Opinion editor's note: Star Tribune Opinion publishes a mix of national and local commentaries online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.
•••
Recently, most thinking and talking about public transit goes something like this:
"&%#*^!$."
In the good old days (i.e., three years ago) transit in the Twin Cities was more favorably viewed by many. It was viewed then as merely awful. People used it for commuting when necessary, and avoided it when possible. Because … cars.
Today low ridership is all but enforced by actual and threatened violence up to and including murder, along with habitual drug use, urination, sex acts too gross to be described here and, of course, disgust over the ongoing Southwest light-rail line farce.
A collective "&%#*^!$" is the natural response.
Beyond emergency action, some fundamental long-term rethinking is needed.
Frankly, the emergency plan being considered in the Legislature (HF 2045) is pathetically far from adequate. However, because it's all that's on the table now it must be passed forthwith.
More drastic action is needed, and fast. Let's focus on the Minneapolis Airport and Mall of America stations on the Blue Line. This is the disastrous gateway introduction now received by many, if not most, visitors to our metropolis and state.
We need to immediately make the Blue Line a safe, clean, "Gated Transit Community." Here's how:
- Install multiple additional looping video surveillance cameras on all cars.
- Install new signs at all stations, unmistakably designating the cars at each end as safe, clean, "Gated Transit Community" cars.
- Staff an information booth at the airport light rail terminal where the "Gated Transit Community" system will be explained to folks who just flew in. Properly identified new arrivals will receive a free provisionally certified Go Card.
- To ride in a "Gated Transit Community" car, passengers will need a recent airline ticket or a certified Go Card. Uncertified riders can board the middle car — the one everyone else will avoid.
- One or more officers will always be stationed on each gated car, for the full route, checking each passenger's Go Card. Officers can issue a provisional certified Go Card on the spot after a few questions. Permanent light rail certifications will have been mailed to qualifying riders.
- Riders who don't receive provisional certification, along with anyone violating rules governing behavior, will at minimum be required to move to the middle ungated car at the next stop. They may be subject to immediate arrest depending on circumstances.
- Mental health and other social service professionals will be quickly summoned when needed.
This emergency plan, which should be expanded to the Green Line as soon as possible, can resuscitate our whole transit system, quickly restoring it to "merely awful" status. But let's be clear — "just awful" isn't good enough. We need to make transit great again.
Historically, transit truly was great in the Twin Cities. In 1920 the Minneapolis-St. Paul population was about 620,000. Because there were effectively no suburbs, transit served everyone. Ridership in 1920 was more than three times today's post-COVID shrunken level. Service was so frequent that schedules weren't printed for busy hours — if you missed one streetcar you often could see the next one coming.
Of course, those days are gone. Because … cars. Beyond some inner suburban areas, Twin Cities population density will never support a better-than-awful human-driven traditional route-based system. Minneapolis can only imagine going boldly back to 1920 by trying to so restrict and disable the use of cars that transit, by comparison, becomes a reasonable choice again. Unfortunately, that seems to be the current plan.
To establish a safe "Gated Transit Community," we need a system of transit surveillance, and real and immediate consequences for bad behavior. Soon we must combine Uber/Lyft, school busing and transit into one system. The need for smaller vehicles providing very frequent service means that human drivers will be unaffordable. This is why we must focus on developing automated driving for transit routes (Uber/Lyft automation is coming).
A truly 21st-century transit system will be almost unrecognizable when compared to what we have today. But our immediate challenge is to cancel "&%#*^!$."
Bob "Again" Carney Jr. is a registered lobbyist for We the People.
