The new transit hotness: social workers

I love this story. It encapsulates liberal governance in a few hundred words.

Advertisement

The basics: the Twin Cities have been building out an immensely expensive and remarkably useless light rail system.

Well, you really can’t call it a system. For a few billion dollars so far we have built 2 trains that barely get used and are building another that nobody wants. The only things we have succeeded in doing is feathering the nest of consultants and construction companies, destroying traffic flow, and providing a convenient place for homeless people to overdose on drugs.

Transit ridership has plummeted. And not that “down 5%” kind of plummeted. The “nobody who has any choice will step on the train” kind of plummet.

COVID of course devastated transit systems, so that was the proximate cause of the collapse. But three years after the collapse there has been no rebound. Because a transit system that always sucked is now unusable. It exists for homeless people to sleep and occasionally die in.

Now, this has been known for 3 years, but nobody in the government seemed to care. They keep funding the construction of a new train costing billions of dollars, and the graft continues unabated. So who cares?

Well, one suburban legislator suddenly does.

Plagued with rising crime and passenger complaints about drug use and erratic behavior on Metro Transit light-rail trains, lawmakers at the State Capitol have proposed an intervention.

The Transit Service Intervention Project, according to a bill introduced at the Legislature, would call for social workers and others to provide “coordinated, high-visibility interventions” over three months to Green and Blue Line passengers experiencing homelessness or mental health and substance abuse issues.

“We have been struggling in the metro with transit safety for some time now,” Rep. Brad Tabke, DFL-Shakopee, said Thursday at a hearing of the House Transportation Finance and Policy Committee.

Tabke, who co-authored the House bill, said “intensive intervention will reset the culture of the transit ride.”

Advertisement

Rep. Tabke is on the job dealing with crime on the trains. Whew! Thank God somebody has finally noticed, right?

Yeah. He did. Because he had to ride the train when he got into a car accident. Suddenly safety on the trains mattered. Because a legislator got scared, not because the system sucked for everybody else.

The suburban lawmaker said he has acquired “first-hand knowledge” of the issues aboard light rail after his truck was totaled in a crash on the first day of the legislative session, forcing him to take the train to the Capitol. What he’s experienced in the weeks since then, he said, points to “a massive, massive problem.”

Crime reports on Metro Transit trains and buses increased by 54% in 2022 as drug complaints surged 182%, weapons complaints soared 145% and liquor violations jumped 92%.

“First-hand knowledge” is a code word for “it affected me, so I will now spend more of your money to help myself.”

Liberalism in a nutshell.

We saw the same thing with the illegal immigration problem. Nobody in Washington or any Blue city gave a damn until illegal immigrants showed up at their door.

Suddenly it was a crisis. A disaster. Send the illegals on to Canada!

What a bunch of selfish jerks. They care nothing for anybody but themselves.

Crime has been spiking on Metro Transit for years. Ridership has plummeted. And nobody gave a damn.

Advertisement

Then a legislator had to actually use it, and it’s a crisis. A total freaking crisis.

So what is the solution to this crisis? A perfect liberal solution: social workers on trains!

The intervention team described in the bill would be led by a project manager appointed by the governor with experience in social services, public transit or law enforcement. The team would include representatives from the state Human Services and Public Safety departments, the Met Council, Hennepin and Ramsey counties, the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, the National Alliance on Mental Illness Minnesota and community-based social service organizations.

Hennepin and Ramsey county commissioners said they support the effort but cautioned that social services employees are already stretched thin.

“We simply don’t have social workers sitting idle,” said Hennepin County Commissioner Jeff Lunde.

What a clusterfark.

The theory behind light rail in the Twin Cities was always based upon the thinnest of excuses: attracting “choice” riders, who are people with means and vehicles that would find nice, clean trains a superior mode of transportation to buses.

It was always an idiotic idea, appealing to a few thousand riders while stealing resources from things that the millions of other residents here use: roads.

Sure, it’s nice to have the option to use it a few times a year. But for a few billion dollars and the starving of our road system? No thanks.

Advertisement

But as with most such transit systems the reality is nobody wants to use them unless they have to. Lawmakers have been doing their best to force us in that direction, strangling the road system, reducing parking, increasing costs to own cars, and raising taxes.

But people stubbornly cling to cars because the alternative is much worse.

No fears, though. A legislator who has now been forced to ride light rail is on the case. Social workers are surely the answer!

Join the conversation as a VIP Member

Trending on HotAir Videos

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement