Minneapolis spokesman., 1962-07-06
Metropolitan Transit: The
Highway Department
Replies

Replies
Thanks to the interest of Governor Elmer An
dersen, we have a response from the Minnesota
Highway Department to several editorials max
ing the point that the Twin City freeways are being
planned without provisions for mass transportation
and in total disregard for this need. The statement
of the highway department is published elsewhere
IN this issue.
AS was to be expected, the highway department
dsagrees with our position in the matter and sug-
gests (by indirection and not too insstenty) that
position is the position of non-experts; theirs
the position Of experts. We quite willing to con-
cede this without yielding inch the validity of
our position. We speak only for the people who have
to ride the buses. We hope that with this rather
late public statement by the highway department
the cities can now begin a ful-scale debate on the
subject, and that some of the other people who
ought to be speaking up for the bus riders (officas
of the two cities for example) will now do So
OF first interest in the highway department
statement is the revelation that Minnesota SUBJ
committee on transportation and traffic" repre-
senting the two cities Hennepin and Ramsey count
les, and the department, considered the problem
of freeway by buses in 1858 and 1859 and de-
cided nothing needed to be done about it.
The highway department says the best avail
able opinion" consulted in this matter. The
who ride the buses. 1t did not include any of the
elected officials of Hennepin and Ramsey county,
the two cities, the many suburbs concerned with
this problem. 1t did include one-fourth of the
entire committee, two officials Of the Twin City
Rapid Transit company, whose most notable plan
ming activities appear to lie in the direction of
curtailing service and abdicating the mass trans
portation function to miscellaneous other carriers
A Provincial Decision
The contribution Of these TCTR officials
which the highway department considered worthy
of noting in its statement that, if bus trans
portation on the freeways instituted Serious
problems would be involved in passengers having to
descend or ascend steps ramps in order to reach
the bus loading areas" This suggests that the COM
mittee may be too provincial in its makeup and are
unaware of how things are done in Chicago New
York, Paris, London, and quite few other places
around the world.
We are aware that the procedures followed by
the highway department in this matter are grow
ing phenomenon Of government and especially of
the bureaucraces We refer to the practice of maxi
ing far-reachng decisions public policy, binding
us far into the future and often committing us to
enormous costs, without consulting the people af-
fected, without holding public hearings without
informing the public, and without informing
their elected officials But the precedents established
In this direction do not make the practice right
excusable. And expect to go right on challenging
it. with all the power Of fact and logic that we can
muster, whenever encounter it. We suggest that
in this matter, the highway department has been
guilty of great failure Of its responsibility to the
public which supports it, and great breach of
faith.
MID Deeision-Muking Is lmmufvre
One of the troubles with making big decisions
in small, cosed-circuit, parochial meetings is that
there is great danger that the decisions may be i'm
mature and provincial as in the case cited above
the problem of ascending and descending steps!
In many other respects the highway depart
ment statement reflects the kind of dogmatic and
opnionated thinking that may be set down as a
result of failure to mature ideas through discussion
and debate on appropriate scale Witness, for
ample the unsupported statement that "the necessi
ty Of leaving the freeway in order to load and
load for this limited number Of stops lie. the free
way interchanges) will not seriously disrupt esl-
press schedules"
This one must have come off the top of their
hats Somewhere they lost the point that in addition
to interchanges there intersections by overpass
and underpass and that these intersections are Of
considerable Importance arterial streets carry
ing local bus servcie But more important Is
the point that any discussion worthy Of the term
would Immediately have raised two questions: what
schedules are we talking about? And how much
time will be consumed on the turnouts? The state
ment does not say, and we firmly believe that the
highway department does not know. We also
believe that on run like the inter-cty run, from
Loop to Loop the lost-tme factor could be serious
enough to affect materially the of buses. There
Of course other questions about loading and un-
loading on the turnouts that mature consideration
of the problem would raise such as the effect upon
local traffic and traffic approaching and leaving
the freeways. The department statement dismisses
these without word
TcRT Tells Us Whufs Whuf
The final point regarding freeway use for bus