Letters to the Editor

Light rail is viable option for Twin Cities

In response to Monday's letter, "To decrease traffic, change work hours," the answer to transit problems in the Twin Cities is not having the state change working hours. The Twin Cities needs a fundamental shift in how it thinks about transit.

Currently the Twin Cities area is the second most sprawled urban area in the country. Some predict that the metro area will someday stretch from St. Cloud to Rochester.

Minnesotans are stereotyped as forward-looking, community-oriented and environmentally conscious people. In reality, we are selfish and destroying that same environment we supposedly cherish and enjoy so much.

We have fallen into the selfish trap of "other people should use mass transit but I'll drive myself." It is unfortunate that the only way to make mass transit work here is to wait until traffic becomes so snarled that people demand solutions.

I agree that light rail should be funded by metro-area taxes and not by outstate people. I applaud the forward-looking policy planners who realize that something must be done now to save money and the environment in the future.

Light rail will not replace the car for every trip. But if planned right, it could replace thousands of cars on the freeway during the daily commute. Northern States Power Co. says it would not need to increase electric production significantly to accommodate light rail transit. An LRT system would save millions of gallons of gas and tons of noxious air pollution.

So wake up, Minnesota. A transit solution will be needed and LRT is a viable solution if we change our mindsets.

Scott Clausen,senior, College of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences

Changing work hours won't work for families

In Tim Aanestad's Monday letter, "To decrease traffic, change work hours," his solution to decrease traffic is to change work hours, at least for state government employees. I don't have a solution to the problem, but I do know that his solution is not a viable one and I resent the fact that he states that workers should not have a say in the hours they work.

Aanestad states that employees or unions don't want to work on weekends or at night. He feels, rather, that taxpayers should decide work hours -- not the employees.

For your information, a fair share of this work force has children or other family members for whom they need to arrange care. Try to find a day care facility that will take your children in the evenings or weekends. What about those families with school-age children? When do you suppose they would see their children if the kids are gone all day and parents had to work at night?

Working evenings or weekends is not the solution, as I for one would never be able to spend any real time with my husband or children if we didn't have our weekends together.

Paula Kircher,civil service employee,Department of Veterinary Pathobiology

Regents are pretty free with tax dollars

What are tax dollars? They must be just some papers to be handed out by the Board of Regents at the University of Minnesota.

The poor president of our great University just received a pay raise of $961 per week, on top of a $225,000 per year salary. My heart bleeds for him. The poor soul, I hope he thinks he earned it, otherwise his conscience should bother him. All I can say is that he must be a top achiever.

I hope this comment will open peoples' eyes to what is really going on out there. The river of plenty flows freely for a few, but for most people, all they see is a dry river bed with a few small pools scattered here and there.

Kenneth V. Johnson,Daily reader