Strib local content, the brain fart that went too far. But then did not in implementation go far enough. The idea coalesced into life coupled to Ramsey Town Center - build that, or start it - and then, Nirvana with commuter rail around the corner. Dumb and Dumber was the name of a movie. I think it was about those in and allied to Met Council with planning degrees, and about hubris. Perhaps I am wrong. I did not view the Jim Carey movie. I viewed dumb and dumber as filmed in Ramsey, Anoka County, MN.
The groundbreaking movie I saw. The sequel. What cannot be seen in the sequel?
People.
Still so. Yet, before folding the hand, rebrand. Just as "Ramsey Town Center" was rebranded to, "The COR."
Give me that old-time rebranding that we all know so well.
_____________UPDATE___________
Don't you love history, for what it teaches? Crabgrass readers, in retrospect, should boost the viewing numbers for those two YouTube "movies." In hindsight, they amuse, if it were not for the taxpayer money wasted.
A Strib report of a 2010 prequel meeting to the groundbreaking, (and to the sequel). That 2010 Strib item, in closing, states -
Meanwhile, officials from Ramsey wonder what it will take to get the $15 million needed to open a station in their city. "We thought it was a foregone conclusion that they [the Rail Authority] knew we were looking for money," Mayor Bob Ramsey said Wednesday.
"What do we need to do to get the county's attention?"
Erhart, one of Northstar's founding fathers, said he'd love to see stations both in Ramsey and at Foley Boulevard. County Board Chairman Dennis Berg has been vocal in his support of Ramsey at board meetings, as have other commissioners.
But Ramsey was not on the Rail Authority's agenda when it voted last week, West said.
The city continues to seek county, state and federal funding for a proposed station that could give an economic jolt to the half-vacant Ramsey Town Center project, where trains would stop.
[italics added]. Can you say, "a rathole?" As in, "Money pissed down a rathole."
Met Council and affiliated planners, per a 2007 Met Council planning and funding meeting document. Warren Buffet's Berkshire firm and others involved in BNSF stock holdings, they can just smile and smile. They own the tracks. They licensed Northstar use of their rail tracks, for millions and millions. (Dollars, not passengers.) People who know have told me that for any project, a continuing or terminating decision rests not on sunk cost, but on future viability, including return on investment. Inadequate return, inadequate future, then pull the plug to cut losses.
A 2013 post-completion "postmortem" tells of low ridership from the start, and it has been bad that way ever since. At page 4 of 7 pages, the report begins a discussion of capital costs.
Gee. Lots of money.
Don't you love planner hubris, and what it teaches?
FURTHER: There is a Ramsey Station opening ribbon-cutting YouTube "movie" online. Same politicians.
FURTHER: Success has many parents. Failure is an orphan. Likely the politicians do not remember the things they said, back then - on film - earlier in our 21st Century. Likely they'd not champion the thing the same way, as back then, when it was a project being sold the public. The Ramsey Station was built with union labor, prevailing wage, so union support peaked then. They were onboard at the start, so to speak. Now the union officials might ask, "What station are you talking about?"
_________FURTHER UPDATE________
POLITICIANS: Sometimes expanding a post adds essential background and linking, other times it makes the post too long for too many readers. If reading this far, politicians said and did things, with a perspective they should not, ever, be allowed to forget or brush under the rug. WCCO online, Nov. 13, 2013:
Starting Nov. 14, they’ll [Ramsey residents] be riding the rails daily, as the long awaited Northstar commuter rail begins service.
[...] It’s the first “planned transit development” along Northstar’s 40-mile route between downtown Minneapolis and Big Lake.
“We’re not building it for one day and shutting it down,” said Anoka County Commissioner Matt Look, “we’re building it for the next 50 to 100 years.”
As chairman of Anoka County’s Regional Railroad Authority, commissioner Look defends the station’s cost. It was originally budgeted for $13 million to construct, but came in under budget at around $11 million.
He firmly believes the new stop will feed new riders into the system, eventually boosting daily ridership by upwards of 25 percent.
A big reason behind the optimism is the station’s surrounding commerce. Ramsey’s COR development includes a giant 800-stall covered parking ramp, 350 stalls of which are dedicated to rail commuters. There is also a 230-unit apartment complex now under construction and planned to open in the spring of 2013.
“If we can increase riders, we lower operating costs and that should be a goal all of us have along the line,” Look said. “It’s a goal we certainly have here in Anoka County.”
Still, overall ridership isn’t growing as planned. Metro Transit needs ridership to reach 4,500 commuters per day before it can apply for the federal funds to help pay for an expansion of service to St. Cloud.
Northstar proponents hope the Ramsey stop will help reach that goal, by attracting a “Chicago-like” lifestyle that is built along the rails.
[italics added] Let's see. 2013 - fifty or a hundred years would be 2065 to 2113. We are short of that today. Matt these days, on Northstar's future, is not quoted in media.
Either he was blowing smoke back in 2013, still believes what he said but demurs, or is hiding from having changed his mind. That largely exhausts possibilities.
Look is obligated to speak up. To defend eleven million spent dollars, beyond having then said it came in two million under forecast. He still holds the same Anoka Board District 1 seat he held back then. Regularly salaried then to now.
Silence is not always golden.
If indeed, he still believes in the long-term perspective, stand up and say so, or am I expecting too much from a cautious man? On that time frame, he might be right, and if he still thinks so, that such speculative government spending remains justified, he should defend his statements, showing consistency.
'Splaining is due. If Matt Look has changed his mind, we all grow as we age and learn, and he should own up to over exuberance in his past public service. Silence, however, would be a disservice to the voters he represents. At least articulating a current position on something he was greatly instrumental in seeing from plan to actuality, is a minimal expectation. He need not convince, but he needs to speak, even if not wanting to..
Matt Look owes voters an explanation of some fashion. We await.
________FURTHER UPDATE________
Jim Abeler, Anoka's career politician over decades has no right to remain silent either. His constituents deserve his voicing his current thinking about Northstar.
Recall: Natalie Steffen while on Met Council was a major driving force for Northstar and for additional spending to have a Ramsey Station; but Steffen has left public life after seeking the Anoka County District 1 seat where Matt Look won that election. Abeler not only put his cred on the line for Natalie, he posed on her behalf putting his cred on the line for Northstar.
On Steffen's 2010 county board campaign site, this image, do check it out, accompanied by this text:
State Rep. Jim Abeler and Natalie review plans for a Northstar Commuter Rail station in Ramsey. This proposed station would connect northwest Anoka County to a downtown Minneapolis hub for present and future rail and bus connections.
Natalie was instrumental in obtaining nearly $4 million in Met Council grants that made the Ramsey Municipal Parking ramp (in back-ground) and amphitheatre possible. Natalie’s efforts to adopt a Met Council funding formula helped make it possible for of Anoka to get $1.5 million for downtown development.
Natalie: “It’s called returning tax dollars to the community and fostering economic betterment.”
[italics in original] Abeler touted and posed, plans held one side by Steffen, the other side by Abeler, together standing trackside on BNSF right-of-way; so what's his posture now? Keep Northstar on long-term speculation, or terminate the hemorrhaging by ending it years after great expenditure, in effect, admitting it is a failed venture which deserves no more life.
Abeler had his hand in things, and should now articulalte his present understandings. Hiding has no place for careerist politicians. Local power should not go silent when a key question arises where local power had a hand on the plans along with the key driving force toward making Northstar a done deal.
Of note as a possible admission of a learning curve somewhat upward and not flatlined, after Northstar's build-out and history from then to now, Met Council has NOT pushed any other commuter rail on routes it does not own. Including the question of Northstar being extended to St. Cloud; which is politics beyond Met Council's jurisdictional reach. Also worth noting before closing this post, building the thing to Big Lake and ending it there went beyond Met Council jurisdiction into Sherburne County; into Mary Kiffmeyer jurisdiction, and Mary should also be held to task for getting the servicing and maintenance site in her legislative district as part of the distribution of pork.Hence, Mary Kiffmeyer should speak now, her hand was into things, or at least it surely appears so. Extending to Big Lake and no further, she can commute by rail to her home away from home, the Legislature in St. Paul, for as long as she and Northstar remain in play.
BOTTOM LINE - JUST SAY NO - to glide-and-slide silence now from politicians after the event was pushed to a current status without success to show from build-out to the present.
One fact, Look's fifty or a hundred years outlook will be untested if Northstar is terminated now. Look would tell you that.
FURTHER: One last link, Strib, here, from this past March, again about a question of whether to shut the service down, or wait to see more, post-pandemic. A paragraph:
While the Metropolitan Council, which oversees public transportation in the Twin Cities, has engaged in recent discussions with Hennepin, Anoka and Sherburne counties about the fate of Northstar, no decisions have been made. But the council has said all options are on the table.
Further excerpt:
Shutting down a commuter rail line is a complicated and expensive proposition, but not unheard of.
In Northstar's case, it would require the state to pay $85 million to the U.S. Department of Transportation, a partial reimbursement of federal funds used to build the line. Koznick has suggested that Minnesota's congressional delegation in Washington, D.C., should ask for a "waiver" from the hefty fee.
Some transit lines have been decommissioned nationwide, including the Loop Trolley in St. Louis and the OnTrack suburban rail line in Syracuse, N.Y., both due to flagging ridership.
But talk of shutting down Northstar is "premature and ill-conceived," said Rep. Frank Hornstein, DFL-Minneapolis, who chairs the House Transportation Finance and Policy Committee. He characterized the diversion of Northstar money to businesses in need as "cynical politics."
Hornstein believes public transit "will recover, but it will be slow."
The real issue with Northstar, he added, was the "poor planning" that resulted in the line ending in Big Lake, a rural outpost in Sherburne County, as opposed to the more populous St. Cloud.
All for now.