9. March, 2004 - freaky snow
- Yesterday’s late-morning storm slowed the Twin Cities to a crawl. It was weird. I got to see the sun at sunrise, before it moved behind the clouds, but it looked like just another gray day. Then it was a near white-out outside. Then it had stopped by noon and it was time to go shovel out. Two or three inches of snow in under three hours, with basically no warning from any of the weather people.
- After shovelling out, I went for a walk. I had to go to the bank, and then to drop some DVDs off for Bill. After that, I went to the Purple Onion to hang out, since I was stalled on some work stuff and needed a break. I got to talk to Gordon for a while, which was good. One of the things we talked about was how nice it is to have lived in the same town so long that you “know everybody”. I think that was one of the bigger things that made me homesick the year I was in California. I didn’t know anyone other than the people I worked with, so if I went out in the evening I’d either be hanging with co-workers, or be out on my own. Here in Minneapolis, just wandering into a coffeeshop or a bar means I’ve got about even odds of bumping into someone I know (and often someone I haven’t seen for a while), and that’s a darned nice feeling. It feels like home.
- After Gordon left to go to work, Jim showed up on his way home from work. We chatted for a while, and grabbed dinner over at Bobby Z’s. While we were eating dinner, another friend showed up and talked to us for a while. That’s exactly why Minneapolis feels like home. I went for a little walk this afternoon, and ended up running into three people I knew in a few hours with no planning needed.
- Walkout casts doubt on mass transit’s future, and I expect there will be fewer people depending on the buses after this strike. There’s no movement from either side so far, and we’re tentatively setting the over/under line for the duration of the strike at two months.
- The Minnesota Daily thinks that U must push for compromise in the transit strike. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by traffic around the U. It hasn’t been that bad, but I haven’t really paid close attention to the parking situation around Marcy-Holmes. But the University is affected by the strike. Maybe even more than downtown Minneapolis is. A lot of students used to depend on the buses to get to school.
- Idle buses don’t equal big savings, since there’s plenty of fixed overhead that Metro Transit still has to pay. The article also mentions that cabs are seeing increased business. That’s one of the things about the strike that hasn’t been reported at all, but I don’t think the cab companies are Really Busy yet. There’s a guy down the block who drives a cab, and he’s still parking it there overnight, Yesterday I saw him parking the cab at home while he had lunch. If they were really busy, he’d be eating lunch between fares, I think. Finally, the article also mentions the cost to Ramsey County, which is setting aside additional money for people on financial assistance who used to take the bus either to work, or while looking for work. The County is having to pick up the tab for cab-rides in some cases. They’ve got enough money for a week of that, but what happens after that money runs out? The strike is going to last more than a week. [press-patch]
Copyright 2008, Dave Polaschek.
Last updated on Tue, 09 Mar 2004 06:31:04.