Twin Cities Streets for People

A recent front page article in the Star Tribune cited the head of MN-Dot warning that state transportation funding will face a $50 billion (yes, with a "B") dollar shortfall over the next 20 years. That is an huge amount of money in a state that with a total budget of about $15 billion dollars per year, and that typically spends about $1 billion dollars annually in road construction and maintenance.

But where does this number come from? It comes from a plan suggests a quixotic goal for the state: a transportation system where there are no traffic jams, where all cars are freely flowing at 50 mph almost all of the time. But is that really even possible?

New freeways create new traffic, as reduced travel times allow people move ever farther away from their workplaces and into the countryside. In 20 years, even if MN-DOT somehow raised $50 billion to spend on freeways, there would be traffic jams. People will always buy, and developers will always sell, the impossible dream of trying to be the last house on the edge of exurbia. Spending more than $50 billion on ashalt pipe dreams seems ludicrous, when today we can barely find the money to keep our bridges from falling down. 

I wonder if there's an agency talking about the $50 billion funding gap for sustainable transportation options? The new Central Corridor LRT line, connecting the two densest points in the entire state, will cost about $1 billion dollars, serve very high traffic volumes, and last a long time. Same with the upcoming Southwest LRT, which may cost less. A streetcar line down the midtown greenway is estimated to cost about $100 million, and a system of bike lanes and seperated bike paths throughout the metro is an inexpensive way to reduce the demand for transportation in the first place.

Maybe its time to look at how a number this mind-boggling was generated in the first place?