Friday by Foot 2/6/2009

2/6/2009

Another week and another late Friday post.

This news comes entirely from the February issue of Connect, the monthly flier that is distributed by Metro Transit.

1. There are six new or expanding park and ride lots.  Metro transit is trying to add 3,000 more parking spaces for riders to use for free.  These Park & Rides will be focused along the 35W bus lines, two suburbs in the North Metro, as well as Cedar Avenue bus lines in the South Metro.

• New parking facilities will be constructed at the Park & Rides at 95th Avenue in Blaine, and Country Road C in Roseville
• Apple Valley Transit Station will be expanded and a new station is in the works for both Cedar & 180th and Kenrick Avenue (off of 35W) in Lakeville
• Finally, a new Park & Ride is being planned for Cedar Grove in Eagan

2. Buses are free if you are vomiting green beer!  After 6 p.m. on St. Patrick’s Day, bus fare is as complimentary to a night of drinking as the itchy crotch you think you caught from the girl in the mini skirt and fuzzy sweater.

Friday by Foot 1/30/2009

1/30/2009

Sorry that this is late by a day but I lacked connection to the web through all of Friday.

1. During the negotiations over the $825 billion stimulus bill, a handful of democratic Representatives secured more money for public transit across the country than originally was alotted for.  The total for public transportation infrastructure enhancement is currently around $13 billion.  Reported by Elena Schlor, TalkingPointsMemo (1/28/2009).

2.  The Southwest metro light-rail line proposal is being pruned.  In light of the squabble over noise and vibration raised by MPR, the planning committee are attempting to choose a route for the LRT that would keep it away from businesses like WCCO and Orchestra Hall.  The route will stretch from Eden Prairie, run through parts of Minnetonka, Hopkins, and St. Louis Park, finally ending near the new Twins stadium.  Reported by Jim Foti, Star Tribune (1/28/2009).

3.  In 2008, 82 million people used the metro area public transportation system.  10 million of those people were riders of the Hiawatha light rail line.  Reported by Paul Walsh, Star Tribune (1/30/2009).

Riding the Route 12 home from Hopkins tonight, our bus missed a turn and it had to use reverse.  This has never happened when I’ve been on a bus.  All the lights turn out.  The driver had skills . . . he turned the bus around in the middle of a two-lane street in about 30 seconds.

Doomsayer’s Breakfast

Last week, Ben McGrath’s article [abstract] in The New Yorker detailed how people who live life with glasses half-empty hold greater sway, captivate larger audiences, and seem to just generally ooze from the woodwork more often during times of social, political, religious, or economic crisis.

Well, here’s a doomsday scenario to cling to:  The New York Times published findings this morning that warn that anything less than lifestyle-changing reductions in carbon emissions, reductions that don’t have feasible technical solutions yet, will lead to an unstoppable feedback loop of climate change.  Scientists speculate that, because of the long-term nature of carbon dioxide’s residence in the bio-systems that drive climate, once the feedback loop starts, it may not shut off for 1000 years.

President Barack Obama seems, even if he didn’t read the article, to get the skinny of the problem.  In a statement today:

These urgent dangers to our national and economic security are compounded by the long-term threat of climate change, which if left unchecked could result in violent conflict, terrible storms, shrinking coastlines and irreversible catastrophe.  These are the facts and they are well known to the American people — after all, there is nothing new about these warnings.  Presidents have been sounding the alarm about energy dependence for decades.  President Nixon promised to make our energy — our nation energy independent by the end of the 1970s.  When he spoke, we imported about a third of our oil; we now import more than half.

Here’s the executive plan, as of this morning, January 27th in the year of 2009.

1. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan will provide infrastructure funding to maximize energy effeciency in government buildings, as well as for weatherizing 2 million homes.
2. Place new fuel efficiency standards to raise current levels to 35 mpg by 2011.
3. Attempting to allow states (California) to set fuel efficiency standards of their own, as long as they are above the national level, which was rejected by the Bush administration.

Paul Krugman, also writing in the New York Times, has argued that the Obama administration needs to hit the economic crisis hard, fast, and precisely, and apparently the same is true of the climate issue.  That is, if scientists and post-apocalyptic prophesiers are saying the same things in different tongues.

Friday by Foot 1/23/2009

1/23/2009

From hence I shall, every Friday, recap news pertaining to Minneapolis-local non-automobile public transportation that I have found.  Primarily, I’ll be piggybacking the MN Daily, but also plan to keep tabs on transportation project websites, as well as relate any quirky or insightful stories from the week past.  They will be called “Fridays by Foot”.

1. President Bob Bruininks of the University of Minnesota sent a letter urging Senator Amy Klobuchar to attempt to include funding for a transportation hub into Barack Obama’s promised stimulus package.  Bruininks argues that the Stadium Village area would be a good location for such a hub, in regard to the amount of current businesses and residential property, as well as the new Gophers TCF Bank Stadium.  The proposed hub would include amenities for bicyclists, as well as riders of the MTC bus and light rail riders.  The Central Corridor LRT, scheduled for completion in early 2014, will pass directly through Stadium Village.  Reported by Briana Bierschbach, MN Daily (1/21/2009).

2.  The 2nd Ave. & Marquette Transit project will not only be diverting buses, but converting Hennepin Avenue from a north-bound one-way downtown to a two-way street.  The Minneapolis Public Works and Transportation planning staff have come up with a plan to make the street more friendly to bicyclists.  For one, bike lanes will be available for experienced and inexperienced riders.  For the experienced, a lane shared with buses and right-turning drivers will exist, very similar to those running down Park & Portland Avenues (for example).  For the street wary, a lane will be created that, during non-peak traffic hours, will be blocked by a lane of parked cars, forming a wall between the rushing traffic and the bicycle.  Finally, “bike boxes” may be positioned at the front of left turn lanes.  These spaces will be a way to ensure that bicyclists can prepare for a left-hand turn across the avenue safely.  Reported by Tara Bannow, MN Daily (1/21/2009).

3. The University of Minnesota looks to partner with Metro Transit to provide shuttles to and from the suburbs for college football games, starting next year.  The shuttle would help reduce the number of parking structures built, which will total to accommodate for approximately 3,200 vehicles anyway.  Similar measures in both Iowa and Ohio have been largely popular and even profitable.  Reported by Andrew Cummins, MN Daily (1/22/2009).

4.  At a hearing to discuss the 2030 Transportation Policy Plan Update, many citizens expressed concerns regarding expansion of transportation, mainly that they did not wish to build new roads or highway, but focus on pedestrian concerns.  The official response states that, while the amount of funding to be provided is unknown, its source is likely predictable.  The funding will most likely trickle down through previously established channels, such as the Federal High Way Association (FHWA), and would need to be spent on those particular types of projects.

Telperion

The Wild Trees

The second section of Richard Preston’s The Wild Trees is called “The Fall of Telperion”.  The book is largely about a small community of enthusiasts, who all live for climbing California redwoods, Douglas firs, and other massively trunked arbores.  “The Fall of Telperion” details the search, discovery, climb, and abrupt obituary of one a 359 foot redwood.  After reaching the very peak of the Humboldt tree, one of the main actors of the narrative

lay in his hammock, looking at the moon.  He didn’t like Michael Taylor’s name for the tree, and he thought that a better name for it would be Telperion, or the Tree of the Moon.  It was a name taken from The Silmarillion, Tolkien’s mythic history of Middle-earth.  Sillett mentioned his idea to the others.  They thought it was rather like Steve to give the tree a weird name.

The Two Trees of Valinor

According to The Silmarillion, Telperion (as well as his twin sister Laurelin) bathed the world in light; Telperion shone silver and Laurelin gold.  The trees were destroyed out of jealousy by a giant spider-like creature called Ungoliant and the last flower of Telperion was used to make the moon, while the last fruit of Laurelin birthed the sun.  Just as the inhabitants of Middle-earth outlive the Telperion, the tree-climbers of California outlive the redwood.  The redwood crashes to the ground and destroys a second tree in a squall similar to one that the crew of climbers live through, after Steve Sillett casually asks the sky “what’s in a name?”

Motion Sensors

Included with my rent check this month was a letter to my landlord, a letter that included some math.

There are 3 small hallways in each building in my complex.

There are 3 buildings in my complex.

Each hallway has 2 illuminated lightbulbs.

Each lightbulb is illuminated 24 hours a day.

I estimate that my neighbor and I occupy the hallway approximately 3 minutes each day (combined total).

Home depot sells an easy-to-install motion sensor for $34.99.

The motion sensor keeps a bulb on for 4 minutes.

If installed, the sensor would reduce the use of electricity in the halls from 1440 minutes each day, to approximately 64 (for each bulb).

With the sensor, each year, the bulbs would be on for 975 hours rather than 21,900.

Over the course of a year, all of the bulbs with motion sensors would draw 732 days worth of electricity, rather than 6,750.

This is only at 1 of my landlord’s 9 properties.

From a business standpoint, it makes sense to me.

Marquette & Second Avenue Project

First, here are a few stats I pulled from the November/December issue of Mother Jones:

Decrease in total miles Americans drove this June, compared to June ’07: 12.2 billion

Transit rides taken in first 3 months of 2008: 2.7 billion

Increase from last year: 88 million

I was riding the Metro Transit Route 4 and saw a sign which gave information about the “Marquette & 2nd Avenue Transit Project”, a project I had never heard of but had certainly biked past, wondering what was going on.  I’ve heard that Minneapolis has been working with a number of groups to improve transportation for pedestrians and non-drivers for some time now (measures which include installing stoplights with countdowns, for example, as well as maintaining bike lanes downtown) and I was wondering how this fit in.

This comes from the Minneapolis Public Works website:

This project is the first of several projects that will reshape transportation in downtown Minneapolis. When the MARQ2 project is completed, north-south commuter express buses will be moved from Nicollet Mall, 3rd Avenue South and other north-south streets to Marquette and 2nd. Local bus routes will not change. North-south commuter bus service will be much faster and more reliable than it is today, and the number of buses on the Mall during the peak periods will be reduced by about 35%. At that time, bicyclists will be able to use Nicollet Mall 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. The removal of express buses from other streets will also help traffic flow better on those streets.

Not only will this project (purportedly) make commute on the bus lines faster, but as the quote says, it opens up Nicollet Mall, the safest route to pedal through the city, for constant bike use.  With more bus traffic routed down Marquette, the city also plans to convert both Hennepin and 1st Avenues into two-way streets.  In addition, work continues on the Northstar Commuter line, which will connect downtown Minneapolis to the northwest suburbs of Fridley, Coon Rapids, Anoka, Elk River, and Big Lake at approximately 80 mph.  The rail will also be Go-to/UPass compatible.  Work has begun at all of these locations.