Sometimes I feel bad about being right all the time.

You could tell me the bus will pick me up when I am ready and drive me straight to my destination without stops and I would still reject it! I do not care to sit with anyone in the morning as I like some private time away from kids and other distractions. I also do not care much for sharing a ride home with any hoodlems deciding they want to go for a ride out to the suburbs and see what kind of trouble they can find.

The people I do know who ride the bus to work absolutly HATE it! However parking and traffic to downtown are so bad that they have little choice.

that is exactly what the DFL here wants for the rest of us. They figure if they let a few bridges fall down, never build any roads, pass fuel grade laws to ensure gas pricices are sky high, and then add additional taxes to those we already have to try and force the rest of us into their mass transit ideas. Fucking commies.

You are very obvious about your love of transit. You seem to think someone else however should foot the actual price of transit. Gee, if you offer me a free ride to and from work, I guess I may have to look at it too. Only that is not the actual cost of the ride. If the transit system cannot support itself, then the market is telling you that is not what people want.

You have to fund part of the cost through tax dollars or you would get no one to ride the damn busses or trains. So your answer is MORE money, what a surprise!! My guess is you are of the ilk that believe we spend enough on tranist and let the roads fall apart then more people will want transit. Which is of course what you and your kind are all about.

Mark, since you are such a pro-transit guy, show me the numbers of traffic reduction from the trains and busses. What we see are lanes of traffic full, while busses and trains run half empty.

Meanwhile you are fine with bridges falling down, fine with major traffic issues since we have not build new roads like we should, and just fine with the HUGE waste of money in our mass transit system that is a total failure! Only a few bus lines could actually support themselves.

The mass transit boondogle is a joke here. It has not helped with any of our traffic issues. All it has become is a political football for the left to use and buy transit union votes.

Let me guess Mark, bus or train driver? My guess is you make your living off taxpayers in one way or another. You do realize if you do, you add nothing to the states bottom line. Meaning you may pay income taxes but that was already tax money from someone else’s paycheck. How does it feel to be such a free loader?

As for Petey, the reason our transit system does not compare to other metro regions of our size is our lack of investment. Years back bus rates were raised and routes were cut and then the Met Council was surprised that less people rode the bus… Since then gas has shot through the roof and people are now riding transit at a much higher rate.

Many, many more people would use transit, if it was available in their area and convenient. If your commute takes you 30 minutes in your car, but 2 hours on the bus, then of course most people (unless they can’t afford a car) are going to drive. If you expand number of routes and buses and overall LRT, those times will drop and it will be much more attractive to people.

Only of course if our government employee;s were FORCED to use the transit, you would find a law passed very quickly and quietly that would void them from such a rule.

I think the point was since yesterday was a government holiday where government offices were closed traffic was dramatically better because government workers weren’t on the road. The person was suggesting they ride mass transit every day to work to keep the roads uncongested every day.

Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN

I think you should be able to have as much transit as you want, as long of course as it is completely self-funding.

Does transit operate in the red or the black?

I know, how about YOU tell us how much your friends at the DFL will spend to fix roads and bridges. After all, you and your liberal friends are crying about falling bridges and the need for more roads. What we also know from past history is they cannot do so without adding shitloads of transit pork, that is the legacy of the DFL here with roads and bridges.

Mark, I agree all our politicians and government workers SHOULD be forced into transit options. Then they would come to find how mass transit does not work for most in day to day life. I promise you if all lawmakers HAD to rely on transit only, they would quickly change that law so they could be void from that rule. Transit does not work if you have kids and a life outside of the transit routes. In fact, take away the union donation puching for transit projects and the companies who build the systems and not sure the local DFL would be able to afford much.

Transit does not work beyond the inner city and we should have stayed with bus lines, never the over the top expense that is light rail.

In Maple Grove we have had to suspend all bus lines after 6 pm due to the amount of hoodlems we were getting from the inner city. Cannot tell you how much joy the bus lines have brought cities like Brooklyn Park, Brooklyn Center, Eden Prairie and many other cities the bus lines have now reached out to.

Pete get your head out of your ass, the Met Council runs the transit system and they are all appointed by Pawlenty. So actually according to you they are the ones wasting your money.

Maybe then the Governor would realize we have to invest some real money to fix things instead of taxing our toddlers to fund today’s roads.

I don’t think the families of those who were killed would find this to be shameless or a joke.

The DFL plays this game very well as they did with the transportation amendment. Told everyone how the money would be deadicated to transit and roads, only they made sure not to mention hwo the formula was no more than 60% to roads and bridges and no LESS than 40% to mass transit. Which of course was worded very carefully that way so in the future they can spend 99% on transit and 1% on roads and bridges.

Blame every single transit death on our local DFL!! Whether it is someone killed by a damn train or someone getting killed in traffic, the DFL has done this to us all.

For what it is worth, I came up with a transit idea that actually could work! Yesterday was such a nice driving day with all the government and school workers no on the roads.

I say we force EVERY state and federal employee to ride transit and transit only!! If they live within the 94 / 494 / 694 belt, they already have bus lines and the trains to ride. if they live outside that belt, then they must drive to a transit station outside of the loop and ride a bus in. if we forced every single state and federal employee to do this we would eliminate a lot of our traffic issues we have now. I do not care if they have to walk 20 blocks to their offies, since it is SO important that we have all these transit projects, the least we can do is force the government workers to use it. On their own dime as well!! They will save plenty on gas and the fact we already susidise much of the ride anyhow.

This could really work.