Saw something in the Shepard Depressed about this last week. The writer wrote about the $800 million cost which would be paid by the federal government, else that money would go to someone else’s train.
Same thing happened in Minnesota a decade or so ago. Gov. Turnbuckle insisted we build the first leg of a Twin Cities rail “system” because otherwise we wouldn’t get the $300 mill in federal funding for our $600 mill line. Of course actual, DIRECT cost came to over $800 million for an 16-mile, 11-stop line from downtown Mpls to the Sprawl of America. Plus the hidden costs not included in the original grant application, like the electric company having to move underground substations at their own expense and the $10 million per year operating deficit.
Ventura railroaded the project through, despite SEVERAL studies over the decades that showed there was NO economically viable corridors in the Twin Cities! This line became known as the Metro Transit Hiawatha Line (as if there were another line to confuse it with). When the local rag was looking for a nickname for the MTHL, my immediate response was “The Motherlode.” It of course seriously disrupted traffic and has resulted in deaths.
In the new push to slap another money-eating line from Mpls to St. Paul down University Ave. (instead of a block away which would disrupt far fewer businesses), I found it particularly funny that after plans were practically approved, the local PBS station finally complained that that route would disturb their studios, and that wasn’t acceptable.
I’ve ridden the hiawatha line from the airport to downtown. One thing I liked is that nobody cared if I had alcohol in my suitcase.