TransitTales

Have Doughnuts, Will Travel

As I boarded the Hiawatha line yesterday morning, heading to the U, I took up my usual standing room position near the rear door of the second car a for quick exit to my bus connection at the Metrodome station.

Standing next to me, however, was a woman holding a large cardboard tray of doughnuts--at least three dozen. The aroma was miserably tempting, especially since I'd dashed out without breakfast.

My usual three-stop ride was interminable.

There I was, go-mug of coffee in hand, and doughnuts within sight and smell, but infinitely out of reach: Tantalus redux.

As we pulled up to the Staypuffed Marshmallow Dome, another woman, also exiting the train, teasinlgy offered the doughnut bearer: "Need help carrying those?"

Chuckling, I wondered why I hadn't thought of being so charitable. Too busy drooling.

BusMania

OK--Over 2 years between posts. Maybe a new record in the blogosphere. Might as well return on Super Duper Fat Tuesday.

But this Strib article got me thinking about linking again.

The article references high gas prices and a desire to go green as reasons for the surge in ridership. Probably true, and fine reasons. Surely the bridge collapse and need for alternate routes and means of commuting is playing a role too.

At any rate, welcome aboard, new transit riders. Clearly we need our elected officials to support the demand. And clearly I've got some work to do to update this site. The race is on.

What a Gentleman Does

A guy boards the bus near a liquor store. Clothes rumpled, hair uncombed. He takes a seat, across from me, looks around, apparently assessing his captive audience, then begins in a Loud Voice.

Loud Talker [to no one in particular]: I s'pose all you college youngsters are studying for your midterms.

[no response]

Loud Talker: College is fun. I partied non-stop untill my junior year.

[no response]

Loud Talker: High school was easy. I never had to study until my junior. year.

[no response--driver assists passenger in a wheelchair, unlocking the safety straps.]

Loud Talker: There's a fine gentleman, helping others out. That's what a gentleman does.

[no response]

Driver: Next stop 13th.

[Loud Talker pulls cord, exits in silence. Narry a gentleman to help him out]

Amtrak's Gunn Fired

Couldn't resist the Gunn pun.

Alert reader and friend Sarah (I honestly didn't think I had any readers left, after months of very intermittent posting. And as for friends....) requests my incisive commentary on the story of the firing of Amtrak President David Gunn.

Incisive? The pressure's on. But here goes:

This seems like scapegoating, and more of the same habit of hurting Amtrak in the name of helping it.

Amtrak has never been adequately funded. Anti-transit types have always wanted it to fail, and the survivalist budget crumbs tossed its way have assured that.

The Bush administration wants to privatize Amtrak. Surprise, surpise. Privatization has worked so well with telecom (isn't Ma Bell being basically reassembled as SBC and Verizon?) and energy (Enron/California/pick your scandal), might as well try it with trains.

Maybe we should privatize the Interstate Highway system. Oh wait--that gets sufficient federal subsidies so that it actually works--in its inefficient, polluting, sprawl-inducing way. Hmmmm. Maybe highway privatization is an idea whose time has come....

Gothic Spice

Gothic Guy gets on the train at Franklin, 7:20 am. Full Gothic regalia: black everything, big ol' boots, chains, studs, eye-shadow, at least half a bottle of cheap cologne.

Cologne?

Now that's freaky.

(I had encountered Gothic Guy on the train once before--when he boarded with several other people--and I now remembered the smell. He had been low on my suspect list then. But now, it was clear that the offending aroma entered the train with him.)

Cologne? Enough of it to make me instantly and fully sympathetic to anyone with elevated olfactory sensitivity. It almost knocked me over; it was nauseating; it was a wall of pointed, stinging assault on my nose, throat and eyes. Maybe that's the point. Visually, the Gothic look is old hat, co-opted and commercialized. It's lost its shock value, so go for the nose instead of the eyes.

I was only too glad to let him get off ahead of me and dash to catch a bus, chains and things clanking. I happily waited for the next one, taking what Lamaze coaches call "deep cleansing breaths" of downtown air. It took a lot of air to clear the system. Maybe this is what Teen 2 meantbelow. Maybe she was kissing Gothic Guy.

Role Reversal

[Young woman behind me near Northrop Mall begins to talk on her phone:]

"Hello? Dad?"
[short pause]

"Finally. I've been trying to get you for days. Where have you been?"
[longer pause]

"Well yes, you are now, but where were you?"
[short pause]

"I was really worried. Don't do that again."
[I turn off to enter a building as she moves out of range]

Joined at the ipod on the 24

Two boys share a seat
and a set of earbuds,
twin tones gone mono.

Wack Tracks

Very crowded train at Metrodome East--just one car at 4:59 pm.

Group of teenagers talking much louder than necessary.

Teen 2: When I kiss you my nose smells weird.
Teen 1: Say what?
Teen 2: My nose. When I kiss you it smells weird.
Teen 1: That's wack.

[very brief pasue]

Teen 3: Nobody ever does that wall.
Teen 1: What wall?
Teen 3 That one. No one ever does that.
Teen 1: Yeah they do.
Teen 3: It's clean....
Teen 1: Joe, you peep the new stuff up here?"
Joe's girlfriend, AKA Teen 2: "Dude, that's so wack."

[very brief pause]

Teen 1: Is it gonna be this crowded all the way to the Mall?
Me [exiting, not quite loud enough]: That's wack. All these people who look like 9-to-5 types commuting home from downtown are really mall rats in disguise.

Our Transportation System Has No Clothes

Somebody calling himself the Naked Economist has an article that lays bare the underpriced cost of driving in the U.S.. That's right--underpriced, even at $3.00 per gallon.

Don't know about "Congestion-pricing" as the be-all and end-all of traffic jams, however. For instance, replace his hypothetical $14.00 an hour plumbing assistant with a a $5.15 per hour retail worker, and the math for Lexus Lanes isn't as compelling.

Bush Apparently Possessed: Calls For Gas Conservation

Well, this seems like a good reason to emerge from my late-summer hiatus and post again.

The President has asked Americans to drive less. This is the Oil Industry's Man, a President who's Press Secretary once called energy conservation "a big no."

And there's this quote from an AP article:

" 'If it makes sense for the citizen out there to curtail nonessential travel, it darn sure makes sense for federal employees,' Bush said. 'We can encourage employees to car pool or use mass transit, and we can shift peak electricity use to off-peak hours. There's ways for the federal government to lead when it comes to conservation.' "

This is un-American. How can we ever be an Ownership Society if our President is asking us to Own less gas?

Alaska Railroad

As promised, here's a picture of the great Alaskan train

And here's what it looks like from inside one of their Dome cars.

The Alaska Railroad

We went to a conference in Anchorage 10 days ago. While there, we rode the Alaska Railroad from Denali National Park back to Anchorage.

Rail fans get very enthused about the Alaska Railroad. It's a private corporation, a profitable one (it should be, given the fares), and so it's also often held up by privatizers as an example of what Amtrak might become.

That's not a fair analogy of course. The Alsaka Railroad is in a unique situation, in terms of intense tourist traffic, few roads, and what amounts to de facto subsidies by the tourist industry. Cars and highways have benefitted from massive government subsidies--rail shouldn't be expected to do without government support.

Anyway, we took one of the full-length dome cars in order to experience panoramic views--of course it was overcast and rainy, but still spectacular. Pictures at 11 (or so).

Shrink-wrap on Wheels

The Strib explains how to shrink-wrap a bus in blueberries and ipod dancers.

As the article mentions, those ads really do diminish riders' views outisde the train. From inside, the images are a bunch of annoying black dots that make me never want to buy an ipod or blueberries (I'll pick my berries up north, thanks very much). Come to think of it, annoying-black-dots-that-diminish-one's-perspective is an apt metaphor for advertising generally.

One of the ironies in the article:

Tom Black of 3M, which makes the shrink-wrap ads, thinks that "the bus and train wraps have become popular because they get ads out where people can see them from their cars. Said Black: 'People are spending so much more time in their cars.'"

"So much more time in their cars?" Not if they're riding the train--but then they're enveloped within a giant moving tube of vinyl film advertisement. Transit riders become marketing tools for the car-captive crowd, helping sell widgets (and blueberries) to drivers in their cars waiting at train crossings.

As Chaucer's Wife of Bath famously said, "Alle is for to selle."

Car Sharing: Another Blow for the Ownership Society

What will the right wing say? Surely it's un-American not to own a car (it's mostly blue-state types in big cities in the coasts who don't. after all--in part because they live near where they work, because it's expensive [market forces] and because there are real transit options). But what about when entrepeneurs find a way to make money off of it?

HOURCAR is a new option in the Twin Cites for people who don't want (or need) to own a car, but would find one useful now and then.

This sort of thing could spark a wider revolution: instead of every exurban acreage owning a riding mower, a group of neighbors could share one. (OK, that's pretty radical).

This already happens informally with snowblowers in our neighborhood: Most homes don't have enough in the way of sidewalks and driveways to justify an emissions-heavy snowblower, but one or two people per block who do own one (often on a corner lot), and have so have so much fun revving the thing up two or three times per winter that they oftern clear the sidewalk on the whole block.

Sharing, rather than ownership, creates a society.

New High Speed Japanese Train

Japan is serious.

Where's the U.S. leadership in mass transit innovation? (Sorry, Hummers don't count.)

Oil at $60+

Maybe it's time this country got serious about alternatives to cars.

Tinklenberg: Transit Preacher for the DFL?

The strib reports that former Ventura administration's transportation honcho Elwyn Tinklenberg is seeking DFL endorsement to run for the open 6th Congressional District seat (Mark ["Yessir Mr. President!") Kennedy's the incumbent, but he's running for Mark ["Money can't Buy Me Re-election"] Dayton's Senate seat).

First of all, you've gotta like the guy's name: "Elwyn Tinklenberg" is pure poetry.

Second, you've gotta admit he's probably conservative enough to get elected in the most conservative of Minnesota districts: he's pro-life, pro-conceal/carry, and would support a gay marraige ban--so in what way is he a Democrat?

For one, he's pro-transit: He was the main man in Ventura' push for Light Rail, the best (maybe the only good) outcome of the no-time-to-bleed administration. Among the many uber-conservatives Tinklenberg might face if he were the DFL nominee: Phil Krinkie, the anti-transit Fury himself.

Tinklenberg's other Democratic credibility would seem to be his willingness to take on the religious right, aka Theocrcay Now:

"...[H}e's got some credentials in the increasingly important faith-and-values arena. He's a former minister for the United Methodist Church. Tinklenberg said he wanted to 'take the language of faith back from those who have hijacked it,' and he delivered a scorching critique of fundamentalist Christian conservatives. He described their politics as a 'disingenuous commandeering of religious rhetoric. ... They use religion to judge the lives of others while forgetting what is said about acceptance and forgiveness and their own sinfulness.'"

So I'd be curious to hear his reasons for supporting the gay marriage ban and for being anti-choice--presumably they wouldn't be couched in SantorumDobsonSpeak. Those reasons would seem to defuse attacks from Michele Bachmann, who likes to hide behind bushes at GLBT rallies.

So would a Tinklenberg candidacy likely be a train to nowhere, or the best hope that Democrats have against the Krinkie/Bachmann Humvee?

Just What the US Needs: A Romanian SUV

DuVernois Blog has found it.

Sounds like the only ones interested may be Ceausescu nostalgia-buffs and hunters with a death wish.

Delayed Bicycle Gratification

I finally cancelled my Metropass today, six weeks later than I had once thought I would. The rain and cold have faded convincingly enough.

Actually, I've been anticipating this for even longer.

I'll be biking through the summer, except for when it rains hard, or feels like Christmas in July. Exercise, fresh air, low-cost, and atmosphere-friendly.

But I'll miss the train, the pulse of conversation, the jostling, the brief bursts of mobile community--and especially game days at the Metrodome East stop.

Blogging as Busking, or, Baseball. Buses, and the Creation of Social Capital

As I stepped off the bus, in the light rain, at the Metrodome East station on my way home two nights ago, I heard the sounds of a saxophone. There across the street was a busker, wearing his Twins cap, and riffing on "Take Me Out To The Ballgame." Fans on their way to the rain-protected game smiled. Some tossed coins and bills into his case. As a train pulled up, its rhythms and chimes added a counterpoint to the sax-man's music.

His playing earned him some money. But in addition to the green stuff, he was also creating social capital, creating interactions between erstwhile strangers, and maybe some understandings among otherwise anonymous people. I found myself feeling particularly glad that he wasn't chased off, by either the drizzle or the police.

And as I listened to him express himself in a public space, for any to hear who happened past, I found myself thinking that busking can be like blogging in the idealized sense of both activities: creating connections.

Of course, anything from poor musicianship to irresponsible or vitriolic blog-posting can destroy social capital, rather than create it. But here was a confluence of positive forces for cultural capital: Mass transit, grassroots music, and the home team to root-root-root for.

Spring, Rover, and Stadium Roofs

This time I think spring is really here (he says, knocking on wood, or the nearest facsimile thereof). When I got on the 50 last night, all of the windows were open. And an English bulldog in a car in the next lane was soaking up the warm air with its over-sized underbite happily jutting out the wide-open window.

And then, I arrived at the HHH Dome as Twins fans arrived. But in a change from recent weeks, they weren't rushing out of the rain and chill right into the old Teflon and plastic balloon, but actually lingering at the plaza activities outside.

The long stretch of cold, wet weather we've just been through makes me wonder about the sanity of a roofless stadium in these climes. Do the Twins really want a new stadium with no roof? Springtime in Minnesota (heck, even fall and summer) can be quite the roller-coaster ride. Once the novelty has worn off, will fans still come out the ballpark in a cold drizzle, or when it's 95 degrees with 95% humidity?

Bad News for Gas Guzzlers; Hybrids Looking Better

The AP is reporting that oil prices are back up above $54 per barrel after falling as "low" as $47 per barrel a couple of weeks ago.

A key quote from the article:

"John Kilduff, a senior oil analyst at FImat USA said, '$60 a barrel, which looked highly unlikely just last week, is now once again within the realm of reason.'"

This cuts at least two ways in the stock market, of course. Some investors get spooked by possible inflationary drag on the economy; others (or some of the same ones) turn speculative and hope to profit at the expense of oil consumers.

But it only cuts one way at the pump.

The article closes with the reminder that oil is 24% more pricey than it was a year ago. That would seem to be a trendline.

Central Corridor Update

The Central Corridor's Coordinating Committee resumed meeting again this month. I assume this means that the Federal Transit Authority's comments have been received

There will be three more public meetings over the summer. If this project is going to happen--and it clearly needs to--the question is whether the corridor will be developed with Bus Rapid Transit or Light Rail. BusRT would be cheaper initially, but I don't think it would have the same appeal for riders--and I don't think it would handle increased capacity as well as Light Rail.

("Increased capacity" assumes that continued service cuts by the Met Council, necessitated by short-sighted,anti-public investment politicians, won't continue to reduce ridership).

110 over 65 Without the Drive.

We came home yesterday from a short jaunt UpNorth. Nice and relaxing and all. But just thinking about the return drive on such trips gets many people's hearts racing. Here's why: at 6pm near Rogers on I-94, the Cities-bound traffic was stop and go. Mostly stop. It put everyone in a supremely unhappy holiday mood.

It reminded me how grateful I am not to commute to work by car.

Sure, there are times when driving a car to work would be more convenient. But I'm convinced my blood pressure would be much higher if I regularly drove any distance on freeways like that.

Fares Go Up--How About a User Fee instead?

As reported in the Strib, the Metropolitan Council, constrained by the governor's veto of transportation bill, voted yesterday to increase fares; in order to balance their budget the Council will also reduce service. Of course, the net result will be a loss of riders. It's a vicious cycle, sprialing downward. This is the second across the board fare increase in four years.

More details from the Strib:

"Legislators meeting in special session may yet include money for transit in a bill that appropriates operating money for the Minnesota Department of Transportation, said Rep. Ron Erhardt, R-Edina, chairman of the House Transportation Committee.

"In the regular session, Erhardt sponsored a transportation bill that he said would have added money for improved roads and expanded transit service -- including enough to avoid service cuts.

"The bill was passed by the House and Senate and vetoed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty because it included a 10-cent gas tax increase, and Pawlenty has taken a vow not to raise taxes."

We know that the vow has already been broken. Maybe the governor would agreee to a user fee on gas to fund roads and transit?

No New User Fees?

Update: I see Jim at Oil is for Sissies was only an hour-and-a-half or so more timely than I in getting around to commenting on the gubernatorial word-play.

It's not news to anyone around these parts that Governor Pawlenty vetoed the transportation bill that would have filled potholes, built roads AND funded transit at an operable level--in the name of having sold his soul to the Taxpayer's League--I mean holding to his No New Taxes pledge. But hey, i've been on hiatus for a week.

And it's not news that he then turned around and proposed a cigarette tax--I mean user fee--though not to fund anything related to smokers, as you'd expect a cigarette user's fee to do.

We deserve much better leadership than accounting gimmicks and word games. How about investing in the state's infrastructure (and K-12 schools, while we're at it)?

Rollin' Again

Been stranded by the side of the road with end of semester / start of May Session busy-ness. But I'm back on the bloggin' train here--though things will remain only slightly less busy for the foreseeable future.

Seattle, MN

Enough with the rain already.

My neighbors' yard looks like a hay field ready for mowing

No Night Buses on Nicollet Mall

As a summer experiment, according to the Strib:

"Affected routes: 10, 11, 17, 18, 25, 675 and 466, which make 200 bus trips between 6:30 and 11 p.m. and which carry about 3,500 riders. At 11 p.m. the buses will return to Nicollet Mall for late-evening trips from downtown." those routes will run on Hennepin Ave. instead.

All of those riders will instead be moved over to Hennepin Ave. "in an effort to make the downtown Minneapolis mall more pleasant for walking, biking, and outdoor dining."

That will certainly mean less diesel exhaust hanging over the sidewalk cafes. As a trade-off, transit users will have some extra walking to do in extra fumes on the Hennepin Avenue detour.

Transit Victory in the MN House

From today's STrib

Key transit related points in the bill (from the Strib article):
"• A near doubling, to 40 percent, of the portion of vehicle sales taxes going to transit, if voters approve it in a constitutional amendment referendum next year. The move could shift $100 million a year from the state general fund to bus and rail transit.
• Transfer of $95 million a year in sales taxes collected in the seven-county metropolitan area to transit -- 80 percent to the metro area, 20 percent to outstate -- also at the expense of the state general fund."

There has been great work on this by Transit for Livable Communities (from the Strib article):

"Sacha Peterson of Transit for Livable Communities said the bill would eliminate planned Metro Transit fare increases, route cuts and a projected loss of 2 million riders, as well as fund $85 million in service upgrades over two years. 'We're ecstatic,' she said. 'This is a historic day and a package that works for everyone. It will absolutely address congestion.'"

Of course, the one-note anti-taxers are shrieking their one-note song (from the Strib):

"...David Strom, president of the Taxpayers League of Minnesota, scoffed that the House bill is 'running on fumes ... Neither the governor nor the voters will allow this to pass.'"

But ten (!) House Republicans voted for this bill--because their constituents are tired of gridlock, legislatively and on the roads. The Senate will pass something similar. Is Pawlenty's next ride going to be an override?