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Well, at least this time the social engineers are telling citizens that they will be cutting reliable and efficient bus service before the light rail line goes in.
Like the street it calls home, the Route 16 bus along University Avenue is a workhorse. The route collected 4.7 million fares last year, 16,149 per weekday — mostly from working-class folks and often minorities — making it the second-most popular Metro Transit route.
Successful bus line, why in the world would it take a hit and have services cut?
Yet, it's going to take a beating from the planned Central Corridor light-rail line connecting St. Paul and Minneapolis via University Avenue, assuming the federal government approves the plan and trains run in 2014. Under the plan endorsed by local and state officials last week, the Route 16 will run once every 20 minutes during rush hour, and once every 30 minutes at other times. That's one of a number of changes light rail will bring to an area that's been as bus-heavy as any in America for 50 years.
Busses work folks. Besides them being huge nightmares for those of us in cars, they do serve people efficiently and well. Oh and they are far cheaper than any alternative, with the flexibility to migrate their routes as needed.
Route 16 buses will run less frequently: During morning and evening rush hours, every 20 minutes; other times, every half-hour. Why? Because officials need to get riders off buses and onto trains to raise Central Corridor ridership forecasts to meet a federal funding formula.
The citizens of the Twin Cities are pons in the federal funding money grab by the social engineers in government bureaucracies.
Led by a push from St. Paul and Ramsey County officials, planners last week released computer studies of what would happen if the Route 16 bus ran every 15 minutes. It failed the test of the federal funding formula, known as the "cost effectiveness index."
Not only will the Central Corridor destroy the heritage of the Midway, it will be a nightmare to get downtown, or to the Capital. But maybe lawmakers don't want us to be able to get down to them. Then they'd have to explain just who in the world they are actually trying to serve.
Good bye Route 16.
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