The people have been polled, and if you’ve ever been polled, you know how painful that can be. (Note: this was very funny 26 years ago when David Letterman said it. Trust me.) The most pressing concern in the Metro area is transportation. Crime is a close second. The Chairman of the Met Council has the answer:
"Bell touted progress on the North Star rail line to link outlying northern suburbs with downtown Minneapolis.
"He also touted the expansion of the Hiawatha light rail to the new Twins ball park and construction of the Central Corridor LRT between the downtowns of Minneapolis and St. Paul. In addition, he highlighted bus line developments made possible by a $133 million federal grant.
"Bell received enthusiastic applause from the audience of elected officials, municipal employees, residents and other stakeholders when he indicated that the Central Corridor LRT was his 'No. 1 priority.'"
That’s the light-rail line between downtown Minneapolis and downtown St. Paul. You might want to get out a map and reacquaint yourself with the size of the Twin Cities and the extensive network of these flat, grayish strips of hard surface we call roads. I suspect that people’s frustrations over “transportation” does not begin and end with the lack of a sleek noiseless ride between the core city downtowns, but the fact that aged roads leading and from the places people live are stacked and packed every rush hour. But roads are in poor odor these days, and if a public official held up the survey results and said “We hear you! More roads on the way, friends” some people would expect him to saw baby seals in half as a follow-up act.
Okay, let’s be fair. It does make sense as an immediate priority if you’re talking about securing Federal funds, and if you regard the link as an essential part of the inevitable commuter rail system that will link St. Cloud to Dututh to Winona some day. Not building the Central Corridor would be like building the Interstate without the I-94 trench between St. Paul and Mpls. But if you’re sitting on an antiquated potholed road thronged with cars heading out to a growing exurb, you might wonder why it’s Priority Number One.
The actual wording of the survey found that people were mad-as-hell about "traffic congestion, road conditions, limited transit options and other transportation challenges." Here’s a pdf of the survey. It notes that people are “very likely” to try alternatives to commuting in the future– and that’s nice, but nothing’s stopping them now. It also posits an additional million residents in the Metro region by 2030. Obviously, public transit has to increase to meet the needs; as this story points out, people who want to take the bus from the burbs are being stymied by the lack of park-and-ride lots. But the survey ranked the Metro Transit bus system as a program less important than wastewater treatment. And light-rail was second from the bottom of important Council programs.
People are all over the map, in other words. Literally. That’s what makes this so difficult.
Polls
I remember when we first moved here (near Omaha) I got a phone call from a pollster (if I knew who it was, I have forgotten). The questions were pretty clearly intended to elicit the opinion that the worst problem facing Omaha was crime. (Then and now, that is not the worst thing, the police might be strong candidates but the truth is pot holes are the worst....but I digress.)
The "pollster" finally asked I thought the worst thing about Omaha was. This being 1991 or there abouts, and I having moved here in the winter of 1989-1990, I said "Winter". He then said (in terminal exasperation) "what was the second worst thing about Omaha?" to which the obvious answer was "Summer". (We have a heat-humidity-bugs thing here, too.)