Off Track

Notwithstanding our love of the single-occupant automobile, we were very excited about the arrival of the light-rail train this spring. We love strolling down Fifth Street past the bright new Warehouse District station. It gaily announces the time and date on its prim marquees and generally looks as if it expects our train to shoosh in momentarily. But then things went a little fubar with the MTC bus strike. Because MTC won the contract to operate the Hiawatha Line, it cannot do so until the final Ts are crossed on the present agreement between management and operators. Each delay is amplified tenfold for the nascent light-rail system, since the preparations for its launch are legion and complex.

These sorts of capital improvements are always controversial, for the simple fact that they cost big bucks. They feel almost hydraulic, in the way that powerful amounts of money have to be diverted from some other major program. It is a legacy of certain conservatives (who, we can’t help pointing out, have managed to outspend liberals in “reducing the size of government” for the past twenty years, and hold the present and previous records for largest federal deficits in the history of the world) that there is no gain without pain. Incidentally, the best way to minimize the pain seems to be to punish those who are already in pain, in the hope that they won’t notice or can’t complain.

We are noticing and complaining. The closure of public schools in the wake of maximum increases in property taxes, along with an unwise conversation about three new stadiums and a silly plan to test a monorail, have opened up old wounds. It is galling to have state leaders bragging about balancing the state budget and being “fiscally responsible” when they have merely passed the bill along to the counties and cities.

Invariably, taxpayers feel compelled to do the math and weigh the options. When Minneapolis chose to indulge its vanity with the Hennepin Avenue suspension bridge—or more recently, the heinous “Frank Lloyd Wright” bridge on Third Avenue—we were among the complainers who wondered whether the money might be spent on something more important. It was only the mean-spirited who pointed out that a new bridge actually meant more accommodations for the homeless.

Still, what would life be like if every decision were based merely on utility? Would an artless world be preferable to a starving one? We would not like to live in a city that lacked the imagination to do both; the choice between want and need is artificial. We’ll mull this conundrum while we wait for our train.