Twin Cities Transportation Issues (Minneapolis, Lakeville: 2015, theater, colleges)

[Beenhere4ever]

Fuel is a transportation issue. I got my tank filled today. And it got me to thinking. I buy 100 percent of my gas at Super America. So I really don't know how people save money at the rest of the stations. But I'm very familiar with people who buy where I do. A lot of people pop into the store, hand a cashier a couple bills, saying $20 regular on [pump-number]. Nothing really wrong with that. If they need LESS than $20, then they make a second trip in. If they need MORE than $20, they don't fill their tank. Its a hit or miss proposition. To avoid that many people just use credit at the pump. Little bit faster. Some efficiencies there. You can get EXACTLY what you want or just run till it is full. Plus, then, at SA if you have one of their loyalty cards, stick that in first and get 3 cents off.

I naturally don't regularly do any of the above. I've prepaid with credit card when the readers on the pumps didn't work. They say the eventual charge will be what I bought, not what the cashier put in the register. At least once I've been billed for the latter. I had to bug the company to get it rectified.

What I do now is probably what few people do. I use cash to put $50 on a "fuel card" which is a SA-only stored value card. Since I only buy at SA, it always gets totally used. But the deal that SA does nothing to advertise is that by reading the loyalty card and the stored value card at the pump, you escape the prepay thing when in a hurry and get 6 cents off the posted price. Basically I did that today and made 1.7 percent on my cash investment. I don't have to surprise anyone if I compare that to every other guaranteed investment and say it beats them all by a margin. I just realized what a good investment that is. I'm not a "gas only" customer. So I have many many opportunities to add the fuel card to a food transaction. People who buy nothing but gas might complain about "wasting" time getting the fuel card. But, again, its a 1.7 percent investment. And here's the part my evil mind likes. By staying away from my other cards, I'm preventing banks from nicking us for a fee. People who love banks will hate this part.

Anyway, like I say, the economics of fuel consumption is an all-embracing topic today. I average 4000 miles per year. People with trucks or long commutes are gonna make many times more than I make by bargain-searching. Luckily my favorite SA stations are always beating the regional average price per gallon.

[Beenhere4ever]

REALLY messy commute! The Star Tribune page lets you select personal stretches of highway you usually travel or want to. I guess when you select them from the drop down menu, you get to see the speed on them at any time. Could be useful, especially on a phone or tablet.

[Beenhere4ever]

Today's Star Tribune has a pretty important front page article on the SW LRT project. Among its points is that the mushrooming costs of that project threatens to shortchange other suburbs within Metro Council's jurisdiction. In essence, SWLRT is eating other area's lunch, if continued as designed now. I don't know if sponsors of the plan get that perspective, but some officials clearly do. Plus, to avoid that would mean slapping on more taxes on the region just so Eden Prairie and other areas can get what they want. I can see how this could slide into contention among outlying areas. I don't know if this has happened in other places, though I do know that two projects of Portland Oregon are stalled now, too. Before the financial collapse, I think a lot of things could have been full speed ahead, but the golden time has slid by. It could be (hypothetically) that the joy ride of Wall Street has derailed some options for public transportation.

[Ghengis]

Originally Posted by Beenhere4ever

Fuel is a transportation issue. I got my tank filled today. And it got me to thinking. I buy 100 percent of my gas at Super America. So I really don't know how people save money at the rest of the stations. But I'm very familiar with people who buy where I do. A lot of people pop into the store, hand a cashier a couple bills, saying $20 regular on [pump-number]. Nothing really wrong with that. If they need LESS than $20, then they make a second trip in. If they need MORE than $20, they don't fill their tank. Its a hit or miss proposition. To avoid that many people just use credit at the pump. Little bit faster. Some efficiencies there. You can get EXACTLY what you want or just run till it is full. Plus, then, at SA if you have one of their loyalty cards, stick that in first and get 3 cents off.

I naturally don't regularly do any of the above. I've prepaid with credit card when the readers on the pumps didn't work. They say the eventual charge will be what I bought, not what the cashier put in the register. At least once I've been billed for the latter. I had to bug the company to get it rectified.

What I do now is probably what few people do. I use cash to put $50 on a "fuel card" which is a SA-only stored value card. Since I only buy at SA, it always gets totally used. But the deal that SA does nothing to advertise is that by reading the loyalty card and the stored value card at the pump, you escape the prepay thing when in a hurry and get 6 cents off the posted price. Basically I did that today and made 1.7 percent on my cash investment. I don't have to surprise anyone if I compare that to every other guaranteed investment and say it beats them all by a margin. I just realized what a good investment that is. I'm not a "gas only" customer. So I have many many opportunities to add the fuel card to a food transaction. People who buy nothing but gas might complain about "wasting" time getting the fuel card. But, again, its a 1.7 percent investment. And here's the part my evil mind likes. By staying away from my other cards, I'm preventing banks from nicking us for a fee. People who love banks will hate this part.

Anyway, like I say, the economics of fuel consumption is an all-embracing topic today. I average 4000 miles per year. People with trucks or long commutes are gonna make many times more than I make by bargain-searching. Luckily my favorite SA stations are always beating the regional average price per gallon.

when I retire I'm going to tend to my garden

[Beenhere4ever]

Originally Posted by Ghengis

when I retire I'm going to tend to my garden

Enjoy. Mostly I hate gardens. Unless they are someone else's. There's no activity associated with them that appeals to me. Depending on where you live, gardens make you company to bugs. Wherever most bugs are, I want to be elsewhere. That's what makes me so averse to outdoors sports. I go outdoors in order to go to other indoors. And given skin cancer, I don't consider outdoors necessarily healthy. In fact, during air emergency alerts, they caution people to stay indoors. Must be something to that.

[stuckinsj]

Originally Posted by Beenhere4ever

And, once again, we have someone saying "keep up with your peers". As though the basis of good government is what matters elsewhere, regardless of impact on who is here. That's high school thinking. And it is a reason why maturity beats enthusiasm.

Well i mentioned the other places because you said other cities were rejecting light rail,,, NOT TRUE. Also it is good to get out and see the world, you might learn something.. I have far more knowledge about transportation planning than you partly because i travel to other cities to see what they are doing and what issues, solutions, problems they have. the Twin Cities does not exist in a vacuum. The Twin Cities are competing with places like Denver, Portland, and Dallas for companies, people, and investment. It is good to know your competition.



But thanks for trying to twist my words to mean something that i did not say. BTW i have completed high school, college, and graduate school so i doubt i have a "high school thinking", whatever that is.

[Beenhere4ever]

Originally Posted by stuckinsj

Well i mentioned the other places because you said other cities were rejecting light rail,,, NOT TRUE. Also it is good to get out and see the world, you might learn something.. I have far more knowledge about transportation planning than you partly because i travel to other cities to see what they are doing and what issues, solutions, problems they have. the Twin Cities does not exist in a vacuum. The Twin Cities are competing with places like Denver, Portland, and Dallas for companies, people, and investment. It is good to know your competition.



But thanks for trying to twist my words to mean something that i did not say. BTW i have completed high school, college, and graduate school so i doubt i have a "high school thinking", whatever that is.

This probably a semantic bog. Other cities ARE rejecting some recent proposals. You can't say our Metro Council has "rejected light rail" because we have the Blue and Green line. That is not insurance at all that the remaining lines are cost-effective or will be built. Portland HAS rejected two latest proposals. But because of a different perspective on taxes and more early enthusiasm for the mode, they managed to get a lot built before the banking collapse. So they are lucky to have a complete system which they merely wanted to tweak by doing things like extend their northern route to Vancouver WA.

As for some other cities, they never had a governor Pawlenty who managed to stave off increases to his wealthy friends by accounting gimmicks that ended up in a huge deficit.

[Beenhere4ever]

From Twitter: Closed this weekend: Hwy 252 closed at I-694. WB94 closed b/t 394 & 694. WB694 closed at Hwy 100. NB169 between 55 & 94.

[Beenhere4ever]

Open Streets closes Minnehaha Ave in Minneapolis 10am to 4pm on Sunday. Use Hiawatha Ave.

[Beenhere4ever]

And from Twitter:
WOW is NB I-35 bad! It jams before 210th in Lakeville and barely moves up to Co 50 where the right lane is blocking const. Find an alternate