While the High Line provides familiar views to easily amused Manhattanites, the new Low Line will give its users an opportunity to see the geological formations on which the city is built, up close, a uniquely educational opportunity. This will thus have educational advantages in training schoolchildren to be the geologists and petroleum engineers of the future.

The alignment for this is planned to be below the Twin Cities and Western Railroad. Planners noted an important advantage, since there is so little traffic on the actual train tracks, the 1 year construction plan for the Low Line will have no noticeable economic disruptive effects.

In a joint press conference, Governors Mark Dayton of Minnesota (Pop: 5.4 million )  and Jan Brewer of Arizona (Pop: 6.5 million) announced a plan for a merger of their respective states to  lower costs, gain market share, and take advantage of  synergies. They announced they would be co-Governors, and meet jointly, via Google Hangouts, on a daily basis, with Dayton maintaining offices in St. Paul and Brewer in Phoenix.  This would soon create the 5th largest state (overtaking Illinois by 2020).

The main advantage of such a merger, both Governors, reading simultaneously from the same teleprompter said, was  “a reduction in  energy costs.”

Every year, Minnesotans spend a fortune heating themselves in the winter, while Arizonans spend a second fortune cooling themselves in the summer. A few people, so-called “snow birds”, follow the lessons of our avian forbears and migrate from Minnesota to Arizona and back seasonally. But of course, when in Arizona, they miss all the social connections, work exchanges, and so on that are present in Minnesota. And when they return, they miss everybody left behind in Arizona.

Instead of a few lucky retired people being snow birds, the merger of Minnesota and Arizona into a single state would create the opportunity to mass migrate the entire states seasonally.

Brewer announced they would construct a “Nea Minneapolis” in the vast emptiness between the buildings of metropolitan Phoenix, and Dayton called for a “GNU Phoenix” in the interstices of sprawling metropolitan Minneapolis. Calculations in the technical report suggest all of the building of the two metropolitan areas could be overlaid without conflict, without requiring any more space. This would instantly double the density of each city, with all of the concomitant efficiency. Similarly, Tucson would co-locate with Duluth and Rochester, and Flagstaff with Saint Cloud. Metropolitan Phoenix/Minneapolis-St.Paul-Bloomington would have 4.3M +3.8M = 8.1 Million people, ranking 6th in the US.

But how to get from here to there? In their detailed implementation plans, they noted  a seasonal migration of over 12 million people. This would initially be done with aircraft, 12 million people flying 747s holding 660 passengers in high density mode would require 18182 flights each season. At one departing flight every 2 minutes (and one landing as well) (or 720 departures per day), this would require 25 days of non-stop flights. Given the flight time from MSP to PHX is 3 hours and 20 minutes, and then back again,  estimated at 9 hours considering layovers, refueling, cleaning, minor maintenance etc., this would require 270 Boeing 747s in operation for this migration, (the report notes this is a significant fraction of the 1294 Boeing 747s built, but you could substitute other aircraft as needed). The cost of $200 per passenger per trip implies this would cost $2.4 billion per season, which frankly, the multi-millionaire Target Corporation scion noted, “is pocket change”, and well less than winter heating and summer cooling costs.

The report also priced out a longer term option, building a new High Speed Rail from MSP to PHX. The report notes Japan runs 13 high speed trains per hour at 320km/h (200 MPH) (i.e. just over 4 minute headways). This would be nonstop, at 2054 km (1276 miles). The report also assumes that the track would be run in a straight-line through the Rockies. At $100 million per mile to build, using strong Rearden Metal, it would be a mere $127,600,000,000. Governor Dayton reminds us that we just spent collectively in the two cities about 5% of that on sports stadia. Such a train system could carry 20,000 passengers per hour. In 25 days, it too could move 12 million people. Since we know the operating cost of HSR is free, this would be more cost effective than aircraft in a mere 27 years.

Dayton closed by stating “Every October, all of us Minnezonans would hop on the train in New Minneapolis and less than 7 hours later, hop off the train in New Phoenix. The train would instantly turn around, switch tracks, and fly like the wind back to Minnesota to pick up its next payload. Instead of looking forward to 8 months of snow, us Minnezonans could enjoy Spring Training, while continuing our business virtually uninterrupted.”

Brewer argued the state should be called Arisota.

The following was released to Streets.MN

*************** EMBARGOED UNTIL MARCH 32, 2013 ***************

In line with Minnesota’s new statewide transportation plan and the City of Minneapolis’s recent push for slow travel via streetcar, the newly formed Metropolitan Zports Commission (jointly managed by the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission and the Metropolitan Airports Commission, with a 30% stake held by local entrepreneur Z. Wilf), along with the Foshay Tower, have announced a new Zeppelin Port initiative. The objective will be for people to ride comfortably in the clouds from downtown to downtown of major American cities. Service is expected to begin in August 2015 on a route between Minneapolis, Milwaukee, and Chicago, with a parachute drop over Madison.

The Zeppelin will dock atop the Foshay tower, and board and alight via a newly constructedZipline between the Foshay tower roof and the 30th floor of the IDS Tower.

The marketing campaign is “It’s Zporting: Zip to the Zep today”.

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The Midwest High-Speed Rail Commission released a brief announcement indicating they opposed the 80 MPH Zeppelin, saying

“If you want slow inter-city transportation, High-Speed rail in the Midwest will undoubtedly be slower than a Zeppelin on trips from Chicago to Minneapolis, considering actual travel distances and stops”. 

Minneapolis Anti-Skyway Coalition supported the bringing of inter-city transportation downtown, but was disturbed by the construction of a non-street level zipline between the Foshay tower and IDS Center. Their main objection was removing potential customers from the street-level, and the possibility of aerial food-trucks powered by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (drones) (the famous taco-copter) serving passengers hanging off the zip-line waiting to board the Zeppelin.

Minneapolitans Against Food In Air (MAFIA) were also opposed, suggesting that taco juices would rain down upon street-level pedestrians.

Minneapolis Mayor RT Rybak immediately endorsed the project as bringing vital jobs and conventioneers to the City, and suggested a second zipline (which he dubbed “The Hipline”) to connect to Target Field and the Vikings Stadium.

This brings the development of lighter than air craft full circle in the metropolis where Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin conceived of his namesake vehicle.

Special to streets.mn , April 1, 2012

The City of Minneapolis recently received Federal funding under the Advanced Quality Urban Waterways Initiative (New Starts) Retro-Transit program to investigate alternative scenarios for transforming city streets into canals. By revealing the underlying stream beds that have been paved over in more than 150 years of the city’s existence, the proposed Urban Waterways system aims to restore the natural habitat of the endangered Musk Beaver and the Yukon Green Frog within the city of Minneapolis. It is said this is 17 percent more effective than green roofs in filtering polluted rainwater before it drains into the Mississippi River.

In addition, the canals will create a distinctive urban form and enable the deployment of a new set of environmentally-friendly (green) water taxis. These water buses will be painted Chartreuse to aid in identification. Express water buses will stop only every other block. The aim is to eventually convert every street and avenue to a canal, so that all travelers will have to either walk on the Skyway system or use public water-based transit to reach their destinations. To avoid transfers, local public transit agencies plan to commission designs for amphibious water/land buses.

Federal grants

In addition to the AQUWI grant, Minneapolis is also happy to have received a “Swimmable Communities” grant from the US Department of Parks and Recreation to help pay for the study. This grant will focus on the feasibility of making the canals swimmable year round, through heating in the winter (and cooling in the summer). It is anticipated that heating will be in place during the winter months of August to July. Minneapolis Director of Canals, Dutchess Bridgewater, says “Initiativizing this project will put Minneapolis uniquely on the Map with our sister cities of Venice, Stockholm, and Amsterdam”.

Restoring historic environment

Archeologists have found that the land Minneapolis was built on was historically a swamp, dubbed the Eye of the Pig, that was filled in by native Americans around 1100 AD to form the capital of the civilization of Antonopolis. That civilization collapsed about a century later, for unknown reasons, but mysterious runes found in northern Minnesota suggest that an invasion may have been the cause.