Progress on Our Doorstep: More Road than Trench

By John Van Hecke, Executive Director & Fellow, September 26, 2011 at 3:00 pm

Crossing University Avenue this morning at Raymond, it hit me. The CCLRT-driven reconstruction of University is really starting to look like a road. Before we know it, the fuss will fade and we’ll ask ourselves why we didn’t build light rail sooner.

For months, this project has looked exactly like what it is: a complete and overdue, base up rebuild of University Avenue. In other words, it’s been the grown-up equivalent of a sandbox with trucks, excavators, front-end loaders and all manner of earth moving equipment tearing out a road down to its clay base.

Everyone adjoining University has been waiting for the avenue’s phoenix-like rebirth. Today, I enjoyed a clear, unambiguous view of the finished project. Maybe it was the layer of bitumen, that fresh black asphalt signaling imminent road striping and the return of traffic normalcy.

The only thing more inconvenient than an infrastructure project is the accumulative, long-term cost of not maintaining and rebuilding infrastructure. No one loves the disruption, noise, inconvenience and expense of tearing out any road but roads, like any man-made structure, require regular recapitalization. That investment moves Minnesota forward, facilitating and expanding business growth.

With conservative voices insisting that only cutting or eliminating corporate tax rates will increase business investment and, by extension, job growth, any company that finds its transportation and distribution costs growing because of crumbling infrastructure is going to think long and hard about moving. And if they do, investment and job growth follows the business right out the door.

CCLRT is on-schedule. While our section looks like its nearing completion, major stretches have yet to be torn up and rebuilt. Progress rarely arrives without discomfort but, on a crisp fall morning, our section of nearly rebuilt University Avenue delivers opportunity. At day’s end, it’s just a road but it’s also a vision of the possible.

Posted in Transportation | Related Topics: Public Transportation  Central Corridor  Roads & Highways  Minneapolis / St Paul