complete bedlam
Minneapolis: are you kidding?
It’s the best recreational bicycle city but it’s mediocre for commuters. The mass transit needs vast improvement and outside of the dense center (downtown, uptown), biking with drivers is dangerous.
The light rail should be an icon of a shift to shared transit and green commutes. It’s a symbol of shared mobility and clean travel.
Obviously, budgets are tight and priorities must be made. I’d rather you put the money toward education and community improvement (which you’re not).
Still, Minneapolis screams from pulpits as often as allowed. “Our policies strive to be green, fiscally responsible and progressive!” (Local politicians whimper, “we’re Portland!”)
These cries are starting to fall on deaf ears. The ride from the empty downtown to the shrine to thoughtless consumerism is the fruit of their lack of labor.
After Target Field, the ride slinks away from aesthetically attractive. Bright points like the Central Library, Minnehaha Park and the Martin Olav Sabo Bridge are diluted with concrete facades, parking lots and freeways.
The Bedlam sits at an unpopular stop. It’s local and vocal. It shows signs of life in a corridor that’s largely a roofless tunnel from an empty downtown to a sad shrine of consumerism.
LRT’s route is fixed, set for political ease. Now the city has to grow around it, making it a true icon of a growing metropolis.
Instead, the Bedlam will be a parking lot.