Minnesota's Northstar Commuter Rail 'System' (I'm not sure that one route constitutes a "system", but I digress) is seeing growth in ridership, though it has not increased as much as supporters -- and even those who do not support the project -- would like, writes Sarah Horner in the Pioneer Press on July 21st.The Catch that Northstar finds itself is this: "Ridership must reach 4,000 average weekday rides before talk of extending the line to St. Cloud can be restarted." Although June's ridership hit 3,000 trips, its year-to-date average is down around 2,700.
The unfortunate thing about this requirement is that if the line went to St. Cloud now, it would likely average far more that 4,000 weekday rides.
I am encouraged by the realism of opponents as expressed by Anoka County Board Chairman Rhonda Sivarajah, who never supported the project:
"The gains make it easier to make "lemonade out of lemons," she said. "We now have an obligation to try and bring that subsidy per rider down as much as possible. That's the only thing we can do as a county board to try and improve what I think is kind of a bad situation."
This is a good strategy for her and her fellow malcontents. If Northstar ultimately fails, they can all wag their fingers and scold the rest with "I told you so!" But if, as is more likely as the price of gasoline continues to rise, it succeeds brilliantly, they can say that much of the success is due to the efforts they made to make lemonade out of lemons.
Also, it makes sense from a political point-of-view, which in the halls of 'gummint' is the one that often counts more than any actual success or failure.
Across the aisle, those who favor transit initiatives tend not to have a good fall-back position like Chairman Sivarajah's, and when presented with a defeat or setback often resort to whining about how the world will end if their project isn't approved and built the way they want.
It must be noted, of course, that Minnesotans are generally a less vitriolic bunch than most of their fellow Americans. After all, they elected Al Franken, a known Comedian, to the United States Senate.
But regardless of the relatively level heads in the Land of Cheese, supporters of transit initiatives nationwide must develop similar strategies. If they do, they will find even more success at the polls for transit initiatives and expansion than they already do.
For Northstar, incremental improvements in ridership are better than none of course. I just hope they will be prepared to handle the crush of riders they'll get when they do finally get to St. Cloud.
