[Mpls] Re: Group Needs New Members: Above the Falls Citizen Advisory Committee

[Chris Johnson]

Dyna Sluyter wrote:

>> The Upper Harbor Terminal has- I think 5 employees- and is a 
>> financial  drain
>> on the City.
>
>
>     Because it has been neglected and poorly managed.

Or maybe because it is not economically viable.

>> Whether it should be closed or not is a much larger  question.
>
>
>     Indeed it is- communities all over western Minnesota rely on Port 
> of Minneapolis as an outlet for their crops. We need alliances with 
> those communities at the legislature, and closing the Port will 
> produce such ill will that those outstate legislators will seek 
> revenge against Minneapolis for years to come. BTW, have any of your 
> board members ever followed the river down to the last lock? Or 
> followed the railroads that feed Port of Minneapolis out to the 
> Dakotas? I have, but I'm just a dumb working stiff that needs smart 
> people like your board to decide stuff for me...



The Upper Harbor, and even any part of the City of Minneapolis as a 
major river shipping port was a completely ludicrous and bankrupt idea 
which unfortunately did not die before we finally built the silly 
thing.  This had been a pipe dream since the late 1800s.

The city, state and federal tax payers have poured billions of dollars 
down this rat hole, and we get under-utilized 2-unit barges in return.

The sane and economically reasonable thing to do is send all that cargo 
a few miles further by rail or truck to St. Paul.  The 3 locks upriver 
from St. Paul are there simply so Minneapolis can say "me too" when it 
comes to having a river port, rather than for practical reasons.

I'd like to know just how many of those out-state communities Dyna 
refers to are actually economically dependent to any degree on cargo 
shipped to Minneapolis and then downriver via the Upper Harbor?  If 
there actually is a significant number of them, then her point is valid 
-- politics being what it is.

Our transportation infrastructure is a disaster, blown this way and that 
by special interests and political favors.  It ought to be designed (and 
built) using some sort of organized, rational,  larger-view planning 
including all the stakeholders and market forces, instead of as a series 
of pork barrel favors for which ever construction company has the best 
lobbyists.

Regardless of the outcome of any sort of transportation infrastructure 
utopia, I think the days of the Upper Harbor are pretty much numbered.  
It just doesn't make sense to try and put that much barge traffic down 
the river gorge unless we want to spend billions to turn it into a 
uniformly wide and deep canal with gentle bends that large barges can 
navigate.  How many want that?  Let's see a show of hands.


Chris Johnson / Fulton