King’s Corner

That’s also the title of a book, by the way.  It’s a fairly decent one written by a St. Paul author.  The book is actually a quick read, short and rather fast-paced, but the story is engaging and it zips along at a healthy clip.  The book isn’t exactly focusing on streetcars, but they do serve as a historical point of reference: The main character’s father is a streetcar driver at the time that the Twin Cities Rapid Transit was on the verge of dismantling the entire system.

A quick side note: I’ve seen the opinion that the biggest mistake of the removal of the streetcar lines wasn’t that it shouldn’t have happened at all, as many of the lines were unprofitable for the private company that was running them, but that some lines should have stayed.  If you take a look at the three light rail lines that we will have running in the near future, Hiawatha, Central, and Southwest, these all basically follow some of the busiest lines from the old streetcar system.  Had the streetcars been kept running on just the lines that got the heaviest use, we would be talking about just making improvements to our rail transit system today instead of trying to rebuild it from scratch.  Anyway, continuing on…

My previous post griping about cuts to mass transit in my neighborhood made mention of the Southwest light rail line.  There are three stops planned in my fair city of Hopkins.  One, the Blake Road station, is at the intersection of Blake Road and 2nd Street North and is of no consequence to this blog post.  The other two are closer to my side of town, the Downtown Hopkins station at Excelsior Boulevard and 8th Avenue South and the Shady Oak station, which is currently in the middle of an industrial area at the intersection of Excelsior Boulevard and 17th Avenue South.  Plans are in process to create an entirely new mixed use residential/commercial neighborhood around the Shady Oak station, which, incidentally, is not on Shady Oak Road or even close to Shady Oak Lake.

Of greater consequence, it seems, is that the Downtown Hopkins station is, like Shady Oak and its namesake station, not actually in downtown Hopkins.  The city already sort of shot itself in the foot with the rerouting of Excelsior Boulevard in the 1980s (1990s? I’m not sure), as the original route went straight down what is now called Main Street.  But, instead of allowing the on-street parking to be removed for the purpose of making the road two lanes in each direction, the city got the county to shift the road two blocks south to preserve the parking and pedestrian spaces downtown.  So, kudos to the city for being able to preserve the downtown area, but they’ve been scrambling to maintain a viable business district what with everyone now zipping past two blocks away.

The Southwest line will be of no help, as the Downtown Hopkins station will essentially be a quarter mile walk from downtown Hopkins.  I know that at some point the idea was floated to attempt to get the light rail to be routed much, much closer, but it was something that was apparently shot down long ago.  This light rail line has the unfortunate characteristic of many of the suburban bus routes: A focus on park-and-rides outside of Minneapolis with a goal of just getting people downtown.

The City of Hopkins is looking to rectify this with, yes, a streetcar.  The plan (PDF, page 19) to turn 8th Avenue South between Main Street and the Downtown Hopkins station into a boulevard with wide sidewalks and classic downtown-style buildings to get people to walk from the station to where the businesses are is pretty much a go, but one thing that they want to do is also provide some sort of shuttle as well.  One method, what I hope is the preferred, is a streetcar.  The idea is that people are taking the light rail because of the perception that rail transit is far superior than busses, so that’s what should be provided.

I agree, and in so many ways I want to ask: Why stop with just those three blocks?  Why not have a route that takes people up and down Main Street as well?  Why not do like the City of Minneapolis is hoping to do, as they have a plan in place to replace their high-frequency bus routes with streetcars?  Heck, why not extend a streetcar network beyond downtown and funnel people both into downtown Hopkins and to the light rail stations as well?

Yes, the initial investment in streetcars is so much more than busses.  I mean, with a bus all you have to do is buy the vehicle and send it on its merry way down the streets that already exist, right? Long-term, though, the bus just isn’t as financially attractive.  Busses have a higher replacement cost, as they need to be replaced much sooner.  The energy cost is higher, as the fossil fuels used in engines today cost more than the electricity used for streetcars.  Busses also destroy the roads much faster, as their considerable weight puts much more wear and tear on the asphalt than a car.  And the overall image of a streetcar is just that much better.  We all love those exhaust fumes, right?

About the only thing that busses have over streetcars could also be their biggest disadvantage as well.  It’s easy to just buy a bus and decide it’s going to go down a certain street.  But it’s also just as easy to take it away, as I’ve learned a couple times in just two years of living on what I had assumed was a higher-frequency mass transit line.  Streetcars have permanence.  The tracks and canternary take some effort and money to put in, so chances are that if you decide to put your home or business near the streetcar line that it’s not going to just go away any time soon.  In an age of disposability, it’s reassuring to know that something like your means of transportation will be there for you for years to come.

So, yes, I am sitting here with the improbably hope that, since the light rail line won’t be trundling down Main, a streetcar will pass close by my house someday.  And I’ll be able to hop on and head out to do my shopping or (by that point) head to work, or I’ll take it to the light rail station and head into Minneapolis.  Until then, I’ll just suck it up and ride my bus and keep on wishing until they bring the streetcars back.

This is my bus stop:

Or, at least it should be.  The city, or, at least I would venture to guess it was the city, had gone through the expense of putting up the shelter as busses were stopping here on a regular basis.  And with this shelter being a mere block from my house, it was mighty convenient.  Heck, even as we were searching for a house to purchase not much more than two years ago one of the things I was looking for was proximity to mass transit.

What I didn’t expect was that Metro Transit would cut back on service for my bus line, only a few months after we purchased the house.  This is now my bus stop:

It’s nearly half a mile away.  Now, instead of coming down Main Street and passing by my street, the bus goes only as far as five blocks away before it heads south.  And I don’t have a shelter to wait in anymore, just a narrow strip of sidewalk where it appears that area planners never really intended for a stop to be, something that gets really treacherous when there’s mounds of snow and ice building up.  In all fairness, the shelter by my house is still used during rush hour times.  But I tend to not use the bus during those times, and I also tend to be traveling with a toddler or later at night.

When they did the original cut, Metro Transit did start an hourly local shopping bus that went past my shelter and connected me with the main route into Minneapolis during the day.  That was nice for a while, but that particular route has been cut completely.  It’s discouraging and frustrating, as one of the things that I enjoy about this location is the proximity to transportation, both current and future (more on that later).

While the mission of Metro Transit is to provide service for communities in the area, and I understand that when the budget gets tough then things need to get cut.  But the cuts seem unfairly cruel to suburban routes as opposed to the city routes.  When a route that serves neighborhoods in Minneapolis has cuts in service, it means that the bus will be coming every 7 minutes as opposed to 5 minutes.  When a route in the suburbs faces cuts, it means that the bus won’t be there anymore.

Am I being a bit selfish?  Well, partially.  When your bus is just a half a block away it’s a lot easier to just head out the door a few minutes before it’s scheduled to show up and catch it, then if you miss it it’s not that big of a hassle to just go back home and kill some time before the next one comes along.  And it’s certainly nicer during inclement weather to be able to stand under a roof while waiting.  So, yes, when I have to haul a toddler half a mile I take even more time out of my day to take off long before I need to so as to make sure that I don’t miss the bus, lest I have to wait another half hour for the next one.  And, let me tell you, if it’s raining on a toddler the toddler gets crabby if she’s cold.

But I am speaking for my fellow residents.  I speak of the people in these apartments that loom over my bus stop, who tend to be transit dependent:

And the people in these townhomes, who tend to be elderly or disadvantaged:

The apartment dwellers I feel for, as they already had the elementary school next door shut down.  An unfortunate side note is that they also bus their children five miles away instead of sending them to the school within easy walking distance, so these parents that had the rare opportunity to be heavily involved with their childrens’ school are now strangely punished.  The townhome residents I am particularly mired on behalf of.  More than once I have met a confused, old resident, one that is in no way fit to walk the mile from those townhouses, finally make it to the new stop after waiting an abnormally long amount of time at the sheltered stop, wondering where the bus is.

Mass transit should be easy if Metro Transit wants people to actually use it, and it seems to me that easy means providing regular service at obvious locations like bus shelters.  Things will be easier come 2015, when the Southwest Transit Light Rail line comes through my fair city on its way from the outer ‘burbs on into Minneapolis.  And more frequent, if the Hiawatha Line’s 15 minute headways are any indication.  But, the nearest train station will still be a half a mile away, and I do worry about what will happen to my bus service.  While the quick service into Minneapolis will be appreciated, it will bypass a few of the locations that I currently use the bus to reach, like the St. Louis Park Rec Center just off Excelsior and (even more egregious) the current preferred route will bypass Uptown altogether as well.  So, while I have one improvement to look forward to, I do fear the loss of the bus service I currently enjoy with the arrival of the light rail.

That is, unless they cut my route further even before the train shows up.  When that happens, I fear that I may have to resort to the gross expense of a car, as I doubt that I can get my wife to move any closer to Minneapolis.  Less frequent bus service I could handle.  No bus service is a pain.

I’m trying to wrap my head around this one.  On the one hand, I can see where other people are coming from on the situation.  What I’m doing isn’t supposed to be “normal”, so it evokes sentiments of pity from others since I’ve apparently had to have gone through some sort of hardship for my life to come to this.  The issue? I take mass transit.

Hopping a bus isn’t exactly a hardship, per say.  It did take some adjustment on my part.  After years of just encasing myself in a thousand pounds plus of steel and immediately bombing down the road in my solitary confinement on wheels, it takes a little time to get used to actually interacting with other people while in transit.  And there is the time factor without the convenience of the car lurking in the driveway, just waiting for me to need to go somewhere.  On a side note, it’s no wonder that so much fuss is being made over trying to save the American car companies since stereotypical American culture is the car: It’s such a wasteful extravagance for all that material to just be moving one person, not to mention the environmental impact, but, oh, just think of the freedom it gives you! I’ve actually had to start wearing a watch again so I can catch my bus promptly, besides scheduling my time around when I can get a ride.  This is especially tricky, as anyone with a toddler knows that toddlers don’t adhere to any sort of tight schedule.  Mostly, though, I’ve had to slow my life down a bit, enjoy the stroll to the bus stop or find an extra five minutes of browsing at the store before I need to meet the bus.

There is a bit of a stigma to riding the bus, as I’ve heard that primarily “poor people” and “drug dealers” use all that dirty mass transit.  Such misconceptions are so ridiculous that I don’t care to acknowledge them.  But I will concede that diesel fumes are unpleasant, so we should go ahead and get these light rail lines going.  Now.

The lion’s share of the decision was due to personal finances.  There was a three-month span in my family’s life where we bought a house, brought a child into the world, and went down to a single income.  So having a second car sitting around while my wife took the other one to work seemed a bit unnecessary, especially after we made the conscious effort to purchase a home where so much of what we needed was nearby.  So, in that respect we’ve eliminated the upkeep and insurance for one vehicle from our budget.

And then there’s a much grander financial reason behind taking mass transit.  Through the tax dollars we pay, we’re subsidizing both mass transit and automobile travel.  Sure, everyone talks about the burden that mass transit puts on the government coffers, what with having to pay for all those vehicles and also to ante up for people to drive these poor people around, but most fail to realize that autos are also highly subsidized.  Sure, there’s a tax on gasoline to pay for roads, giving the impression that funding is taken from a sort of user fee, but so much more funding comes out of property taxes and income taxes and the like.  In the end, it costs just as much if not more for the highways we drive on than it would on, say, high speed rail.  On top of that, there are steep user fees for utilizing these roads: The cost to purchase and maintain your vehicle.  For as little as I would drive a car, $1.75 a trip to take a bus seems pretty economical, as well as a good use of my tax dollars.

A third benefit is clearly the environmental one.  In becoming more of a mass transit user than a car user, I’ve found that along with that I’ve had to become more of a walker and a bicyclist.  So, I am not only cutting down on greenhouse gasses and waste through the use of mass transit, and you can’t tell me that sitting by yourself in a car spews out less crap from the tailpipe than multiple people sharing a bus or train, but I also cut down on my environmental footprint by using my own two feet to get around.

I will admit that we do still need a car.  My wife needs it to get herself to work in a timely manner, as there is no transit link from our house to her office.  And we are still in the suburbs where our little urban enclave is surrounded by twisting side roads and split-level, 2-car-garage sprawl.  Then there’s our friends and family that live even further out from the city than we do, and with transit links fading away to nothingness as you travel outward from Minneapolis, not to mention the virtually nonexistent suburb-to-suburb service, well, to not have a car would really keep us trapped in our little haven where we don’t need it as much.

My life as a transit user will get easier around, say, 2015 when the Southwest Light Rail line comes through my town.  And life would be a little easier if the busses would have more frequent headways in the meantime, say if the bus into Minneapolis came faster than every half hour and the local shopping circulators came sooner than every hour.  Other than that, I really can’t complain too much.  I really feel like I’ve made the right choice, despite what you nay-sayers tell me.  You may say that your car gives you the freedom to go where you choose, when you choose, but keep in mind that I’ve retained much of that freedom anyway without the burden of the cost.  How’s that for freedom?