Reply #70: Minneapolis winters ain't what they used to be

[Lydia Leftcoast]

When I lived here in the 1950s and 1960s and again in the early 1980s, snow usually arrived in mid-November at the latest and stayed till mid-April. I wore snowboots for Easter as often as not. We often had weeks of subzero temperatures on end--I remember going to seventh grade on a day when the high was 36 below. During my senior year in college, I remember a day when the high was 27 below. One winter in the 1980s, we had two 18" snowfalls on consecutive days.

After 19 years in Oregon, I moved back here in 2003, and so far, I have not experienced a real old-fashioned Minneapolis winter. There has been little snow, and no snowfalls over six inches. Nothing that even remotely resembles a blizzard like the one in 1965, when my school was closed for three days. (My youngest nephew, age 10, has never experienced a "snow day" off from school.) The lowest air temperature has been about 20 below at night, but we have had no double-digit-below daily highs (not that I miss those).

We have to start getting rid of the elephant in the living room: cars. Yet the world is going in the wrong direction, with more cars and more housing being built in places that are accessible only by car.

Sorry folks, we're going to have to stop that. I don't care how much you "love" your car. Your car and mine are killing this planet, and your emotional attachment to a piece of machinery doesn't mean squat in the larger scheme of things.

We need the political courage to slash the Pentagon budget and REALLY defend ourselves by building the infrastructure for non-automotive transportation (trains, bicycles, streetcars, feet, electric buses, even low-fuel scooters) and retrofitting towns, cities, and suburbs for non-automotive mobility (for example, by building paths from housing areas to stores, schools, and services). With the proper infrastructure, a non-driver has as much "freedom" as a driver, perhaps more, because of not needing to worry about parking, fuel, insurance, or other expenses.

I drive as little as possible, and I do so only because the public transit in the Twin Cities is pathetic and doesn't go some of the places I need to go.