Pat Doyle has a must read post at the Big Question…
I wonder what MnDOT commissioner Carol Molnau thought about Chinese highways when she visited China for government business shortly before the 35W bridge collapsed.
I recently spent a couple of weeks in that country and was surprised to find an urban highway system in better shape than the stretch of 35W and I-94 in much of Minneapolis and St. Paul…
…The patchwork and indentations that mark the Twin Cities expressways were largely non-existent on highways in four major Chinese cities; their thoroughfares are new and well maintained.
One might expect this in Shanghai, a modern business capital, and in Beijing, which is putting on a good face for the 2008 Olympics. But even Wuhan, an interior city of more than 5 million that few westerners visit, had highways in better shape than those in the Twin Cities.
All of this in a developing nation where per capita GDP is $7,800
Emphasis is mine. Here we are, in one of the richest states in the richest country on Earth, and we still suffer through a transportation system that is decades out of date. Its embarrassing.
What is embarrassing is Americans seeming inability to look at information critically.
The united states may have a per capita GDP that is 5.6 times that of China but we also have 5.4 times as many miles of paved roads. The fact that most of the infrastructure in China is very new, especially in the new cities, the fact that it is in places in better condition should come as no surprise. The soviet union had nice looking infrastructure for a while after it was built too.
China also has massive pollution problems due in part by their huge expansion of transportation infrastructure.
KH -
You miss the point entirely. Of course China and Minnesota are differently situated, but there is also no question that we have the ability to build roads in Minneapolis that are of the same quality of those in Wuhan. More to the point, if we expect multi-national corporations to stay in Minnesota and not move their operations off shore (which is already a tough sell) we can’t afford to hurt our case by having crappy roads.
The bad quality of our roads impact:
1) safety
2) economy
3) quality of life
I, for one, am tired of wasting time and money stuck on roads that can’t support our economy and put lives in peril. And worst of all, its SO fixable. 10 cents more a gallon. Or a minor increase in the sales tax. Or, maybe we really want a first rate infrastructure and we do (gasp) both! I won’t even go in to how stupid it is to pass up federal transportation dollars.
The bad quality of our roads impact:
1) safety
2) economy
3) quality of life
I, for one, am tired of wasting time and money stuck on roads that can’t support our economy and put lives in peril. And worst of all, its SO fixable. 10 cents more a gallon. Or a minor increase in the sales tax. Or, maybe we really want a first rate infrastructure and we do (gasp) both! I won’t even go in to how stupid it is to pass up federal transportation dollars.
Well there is also the option of pulling funding from mass transit to buy more roads, but I guess you were focused on increasing taxes instead.
Not to mention maybe take bike trails off the budget until the roads are where they should be? Ahh… it is just easier to ask for more tax dollars, after all the government just has free money laying around right? 
Also embarrassing is that your site no longer has any mention of the troubles Mark Ritchie is in.
It’s because they are Communist. That’s why their roads are better.
Zack,
I assume you used the per capita GDP fact for some reason but thought it could be a little deceptive unless there was context for the numbers.
I am a big advocate of the gas tax and think it should be the only source for road funding (just as fares should be the only source for mass transit). The problem with you or anybody else being stuck in traffic is due to the fact government has subsidized sprawl for decades through cheep transportation. The subsidization has created a system based on overconsumption and inefficiency. Sure a higher gas tax would raise the costs of goods and services but those higher prices would reflect the true cost. Then when people bitch about a long commute because they needed to buy that Mcmansion in Ramsey they know they will have to pay to change it.
If we started there we would eventually get to the point where many of our communities would be dense enough for mass transit to make sense. Simply adding mass transit to the current system will change nothing as it is simply another method to hide the cost of inefficient land use by from those receiving the benefits.
Also your concern about safety is highly misplaced. If people were truly concerned with safety they would make motorcycles illegal (or at least require helmets) reduce the speed limit by 0-15 miles an hour and charge the person responsible for an accident for the police response. My feeling is though the concern isn’t for safety but the hope of a political issue that can be used to snowball potential voters.
Big Kahuna, the Ritchie story has been covered, if you want 24/7 reporting on the story go over to MDE.
In Sunday’s Strib, Lt.Gov. Molnau goes on to say…”There is nothing in the Law that says we can only use the Gas Tax monies for roads and Bridges. We as a state have to look at where our priorities are going to be.”
The whole purpose of having State Mandated Gas Taxes is to go to the building and maintaining of roads and bridges. Either Molnau is ignorant of what her job is or is lying to save face and that of Gov. Pawlenty.
Molnau goes on to state that more has been done under Pawlenty regarding Transportation that in the previous 12 years!! There’s been plenty of activity in the Metro area, that is for sure. But what of the rest of the state???
I have lived in Minnesota for going on 32 years. I can recall a few years here and there in the 70’s and 80’s where there has been NO road construction of any kind!!! The HWY 52 upgrade was to have started in the Spring of 1998 after Federal, State, and City monies were secured, but was delayed for 5 years. Was that project Molnau’s to take credit for???
Roseville Dem - Quite honestly if you want much news at all you should head over to MDE.
Here fluff stories are covered to keep anything DFL looking positive and bad stories like Ritchie are ignored.
Big Kahuna, I don’t care about every small detail about the Ritchie story. They have covered the major points about it for the most part here, so gladly have your 24/7 Ritchie coverage over at MDE.
B.K.
Do you read the posts at mde? The one that doorknob wrote on Nov.26th said that Ritchie’s lawyer was the one who said the list was public information it was HIS understanding that was how the list was obtained. So because the lawyer didn’t have HIS facts correct means Ritchie lied. How so.
Nice try HCDFL, Ritchie himself said he did not know where the list came from and now says he delivered it himself. He is being called on this no matter how much you would like it to go away.
How quickly this topic went from the state of Minnesota’s ROADS to RITCHIE!!!
Bike trails cost pretty much nothing and do get some (although I will admit this is very limited) drivers off the roads. But by and large the two are entirely different issues and someone would have to be pretty dense to confuse them. Bike trails, like parks, are a public service to increase quality of life. They encourage exercise, provide scenic escape from urban life, a safe place for our children to get outside, and, for a limited few, an alternative, pollution free, way to get around. Yeah, spending the relatively little they cost to maintain is definitely a big part of infrastructure problem… ha.
I’m amazed that some people think that Molnau and the disaster that MNDOT has become is not an important story. Every story reveals new layers of incompetence and sheer stupidity, and this is an area where when you get things wrong people can be killed!
But some people think that Mark Ritchie is a more important story? Think about it.