James Lileks illustrates why Minnesota’s light-rail system is a joke. The Twin Cities needs some kind of mass transit – but spending $800 mil on a glorified trolley car and absolutely ghastly public art was not a good use of taxpayer money. Whoever designed that horrendous obelisk with tired old lefty cliches in incomprehensible languages should be prosecuted for an affront to basic aesthetics. Then again, it’s perfectly emblematic of liberalism – a bunch of meaningless slogans set in stone and meaning nothing that ends up being an ugly and unstable ediface designed solely to make the privileged feel good about themselves while doing absolutely nothing.
Another Government Boondoggle
Published
Emblematic of liberalism? Isn’t Minnesota controlled by Republicans? The biggest early cheerleader of light rail was Jesse Ventura. You can call him a liberal, I suppose, but his record doesn’t suggest he qualifies as one, at least on your pet issues. And by the not, if not light rail, then what? You said the Cities needs some sort of mass transit, yet all you have to offer is cartoonish criticism of the one they got.
Mark writes “Isn’t Minnesota controlled by Republicans?”
Mark, you must live in a dream world…Minnesota’s legislature is dominated by the Democrats….actually, it’s the DFL that dominates in Minnesota, which is the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, which is really the Democrats…
Well, perhaps someone could invent a system that uses already-existing architecture, doesn’t require unsightly wires and blocking off streets and doesn’t require taxpayer subsidies.
We could call it an automatic bussing system or bus for short…
The problem with the light-rail system is that it was far too expensive, poorly designed, and will never be self-sustaining – all the hallmarks of a government project.
The problem with light rail is that too many people just buy into it because it seems kind of neat…like the monorail system at Disney World…
Most people don’t bother to rigorously analyze the financial and logistical realities of such a system…
Another Thought, I live in Minnesota and promise you that I know more about Minnesota politics than you do. Minnesota has not had a DFL Governor in 14 years. Both branches of the Legislature haven’t been in DFL hands since 1998. Currently, we have a Republican Governor, a state House with a Republican majority of 81-53, and a state Senate with a slim DFL majority of 35-31. Better have a little more information the next time you try to take me on about Minnesota politics or you’ll have egg on your face again. 😉
Jay, I would be all for expanding the bus system instead of opening a light rail line….if not for the fact that ideologues in your party who own the Governor and state House are constantly holding a spike to the tires of the busses and waiting for the first opportunity to deflate them. Nobody is in a cozier position with Minnesota Republicans than the noxious Minnesota Taxpayers League, who tried vehemently to use the bus strike this spring as an excuse to shut down the entire system and force more Minnesotans onto congested freeways. Once free-market ideologues put the brakes on Minnesota’s busses, and it’s only a matter of time until they do if we continue electing Republicans, then there’s nothing left but freeways. Whether you believe the Twin Cities needs mass transit, the power players in your party do not.
Mark,
I too live in Minnesota and consider it a Democratic state. Although the state is currently controlled by a Republican governor and has a Republican majority in the state house, the state has voted consistently for Democratic presidential candidates over the past half century. Also, the Republicans who get elected in Minnesota often do so by espousing moderate platforms. These are more substantial factsfor evaluating Minnesota´s political tradition than noting that the DFL has controlled only ONE chamber, rather than its usual BOTH chambers, of the state legislature for the past six years.
A more interesting issue is the future of Minnesota politics. The state is still considered Democratic territory (just ask the national party headquarters of the GOP or the Dems), but that may be changing. With an influx of younger, more individualistic, more suburban residents and a swell of immigrants that stress the state´s budget (and,though they passively aggressively deny it, the good will of many Scandanavian Lutherans). Moreover, political power in Minnesota is undergoing an important shift to the suburbs. While the DFL of rural Minnesota and the more radical DFL of Minneapolis and St. Paul flounder to connect with the ever-growing suburbs, the GOP has done a magnificent job. It may be that these residents´ values coincide with GOP policy or it may be that the GOP is doing a better job at reaching out to them, but a geopolitical polarization and how the parties are handling it are shaping Minnesota´s political future.
Its political tradition however, as begun the discussion, is undeniably Democratic though.¨Another Thought¨is correct.
Dagny, Minnesota’s “political tradition” has nothing to do with the issue that started this discussion….the current light rail project which was not the product of the “loony left” within the DFL.
Other than that, your assessment of Minnesota politicsis pretty much on target. Things are changing here fast, and as someone who follows Minnesota political trends with a fine-tooth comb, I could see trouble coming in the 1998 election when suburban counties like Anoka and Washington that have traditionally been solid for the DFL went straight-ticket Republican in every race except the Governor’s race, where they voted third party. Even in 2000, Al Gore lost every metro area county besides Hennepin and Ramsey. My only surprise was everybody else’s surprise at the 2002 election results. The suburban/exurban divide that used to exist in Burnsville, Anoka, and Woodbury now exists in Faribault, Belle Plaine and Cambridge, with tens of thousands of new-money yuppies filtering in everywhere between. The trend towards Texas-style politics was inevitable.
While it’s certainly true that the Republican Party of Minnesota past generally consisted of RINO, Elmer Andersen, Arne Carlson and Dave Durenburger’s GOP no longer exists. However, I think most of suburbia’s constituency falls ideologically closer to Republican Party leaders of yesteryear than they do to Tim Pawlenty, Paul Kohls and Michele Bachman. If Minnesota’s Republican Party continues to embrace Texas values, they may find themselves at odds with their base and the state’s trend to the GOP may end as quickly as it began. A national figure like George Bush represents a more short-term liability to the Republicans ascendancy in Minnesota.
I also believe the DFL has a good chance of picking up a greater share of the rural Minnesota vote if they can somehow distance themselves from the Ellen Andersons of the Legislature. Much of rural Minnesota aligns themselves with the GOP based on social issues even though doing so is tantamount to inviting a mugging from the party’s suburban base whose only concern is sparing their constituency from the pain of budget cuts. Rural Minnesota will always have a bullseye on its chest so long as the state Republican Party is controlled by tax-averse suburbanites too blinded by their own privilege to comprehend the necessity of making the rest of the state livable. In short, Republicans in Fergus Falls and New Ulm have more in common with Minneapolis liberals than they do with their own sons and daughters in Chanhassen. If they realize this, the Republicans have some trouble.
Minnesota is certainly a swing state at this point and my guess is that the Republicans will control the agenda at state level politics for some time, even though I don’t believe most voters are as conservative as the people they’re electing. We are seeing a steady influx of immigrants, but it’s actually lower than the national average. In many cases, this actually CONTRIBUTES to Republican gain for a couple reasons. First, there’s a xenophobic reaction to newcomers “bleeding social services dry on my nickel.” Also, the newcomers are primarily cheap labor tools used to fill jobs that in previous generations were filled by native-born union workers. This a perfect scenario for Republicans….their robber baron constituency gets a factory floor full of warm bodies at a substantially reduced rate….and the vast majority of them are not citizens and are thus ineligible to vote, centrallizing political control into the hands of the people looking down on the factory floor rather than the people standing on it.
It’ll be interesting to see how things go, but there are a great many voters who are clueless about the Republican Party’s bloodthirsty anti-populist platform. My dad is learning this calling teachers, state employees and other union workers and receiving a small, but still frightening number of people who identify themselves as Republicans, even though the Republican Party is openly hostile to their livelihood and is actively seeking to undermine their employment. It’s hard to say what it will take to make these people recognize that voting Republican because of like-minded views on abortion or gun rights is equivalent to willfully walking into a financial gas chamber through the front door. If they don’t catch on quick, I weep for my state (and country’s future).
Yes, because in Mark’s little world, the evil Republicans are all “robber barons” who want nothing more than to oppress everyone while smoking their cigars and generally being evil.
To Mark, Republicans want cheap labor, even though their policies are designed to reduce the flow of illegal immigrants. Republicans only support the rich, even though the super-rich are a major Democratic constituency. (Those who actually work for their money tend to vote Republican.) Republicans hate education, even though most of the problems in education stem from an arrogant and ineffective educational bureaucracy engaged in the tireless pursuit of mediocrity in standards while conveniently lining their own pockets.
Of course, in the real world the shift in Minnesota politics is because of the upward mobility of the suburbs and the utter failure of the liberal establishment to make life better for Minnesotans. Instead it’s the same old arguments, vote for us because we care, and the Republicans don’t.
That line of crap doesn’t hold water any more. I know people like Mark can’t grasp the concept that many Republicans are Republicans because they know that the GOP agenda is the right agenda and the liberal agenda cannot by nature achieve its own objectives, but it remains the truth nevertheless.
At the risk of heresy here, might I ask a question that goes back to the actual subject of the post? 🙂 Question – Jay’s article considers the rail system a ‘joke’ and a ‘boondoggle’, but the only supporting information for this commentary is the bad artwork (and in fact the photo essay is short on detail and long on asthetic commentary). What I’d be curious about is how much of this $880mil was spent on artwork, and how much was spent on things like property purchases for right of way, construction of the lines and power systems, etc?
Public transit is EXPENSIVE no matter how you slice it it. Looking up some other information on this particular project, we have this article from twincities.com that says over the weekend, 88,000 people rode those trains. If they had been paying, averaging $1.50 per ride, that’s $134,000 income for 2 days operation.
I understand that the novelty will wear off, and ridership will decline, that’s the way of these things. But in my opinion, mass transit systems are absolutely the appropriate way to handle expansion of urban areas. They reduce congestion, increase mobility, and cut down dependence on cars. All good things.
Alas, I live in Boston, where (pinky in mouth) 14 billion dollars was just spent to improve the highway system. Making it easier for cars to move through the city. That much money poured into the mass transit system would have, IMHO, had a far better impact on the city than this idiotic project. But I digress into my own personal rants. 🙂
Getting back on target, I’d love to see the real numbers for the Minnesota trail line, as well as ridership numbers. Lets see if this thing is the boondoggle you’re portraying it to be.
dbs: No disagreement there. The Big Dig was a horribly inefficient project that quickly spirled out of control.
I’m not against public transit (in fact, I’m a huge fan of the DC Metro, which is the best public transit system in the world and makes getting around easy) – however, I don’t think light rail will work in the long run.
Then again, if last week is any indication, perhaps it will do better than I think. If it does, excellent.
Still, that monument just has to go…
Mark, as a moderate Republican I still agree with much of what you said, though I disagree with the way you said it (ah semantics). But anyway…
The bottom line is that Minnesota is not the state it was. While it may still rate high in healthcare, education, etc., the ¨Good Life¨article of the 1970s in TIME no longer describes the state´s functions or, more importantly, its atmosphere. In 1997, the Economist described Minnesota as ¨the promised land,¨an ill-fated monicur most likely conceived in the impenetrable (and short-sighted) bliss of the budget surpluses of the 1990s. The political culture that created that state is simply eroding–it´s not a question of politics, but of culture–Minnesotans used to be very community centered and now they are self-centered (sans pejorative intonation). I personally feel this cultural shift will be the most important factor in determining the state´s political future–Republicans have done a much better job attuning themselves to it. Democrats have yet to sell the public on how the Democratic party serves individuals through serving the community.
As for the GOP as party entity, it certainly has evolved by taking more cues from the national party, even dropping its title ¨Indepedent Republicans¨and becoming simply ¨Republican.¨ Perhaps this is a result of Minnesotan finally being viewed as a battleground state. While I don´t feel, as you expressed, that the party is blood-thirsty and anti-populist (in fact, I feel that it is becoming too populist on certain social issues), the party is becoming more Texan than old-school Minnesotan. One would note that in the Republican Party, many seasoned veterans of a moderate persuasion are appearing less and less frequently, or at least less prominently, at party functions. Where have all the Pillsburys gone? And the Durenbergers and the Boschwitzes and the Carlsons?
Returning to the issue of mass transit, I admit I do not know much about the issue; however, I would like to see the Cities have a light rail system or subway system more extensive than the one they are implementing. For me, the issue is sprawl and traffic. Read Myron Orfield´s ¨Metropolitics¨if you want a great book on urban sprawl–a native Minnesotan who served in the state legislature and now teaches at U of MN law school, he´s a really bright man, though he´s more liberal than Ted Kennedy on a bend. Such public transit is not right or left wing government; it´s just smart city planning and good policy. Though, on a final note, Jay is absolutely correct; the art is revoltingly bad.
Perhaps the problem is that Minnesotans are cautious by nature and want to wade into infrastructure; if they are serious about combatting the problems of inadequate public transit, more resources, both financially and, ESPECIALLY, in terms of design are required. I agree with Jay that the project is rather paltry and, frankly, shabby, for the funds Minnesotans are spending; it´s a bad value even though it´s a good idea.
Okay, that was quite a ramble–sorry, my time on this darn Costa Rican computer is nearly up, so I don´t have time to edit. Forgive a poor gringa eh?
Jay, if you had bothered to read my post rather than just selectively browsing for buzzwords you found offensive, you would have noticed that, just as you said in attempt to “set me straight”, I credited the expanse of suburbia as the primary reason why Minnesota has shifted towards the GOP.
The rest of your arguments are almost too easy to shred into pieces, but I’ll do so anyway just for fun. Republicans are trying to “reduce the flow of illegal immigrants”???? Sure they are….by granting the illegals amnesty to continue churning out their labor for Republican business and big agriculture constituencies. I suppose Republicans could have unlimited success with “reducing the flow of illegals” if you play the semantic games necessary to replace the term from our collective vocabulary with “amnesty”.
As for the “utter failure of the liberal establishment to make life better for Minnesotans”, I don’t know where you’ve been for the last four decades, but under this “liberal establishment”, Minnesota has long been considered to have the highest standard of living of any state in the nation. We didn’t just hit #1 in 2003 after Tim Pawlenty started slashing state services….we’ve been there for many years where you would have us believe the state was being oppressed by that dreaded “liberal establishment.” Could there be some envy involved here that your “adopted home state” of South Dakota has embraced Texas-style right-wing politics…and the stellar results include a growth rate of 2% since the 1930s (and only that high because of high birth rates on Indian reservations) and a per capita income hovering somewhere between 45th and 48th nationally. I would really appreciate some data that can verify just how Minnesota’s “liberal establishment” has done the state so much harm considered we’ve been the envy of the nation since the days of Hubert Humphrey. I really struggle with comprehending how you can declare Minnesota’s liberal tradition as being an “utter failure,” but I guess it’s just another example of the George Bush-Jay Reding tactic of “if the facts don’t suit your argument, create your own reality.”
Ultimately, I think your “Minnesotans realize the Republicans have the answers” assessment of current political trends are more than a tad out of sync with reality. I think the majority of Minnesotans embrace some of the GOP’s social platform and in many cases align themselves with that viewpoint in the voting booth, but your perception that the election of Norm Coleman and Tim Pawlenty is a mandate for your plutocratic and viciously anti-populist worldview could be the party’s Achille’s heel.
I work in rural Minnesota with an office full of politically ignorant “swing voters” who lean Republican based on abortion and a variety of other wedge issues. They’re all women and are all feed heavily from the government trough for a variety of reasons. Essentially, they’re the kind of people who keep you awake at night trembling with fierce rage and hate….yet they will probably vote for the same candidates you do more often than not. If the debate shifts to the bread-and-butter issues, the Republican Party and its band of Milton Friedman disciples have nothing to offer these women but scorn. The party at large seems to recognize that the best way to keep this “trailer park” crowd in their column is to muffle their endorsement of supply-side economics. My hope is that more people like yourself convinced that plutocracy is “what the people want” will encourage party leaders to crank up the volume on the subject.