 |
| photo: Met Council profile images |
In a neutrally worded balanced review, Paul Levy of Strib reports, here; this point-counterpoint excerpt:
The new chairman of the Northstar Corridor Development Authority wants the Anoka County Board to drop its "vindictive" attitude and become more realistic about ridership projections for a possible Ramsey station along the commuter rail line.
The new vice chairman, a member of the Anoka County Board, wants the counties along the corridor "to play nice together," but "something is more dysfunctional in this relationship than common sense should allow."
Chairman Leigh Lenzmeier, a Stearns County commissioner, wants Northstar to extend to St. Cloud and thinks a new station in Ramsey will do little to add ridership.
[...] "Their attitude of 'we got ours, the hell with you' is causing problems for Sherburne and Stearns County," Lenzmeier said recently.
"Anoka County makes the case that they pay 54 percent of the cost of Northstar, and that's accurate," Lenzmeier said. "But we need a team approach. There seems to be an element of vindictiveness with this new [Anoka County] Board that could make things difficult."
The Anoka County Board that nurtured and kept Northstar on track for more than a decade before the line debuted in November 2009 is no more. Anoka County voters elected three new commissioners to the seven-member board last fall, changing the makeup dramatically. Dan Erhart, who drove Northstar, is still there, but he lost the chairmanship of the Anoka County Regional Rail Authority. New board chairwoman Rhonda Sivarajah, a political foe, did not appoint Erhart to the county's rail committee.
---------snip----------
"This is going to take time," Look said. "It's true that [Sherburne County stations in] Big Lake and Elk River have the highest [North Star] ridership, but those cities are further from downtown Minneapolis. The train may be a more attractive option the further away you live.
"Regardless of the efforts to get Northstar to St. Cloud, Ramsey's gonna happen," Look said. He added that the only residue from resistance from Sherburne or Stearns county "is a harmful relationship" with Anoka County.
Northstar's founders envisioned a line that would run from Minneapolis to beyond St. Cloud, all the way to Rice, in west-central Minnesota.
But as the project drowned in a political quagmire, the route was cut in half. The $317 million, 41-mile line runs from Target Field in Minneapolis to Big Lake, 30 miles east of St. Cloud.
"St. Cloud is our emphasis," Lenzmeier said. "Our friction point is we're not enthusiastic about adding stations to the existing system.
"The more stations you add on, the more you compromise the ride."
Look disagrees.
My thought is the school yard fight over who has the better bag of marbles should stop.
Neither guy says freeze spending for now, save money.
And the Met Council is not quoted, yet if there were a stop at the Foley Ave. park-and-ride, think of all the boosted Northstar ridership that would yield, while Met Council could, gasp!, save money.
Cutting a host of higher polluting costlier commuter bus runs from that park-and-ride, and allowing Northstar to absorb the load seems like a win-win thing, especially with Met Council now having the crying towel out over budget cuts.
It's the savings, stupid. It need not be a palace at Foley park-and-ride, not initially, but enough to work. And with that, Northstar would have a much greater chance of approaching something vaguely akin to a break-even point before pork mongers overreach further.
So, one thing about a stop at Foley -- It makes sense.
Politics being at play, that counts against it.