07:35 AM
 
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Apples to oranges!

Minneapolis has a lot lower density than somewhere like LA. Not only is there a much higher ratio of single family homes to multi-family, but there are also lots of parks. Compare Minneapolis/St. Paul metro at about 3.2 million in 3600 square miles (from Wikipedia, 2006 data) compared to 17+ million in 4800 square miles in LA Metro. It's not that we have too many roads...we just don't have nearly as many people! I agree that we need a better public transit system though.
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Old 04-19-2011, 07:37 AM
 
Location: Bel Air, California
23,769 posts, read 28,926,076 times
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What we should do is spend our money on "commuter rail lines to nowhere" because, golly gee they are pretty and validates our inclusion into the progressive cities list.

The Northstar rail line ended up costing ($320M) four times more than it was suppose to per mile, and serves a whopping 1,500 passengers a day. The annual operating cost is subsidized to the tune of $13.5M per year by the taxpayers and chances of this boondoggle ever reaching it's intended purpose of serving St Cloud is zilch.

The crosstown commons project cost $288M, serves 200,000 commuters a day and will cost a fraction of what the Northstar will to maintain.

The Tale of Two Projects
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Old 04-19-2011, 07:59 AM
 
Location: Minneapolis, MN
10,244 posts, read 16,313,473 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ghengis View Post
What we should do is spend our money on "commuter rail lines to nowhere" because, golly gee they are pretty and validates our inclusion into the progressive cities list.

The Northstar rail line ended up costing ($320M) four times more than it was suppose to per mile, and serves a whopping 1,500 passengers a day. The annual operating cost is subsidized to the tune of $13.5M per year by the taxpayers and chances of this boondoggle ever reaching it's intended purpose of serving St Cloud is zilch.

The crosstown commons project cost $288M, serves 200,000 commuters a day and will cost a fraction of what the Northstar will to maintain.

The Tale of Two Projects
I don't think many people would disagree with you that the commuter rail was a mistake. The largest contributor to the roads per capita issue has got to be the surplus of low-density sprawl of windy roads and cul-de-sacs that characterize the majority of the metro area. I would love to see the roads/capita broken down by each suburb.
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Old 04-19-2011, 08:22 AM
 
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I do think that the Los Angeles comparison confuses the issue, since LA IS built at a much higher density -- it's urban areas are denser than most of what you find in Minneapolis, and most of its suburbs are built at a higher density than comparable suburbs in the Twin Cities. I assume that Berg threw that in there to wake people up, since so many people have this vision of LA as being ultra-"suburban." A better comparison would be other metro areas with similarly low population densities. I think Slig is right that it's the low-density winding roads so popular around here that are raising our numbers.

The big public transportation issues around here have some major problems. The Hiawatha Line was built first because it was the easiest; I think it was a good line, but it really needs to work with a network of others to be truly successful. People around here don't want to pay to put the lines where they're needed, though, as well as have the idea that if an area already has high public transportation rates -- i.e. Uptown and Whittier, as seen through the Southwest Corridor debates -- then there's no need to give them new service, as they're already using the bus. The end result is a priority on getting outer suburban commuters to jobs downtown, which makes it tougher to get a system that works for people who use public transportation in other ways (commutes suburb-to-suburb, out of the city, at non-peak hours, etc.)

I don't know much about road costs, but I'm assuming that the average mile of road costs more to maintain here than it does in many places, given the extremes of our climate. Looking at roads per capita is a good way of getting people to debate whether or not we really want to encourage a development pattern that puts these higher cost on fewer people.
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