[Mpls] Time for a Rail Referendum?

[Allen]

Fastracks surprised me for a state like Colorado.  The intermountain West is
traditionally Republican which traditionally doesn't get behind these
issues.  That said, I don't see how the city of Minneapolis should or could
carry through with such a referendum.  Maybe this is something better left
for Minnesota (and a different list)?

Allen Graetz
Lowry Hill


-----Original Message-----
From: mpls-bounces at mnforum.org [mailto:mpls-bounces at mnforum.org] On Behalf
Of Russell Raczkowski
Sent: Tuesday, November 16, 2004 8:45 PM
To: mpls at mnforum.org
Subject: [Mpls] Time for a Rail Referendum?

In Denver. . . .

KIRK JOHNSON, NY TIMES - Mass transit systems get tougher to build as cities

age and grow, planners say. But as the Denver metropolitan area begins work
on 
one of the most ambitious urban transportation projects in the nation's
history - 120 
miles on six new rail lines to be built all at once over the next 12 years -
that logic has 
been turned on its head. Politicians and planners say that for reasons of
economics 
and car culture, Denver could never have embarked on such an adventure in
urban 
thinking at any imaginable time in the past. . .

A survey commissioned by the Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation 
this year found that support for mass transit was in direct correlation to
how long 
people had lived in the state. Among those here 15 years or less, two out of
three 
liked the idea, compared with about half of the people who had been here 30
years 
or more. The $4.7 billion transit project, called Fastracks and financed by
an increase 
in the local sales tax, was approved by 58 percent of the region's voters on
Nov. 2.

(end)

In Minneapolis. . . .

Maybe we have been going about things the wrong way with cooked citizen 
participation supporting car culture, consultant managed public input,
legislative 
approval, cronyism, and corruption.  Maybe we should just go for financing
by public 
vote and get a transit system built.  We might get there faster. . . .

Just a thought.

Russell Raczkowski
Bancroft 
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