Faith-Based Transportation Planning
10th March 2016
The Antiplanner confesses to not be a bible expert, but I don’t think Jesus ever said, “Thou shalt steal from thy neighbors so thee can afford to take expensive train rides.” But that seems to be the goal of Isaiah, a faith-based group in Minnesota that demands that taxpayers subsidize commuter trains from St. Cloud to Minneapolis.
Of course they do.
The Northstar commuter-rail line currently operates over the 40 miles from Minneapolis to Big Lake, about 28 miles short of St. Cloud. The line is a huge loser: it carried an average of around 1,250 round-trips a day in 2014, earning fare revenues of less than $2.4 million but spending $15.2 million on operations and $7.4 million on maintenance.
Of course it does.
St. Cloud residents who want to catch the train have to drive or take a bus to Big Lake. But taking a bus is so “antiquated,” complains Reverend James Albert, Isaiah’s leader. Apparently, they didn’t teach much history in Albert’s seminary school, or he would know that trains are nearly 100 years more antiquated than buses.
Evidently not.
“We feel we deserve the option to not own a car,” says Isaiah member Richard Gordon, a student at St. Cloud State University. While no one is preventing him from taking that option, that doesn’t also mean that he deserves to have 90 percent of his transportation costs paid for by taxpayers.
Students: The Entitled Class.