Wedge LIVE! @WedgeLIVE@mspsocial.net

Introducing Bus Dad

RT @JGrantGlover@twitter.com

*bus dad powers intensify*

Thanks @WedgeLIVE@twitter.com

🐦🔗: https://twitter.com/JGrantGlover/status/1541550995683086347

The concern troll won't let you cross this bridge until you answer her riddle: if I obstruct your attempts to make things better until you can show me that things are already performing at a high level, how will you ever make things better?

RT @anton612@twitter.com

Recent study showed that Minneapolis is leading the nation in gaps between rhetoric and policy. See: Hennepin bus lanes, todays Strib op-ed on police, etc. Congrats!! https://twitter.com/brooklynspoke/status/1541148369808154624

🐦🔗: https://twitter.com/anton612/status/1541183692672061441

RT @anton612@twitter.com

Recent study showed that Minneapolis is leading the nation in gaps between rhetoric and policy. See: Hennepin bus lanes, todays Strib op-ed on police, etc. Congrats!! https://twitter.com/brooklynspoke/status/1541148369808154624

🐦🔗: https://twitter.com/anton612/status/1541183692672061441

If you enjoy fact checking lazy dishonest arguments in email newsletters, read my earlier thread on Ward 13 Council Member Linea Palmisano.
https://twitter.com/WedgeLIVE/status/1541392047999168512

Goodman should know she's lying because her best friend is Mayor Frey's newly appointed public works director who arrived at the literal last minute to kill the full time bus lane recommended by the city's professional staff.

Particularly enraging is Goodman's claim that the full-time bus lane were a "last minute addition." The reality: every option presented to the public for a year and a half included a full-time bus lane. The city's project website still has a section explaining why it's necessary!

With all that's happened in our world/city/Uptown over 2+ years, blaming a bike lane for closed businesses shows a lack of respect for our intelligence. Which businesses? Movie theater being turned into a 2500 seat performance venue? Kitchen store & CB2 slated for redevelopment?

Goodman claims the bike lane on Hennepin between Lake and 31st (which nobody is shy about parking in because it's unprotected and at street level - yeah that's a failure) "resulted in the loss of eight or more retail businesses."

Goodman presses the fear button, tells constituents that "limiting lanes" and "eliminating parking" is an attempt to "force people to give up their cars." Or, it's about sharing space and giving people healthy, affordable, sustainable transportation *choices*?

Goodman says there's a bike lane on Bryant people can use. There is no bike lane on Bryant. Also worth mentioning that at the southern end of the project area, Bryant is six streets over from Hennepin, a commercial corridor with destinations people want to travel to.

In other words, Goodman's explanation for her opposition to supporting the success of a $60 million (already funded!) transit project, is that the state legislature won't fund successful transit infrastructure.

Goodman: "as much as we'd like to believe we have a transit system that works for most users we simply do not right now." Blames "gridlock with regards to infrastructure investment at the state legislature."

Get ready for this. Lisa Goodman's email from a few weeks ago urging the Mayor to veto the City Council approved Hennepin layout is the best thing I've read in a while. Easily tops Palmisano for shamelessness.
https://content.govdelivery.com/bulletins/gd/MPLS-31b873b?wgt_ref=WARD_7

We've got a chance for a City Council veto override on Thursday. If we end up implementing 1 lane of car + bus traffic on Hennepin Avenue for most of the day, that'll turn out poorly. A cautionary tale about bringing in a politician at the last moment to overrule your own staff.

I will accept a 20½ hour bus lane.
https://twitter.com/sdho/status/1539707648047824900?s=20&t=gqufkalRbzooZB9U7y14Kw

But if Frey and Palmisano believe that a transit investment this significant should be hobbled by converting the bus lane to car parking for 20 hours per day, they should say that.

Mayor Frey made the same bad faith argument (and a few others) about a lack of 24 hour bus service in his veto letter. If Frey and Palmisano are conceding the need for bus lanes during the E Line's hours of operation, sign me up for that compromise.
https://wedgelive.com/mayor-frey-not-telling-the-truth-about-his-bus-lane-veto/

Let's be clear: Hennepin Avenue is getting a $60 million bus rapid transit upgrade providing all day service (E Line). That's why the entire 15 member Minneapolis legislative delegation wrote a letter to the City in support of Metro Transit's request for a full time bus lane.

Classic Linea Palmisano, explaining her opposition to full-time bus lane for Hennepin: shifting responsibility to the Met Council for not funding 24 hour bus service.