When I used to commute between Milwaukee and Chippewa Falls, on the way home, I could pick up the signal just south of Eau Claire, somewhere around Black River Falls, and I had the signal until about a mile from home, sometimes all the way into my driveway. During a heavy ice storm one year, the tower in Baraboo fell over and they were forced to rent time on another, shorter tower, cutting their range. After the tower was restored, the signal seemed to get stronger and, in fact, I can actually pick up WOLX in the house, and in the car, sometimes on the west edge of Milwaukee County, down as far south as the zoo. That’s quite a journey for an FM signal!

On Saturdays, the offerings on the Milwaukee radio dial are abysmal. Wisconsin Public Radio goes from good to claptrap, back to good to claptrap again, so once Calling All Pets, Dr. Zorba, Car Talk and Whadya Know? are over, WPR reverts to awful, so I can’t stand to leave that on. (Incidentally, Dr. Zorba’s announcer is a bonehead, so I only listen to the good doctor.) Except for sports broadcasts, AM offerings are wonderful if you happen to be a gardener, have an investment portfolio bigger than a breadbox, if you’re a PC bit chaser or you’re planning on remodeling or building a house. For the rest of us? YAWN.

I was so pleased to find that the new radio that I put into the kitchen could pick up WLOX, so that became the standard Saturday radio station, when they usually pick a year and play everything that made the charts that year. It’s grand!

Until today - WOLX has shifted to all Christmas music, all the time.

C’mon, Guys, it ain’t even Thanksgiving yet.

PS - Wisconsin Public Radio has two networks, one for classical music and one for yak. We have at least three public radio stations in the market that carry the yak network, but none of them carry the classical music network. After WFMR went away, you would think the management of one of those stations would see a nitch that needed to be filled, but no, they insist on competing with the other public stations with the very same yak network. It’s a perfect example of how government has no concept of running a successful business. One of the public stations offers the classical network on their digital broadcast, like anyone actually owns a high definition digital radio.

Approximate Location of the Mason-Dixon Line. Right-click to view the entire map.

The line was set from a point 15 miles south of Philadelphia and headed 243 miles west to a point that is between Pennsylvania and modern West Virginia. Every mile along the line, the Mason and Dixon crew placed large, cube-shaped stones with a P engraved on one side and an M on the other. Every fifth stone, in the shape of an obelisk, spelled out the names of the colonies and also bore the coats of arms. 241 years later, many of the stones are missing, but many are still there.

Mason and Dixon faced uncountable obstacles, marshes, mountains, rivers, weather and hostile natives, not to mention hostile colonists, but laid out the line in a four year project. It remains a monumental feat.

Two modern day surveyors, Todd Babcock and Dilwyn Knott, began to document the line in 1992. Armed with modern surveying tools and a GPS (Global Positioning System) receiver, they went looking for the stones laid by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon. Some were surrounded by iron fences, some had sunken into the earth, some were stolen or otherwise missing, most were badly deteriorated and some were damaged as a result of target practice. Each stone weighed between 300 and 500 pounds, so lifting one and taking it away was no small feat. (Today, many of the extant markers are on private property, so if you want to see any of the markers, you might want to avoid getting a butt full of buckshot and look for the ones that have public access. There is a link at the end of this post.) They actually found one that was long ago reported missing - by using their calculations of where the stone should be, they went digging in a plowed field and located it well below grade.

While the effort of Mason and Dixon was a monumental feat, Babcock and Knott’s accomplishment of finding the markers is no small feat, either. They seem a little embarrassed that their project of locating and documenting the line took far longer than the original surveying took. “It’s a hobby for us, they got paid,” one of them said to the National Geographic.

The Mason-Dixon Line is the traditional dividing line between slave and free states, the demarcation of southern and northern states, and the punchline of an old joke that calls it the boundary between “Y’all” and “Youse guys.” It is still a most interesting piece of American Colonial history.

There is an excellent website about the line and their project out there, it is a little hard to find unless you follow this link: Mason Dixon Arrive Magazine. You’ll find information about Babcock and Knott and photos of the markers.

In Door County, a battle has been raging over a bridge for about a fifteen years. Back in 2002, the State of Wisconsin DOT, working with the City of Sturgeon Bay, agreed to build a new bridge across Sturgeon Bay and renovate the old Michigan Street Bridge, a beautiful example of a multi-span, through truss and a rare Scherzer-type rolling lift bascule bridge. A citizens group, Citizens for our Bridge, Inc., has been working tirelessly to save the structure, including hosting an annual four-day music festival to raise funds to save the bridge. (See Steel Bridge Songfest for more information on the 2009 festival.)  The new bridge has been built, it is set to open any day now, and the citizens of Sturgeon Bay are excited in anticipation of their iconic steel bridge being renovated.

Until last week, that is. Chairman of the Door County Board, Leo Zipperer, has asked Governor Jim Doyle to consider removing the historic Michigan Street Bridge in Sturgeon Bay. He wrote a letter to the governor, suggesting that the state has higher priorities than renovating the 70-year-old bridge. In an interview with WBAY television news (the ABC affiliate in Green Bay) Zipperer said he doesn’t want to see the bridge totally removed, just the troublesome bascule span.

Sturgeon Bay Alderman Jim Michaud thinks it’s ridiculous to tear down the bridge. In in the same report from WBAY Michaud said, “That’s the busiest street and the busiest thoroughfare in Door County.” While the new Oregon Street Bridge, due to open any day now, will relieve a great deal of traffic from the historical bridge, restoration will keep two extra traffic lanes open across the bay. “You can’t spend it in a better place,” Michaud said.

“To replace it, we now know takes $33 million. To repair it is a $14 million project, so it’s money well spent,” Michaud said.

Michigan Street Bridge, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin.
The bridge was built in 1930 and renovated in 1979. It has 12
through truss approach spans and the only overhead-truss, Scherzer-type,
double-leaf, rolling-lift bascule bridge in the state of Wisconsin.

Photo by David Yates, August 2008 Image © and Courtesy of Historic Bridges of the United States

No one seems to have estimated what it would cost to remove the bridge. As my friend, Professor Kevin Patrick from Indiana University of Pennsylvania says, “Bridges are expensive to put up, expensive to maintain, and expensive to tear down.” It’s already been decided to renovate the bridge, according to officials of the Wisconsin DOT. Those plans were announced on March 7, 2002 but since Jim Doyle has become governor, we’ve learned that you can’t really count on anything from Madison anymore. If the Governor is going to seriously consider overruling the Department of Transportation decision, then the cost of removing the bridge vs. the incremental cost of renovating the bridge should be considered. The better choice? Leave everything in place and renovate the beautiful old bridge.

Leo Zipperer stated that the money could be better spent due to the current economy. The American economy has always had ups and downs, but the effects of the economy are short term, while removal of the bridge is permanent. After it’s gone, it will be missed and when it’s decided that two extra traffic lanes across the bay are needed, as Jim Michaud said, it will cost $33 million to replace the bridge. That’s in 2008 dollars, who knows what it would cost to build a new bridge 10 years from now?

The concept of keeping the truss spans but removing the bascule span is just a dumb idea. That would be about as useful as making a pair of jean cut-offs by keeping the legs and throwing away the shorts.

I agree with Michaud, the renovation is money well spent to keep the extra traffic lanes open but that is just the added benefit of preserving a living piece of history, an icon of Sturgeon Bay, Door County and the State of Wisconsin.

The draw span of the 1,420 foot Michigan Street Bridge is
the only example of an overhead-truss, Scherzer-type, double-leaf,
rolling-lift bascule in the State of Wisconsin. Overhead truss
construction was utilized when a movable span was subject
to great stresses. Sturgeon Bay is like a wind tunnel and
the bridge was required to carry heavy vehicles, either force is a
great stress by itself. In addition, the span needs to offer a
clear 140 foot channel opening for ship passage. It was the
largest movable bridge in Wisconsin when it was built.

Both photos by David Yates, August 2008
Image © and Courtesy of Historic Bridges of the United States
and may not be reproduced without the permission.

See the Bridge Hunter website for more information about the Michigan Street Bridge and over 26,000 other historic bridges in the United States.

He gave a speech today in Berlin. He delivered it in English.

Bitte?

State Senator Alberta Darling has served in the Senate since 1992 and has been re-elected three times. (She won a seat in the Assembly in a special election in March, 1990, and won the seat the regular Election that Fall.) Her Senate seat comes up again this Fall, and her seat has been targeted by the Democrats, a risky proposition in a very conservative district. Senator Darling is a cancer survivor, she exercises regularly and promotes fitness.

Her opponent, Sheldon Wasserman, started a rather smarmy campaign a few weeks ago, a whispering campaign claiming that Senator Darling was ill and too sickly to serve the rigors of the state Senate.

Besides being despicable, the whispering campaign is just untrue.

Yesterday, at the US Bank Championship, several celebrity events were held prior to the start of the golf tournament today. Amongst other events was a golf ball driving contest.

Sheldon Wasserman drove the ball 135 yards.

Alberta Darling drove the ball 153 yards.

Oops.

Forty years ago, The Old Man, The Rocket Scientist, a favorite uncle and a favorite cousin, and Yours Truly, of course, went into the Quetico on a fishing expedition. Part of it was to fish for, well, fish but part of it was to go fishing for some of the memories of The Old Man.

Today, the only way you can go into the area is via canoe - I suppose you could swim but the water is awfully cold. When we went in forty years ago, you could go in by boat and you could use small outboard motors. The rule was that you had to pack out whatever you packed in, and that meant canned food and supplies. That is no longer true - well that pack in/pack out rule is still there and strictly enforced, but we could have canned foods. You can’t, as cans were banned a long time ago. So were boats, and so were outboard motors, but that ban was not in effect in 1968.

The five of us drove the hours and hours it took to get to Ely, Minnesota, one of the reportedly six places in the United States named “Ely.” (We’ve been to three of ‘em. And you have to want to go to Ely, Anyplace, because none of them are on the way to anywhere regular travelers go to.) With the help of the outfitter, a man named Bob Cary that seemed to have some sort of connection to The Old Man, we prepared to journey into the wilderness. We packed our stuff into two aluminum boats, fired up the old 5 horse Evinrudes and set out for adventure. Our target was called Basswood Lake. (As James Thurber used to say, “You could look it up.”) For some reason, Bob Cary was on his way to the ranger station that day and was sort-of traveling with us, but not really.

Earlier in the 20th Century, the waters of far northern Minnesota were already a haven for fishermen and becoming a battleground between the forces that would just as soon man be wiped from the face of the earth so wilderness could go back to wilderness and those who think every tree should be cut down and made into lumber. It’s taken the conservationists decades to do it but the wilderness area is wilderness and difficult to get into. A treaty was signed between Canada and the United States, setting aside the 1.1 million acres of preserve in Minnesota and 4,750 square kilometers on the Canadian side. (That’s about 1,834 square miles, or about 1.2 million acres.)

Several resorts popped up around the huge Basswood Lake and anglers came from all over to sample the cold, clear waters that were loaded with game fish of many different species. The roads in the area were all closed in order to discourage logging, so the only way in and out for the resorts was by boating and portaging or by float plane.

Smallmouth bass, fingerlings from Wisconsin, were stocked in Basswood lake about that time. My great-uncle, Dwight Newberry, was The Old Man’s mother’s brother. He owned one of those resorts on Basswood Lake. It was a place of legend, and both The Old Man and his Old Man used to travel to Dwight’s resort. Some members of the family have photos of them holding up stringers full of huge fish.

In 1948, the federal government issued a ban on private property and prohibited private residents. They wanted everyone out by 1974. The act condemned all the private property, provided funds to purchase the lands and cleared out all the resort owners, squatters and residents. All the structures were burned to the ground and allowed to revert to nature. (There is a legend that someone, who lived on a houseboat, managed to evade the eviction order for many, many years.) Dwight sold his land to the Feds and bought a farm in Kosciusko County, Indiana, not that far from the family homestead in Blackford County.

For our trip, we headed for Basswood Lake, because even twenty-five years later, The Old Man was pretty sure he could find his favorite old fishing holes on the Canadian side of Basswood Lake.

In 1967, there had been a dam failure that lowered one of the approach lakes. It was a significant drop between the lakes, probably three feet but it was only about 10 yards, over rocks. The outfitters in Ely had pooled resources and built a mechanical portage between the two lakes. It was a center track from a boat trailer, with rollers, and a hand-cranked winch. You would approach the portage and pull your boat or canoe up on to the track. The idea was to hook on the winch, pull your rig up the 12″ or so to the top of the portage, then reverse the winch and lower your rig the four feet to the lower lake. Simple, and it didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure it out, especially if your read the sign the outfitters had placed there.

In line, just ahead of us, were three guys who never earned their Tenderfoot badge in Scouts. At the peak of the portage, instead of using the winch to lower their canoe into the lower lake, they decided to climb in and ride the rollers down like a flume ride at Great America. It looked like as dumb an idea as you think it was.

The ride was a great deal of fun for them, at least, for the three of four seconds it took for the canoe to hit the water. It floated about five feet from the portage before it rolled over and capsized, sending a week’s worth of provisions, fishing gear, camping equipment and some very expensive camera equipment right to the bottom of the lake.

After we finished portaging our two rigs, at least a half an hour later, one of them was still diving in that ice cold water, trying to recover their gear. We continued north and I have no idea whatever happened to them.

Two lakes later, we portaged over the longest land mass that separated us from the approach to Basswood Lake. A motorized toll portage was operated there, I have no idea if it was operated by the US Park Service or if it was private. It was comprised of a circa WWII jeep and a boat trailer that was either floated up on a raft or driven up over the ice. For a few bucks, a guy would load your boat or canoe on the trailer and haul it across the portage, then put everything back into the water. During the portage, Bob Cary asked the man if the fishing was any good.

“Yup.”

“Where they getting ‘em?”

“Water.”

“What are they getting ‘em on?”

“Hooks.”

“What are they using for bait?”

“Worms.”

There was a US ranger station at the north end of the portage, where they made sure we had valid Minnesota fishing licenses, even though we had no intention of wetting a line on the US side of the lake. “The boundary isn’t a dotted line floating on the top of the lake like it shows on the map,” The Old Man pointed out. “How the hell would we know if we’re fishing in Minnesota or not?” He chuckled and asked, “How will you know if we’re fishing on the Minnesota side?”

The ranger grinned and said, “We’ll know. Besides, we’ll check the passports of the fish you catch.”

When we were back underway, we didn’t go far - right across the channel to the Ontario ranger station, where we declared our belongings and intentions. We purchased official camping permits and fishing licenses and with that, we were off for a place known as Cigar Island. It is a long, narrow island that resembles a, well, with apologies to Sigmund Freud, sometimes and island shaped like a cigar is just an island shaped like a cigar.

The Old Man had told us how beautiful it is at night, and during a storm. He was right, the first night was incredible, not a cloud in the sky and one of the few times in my life that I’ve been able to see The Milky Way. The call of the loon echoes forever because with all the rock and water, there is little to stop it. Contrary to urban myth, a duck quack also echoes.

A thunderstorm is something to behold up there, that’s what The Old Man also told us. As if on cue one night, a storm came through. The lightning is intensely bright, but better is the thunder. With nothing there but water and rock, the thunder just rolls, and rolls, and rolls. It rolls toward you, rolls over you, and it goes on forever until it just gets too far away to be heard anymore.

The fishing was unbelievable, the rocks were unbelievable, the water was unbelievable and the lessons of wildlife, taught by The Old Man, were unbelievable.

Our camp was watched closely by two seagulls that we named Harvey and Griselda. There was a mesh pen that someone had built near the beach, where we were able to keep fish alive in the lake. Harvey and Griselda kept trying to get into the pen, without success, but they did always get to clean up after our fish cleaning chores.

Our camp was also closely watched by a crow that sat in the top of a tall tree. He cawed softly, every 15 seconds. You could set your watch by him. The Old Man had studied crow society, and he informed us that the crow was the sentry. As we finished a meal and began to clean up, the caws speeded up to about 10 seconds and got louder as we came closer to leaving. As we climbed into our boats, before we even shoved off, the sentry was on his way to the mainland, flying as fast as he could. Before we started the engines, he was back with all his friends, swooping down on the camp to scarf up whatever we had left behind.

I’ll spare you the fish stories, but I will tell you that we packed out a lot of the provisions we packed in. Fresh walleye is good eatin’. The water is so clear that we saw a fishing rod and reel in about 20 feet of water. We were able to hook it and bring it up. While it wasn’t a great find (it was a cheap Zebco set) the fact that we could even see it at that depth was incredible.

And The Old Man was right - even after more than twenty-five years and with no landmarks to follow, we found Dwight’s old resort. Well, we found the foundation of it, anyway. Long ago burned to the ground, all that remained was stone, concrete, blocks and mortar. The site had pretty well returned to nature, and without The Old Man, we never would have found the site.

It was a great week in the Quetico, we caught lots of fish. We ate lots of fish. We saw lots of nature, got to know Harvey and Griselda, and learned more about crows in a few days than most people learn in a lifetime. We also learned a lot from The Old Man, and about The Old Man.

Going into it, we were all pretty sure it was a trip of a lifetime and for most people, it would be. The next year, The Old Man would undergo a new type of surgery, called open heart. The Rocket Scientist would soon be off to Korea in the employ of his Uncle Sam. Your’s Truly would enter college and The Quetico would become a fond memory of a place we went but darn, wouldn’t it be nice to go back someday?

So we did go back, but that’s a story for another day. For now, it’s fun to bask in the memory of a grand trip for five guys all those forty years ago. It was truly a trip of a lifetime and although it’s one that can never be repeated, it’s one that will never be forgotten.

I did shoot the CRANDIC railroad bridge last Summer, although it did not get added to the Bridge Hunter site until a few days ago. Rail bridges are also of interest but difficult to document.

Many of the photos were taken from a location that I probably shouldn’t have been with my camera…

…but now, it’s a moot point and at least the bridge is partially documented.

It was built in 1903 but washed away in 2008.

The bridge did still carry a lot of daily traffic and actually, much road and rail traffic in Iowa is at a standstill right now because of the floods.

You can see more of the Linn County Bridges at the Bridge Hunter Linn County, IA website. Here’s hoping they’re all okay when the water goes back down.

The First Avenue Bridge carries Business US 151 and
The Lincoln Highway across Mays Island and the Cedar
River. It was completely under water this week.

The Second Avenue Bridge also crosses May Island. This span
crosses to the island from downtown. That’s the Veterans’ Memorial,
at least, the way it looked before the flood.

This span of the Second Avenue Bridge crosses from Mays
Island to the Southwest Quadrant of Cedar Rapids.

The Third Avenue Bridge also crosses to Mays Island. This span
comes from Mays Island to Downtown, from the Linn County
Courthouse. There is a parking lot below the deck of this bridge.

This span carries Third Avenue from the Southwest Quadarnt
of Cedar Rapids to the Courthouse on Mays Island.

The Twelfth Avenue Bridge and…

…Sixteenth Avenue Bridge are completely inundated by the
Cedar River this week.

This photo of Cedar Rapids looks northeast from the Southwest
Quadrant of the city. That’s I-380, curving to cross the river, parallel
to the First Avenue Bridge. In the top center of the photo is the shadow
of the Veteran’s Memorial. You can just see the tops of the
First Avenue and Second Avenue Bridge railings. Photo by Steve Pope.

2nd Avenue in downtown Cedar Rapids, looking northeast from the end
of the bridge that is shown above. Over 400 blocks were inundated. One water
pumping station is currently supplying water to the entire city, and it is
also in danger of being closed due to flooding. The river crested Friday at
32 feet, smashing the record of 20 feet, set in 1929. Photo by Jeff Roberson.

The Kickapoo River is completely over its banks. I-94 was closed for some time because the Crayfish River was within inches of the roadway. A berm gave way near Wisconsin Dells and Lake Delton is completely drained - seriously impacting the tourist industry there. A dam is threatened in Mukwanago, forcing the closing of a state highway. Incredible flood damage is being cleaned up all over Milwaukee County.

Photos by Mark Parmalee

And where was the leader of the emergency government yesterday, the Governor of Wisconsin, Diamond Jim Doyle?

Playing golf at his campaign fundraiser.

Link: Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, although, the story was broken by Mark Belling on his WISN Radio program this afternoon.

The new station has been dubbed an “Intermodal Station” which means that they also crammed the bus terminal in with the trains. “Intermodal Station” is one of those new, feel-good terms, like “vertical transport engineer” or “sanitation technician” which are still just elevator operators and garbage collectors.

The designers and operators of the Internodal Station have 3,487 square feet of space reserved for “retail space.”

Who actually uses the Intermodal Station? It’s people who can’t wait to get to it so they can get out of it. Someone is either dropped off in front to get on a train or a bus or, if they arrive on a train or a bus, they can’t wait to get out front and catch their ride or a cab - their goal is to get in and get out as quickly as possible.

What does someone between the hours of 6:00 and 10:00 AM want in an Intermodal Station, besides to catch the Hiawatha to Chicago? A cup of coffee. A donut or two. Maybe an Egg McHockeypuck. Just hurry it up, give me my coffee and a donut, so I can get on the train already.

What does someone between 10:00 AM and 7:00 PM want in an Intermodal Station, besides to catch the Hiawatha to Chicago or maybe catch a bus? A sandwich. A can of soda. A bag of chips. Let me grab something and get on the train, and I’ll have a nice, leisurely lunch on the 90 minute ride to Union Station in Chicago.

Speaking of Union Station in Chicago, what does one pass on the way to the Hiawatha? A newsstand that is combined with a convenience store and a McDonalds. If one walks a little out of their way, they can find a coffee place, a donut place, an ice cream place, a shoe shine rack and, surprise surprise, a couple more newsstands combined with convenience stores.

All just exactly what a traveler wants.

But not Mayor Tom Barrett and Alderman Bob Bauman. Nope. They want a fancy, sit down restaurant to make the beautiful new Intermodal Station a destination. A train station or a bus station has never been a destination and never will be a destination. Are these two guys nuts?

“You don’t spend $15.8 million to build an iconic structure and have a Dunkin’ Donuts as your primary food service,” Bauman said. “This should be a destination restaurant location.”

Mayor Tom Barrett agreed, saying, “C’mon, we can do better than this. . . . This is our building of first impressions for people who get off the train. We don’t want our first impression to be, ‘Is this all there is?’ ”

An “iconic structure?” It’s a train station, for crying out loud. This is not one of the Union Stations in Kansas City or Cincinnati, where the beautiful old buildings have been restored to better than former glory and house lots of destination places like museums and special events. Milwaukee blew that opportunity 40 years ago when the Northwestern station came down.

As beautiful, shiny and new as this building is today, let’s face it. Buses are dirty. Trains are dirty. Exhaust is dirty. Winter salt and dirt coming off the 6th street bridge is dirty. This shiny, white building will become just another downtown building in 10 years.

Forget the sit-down restaurant, anyone dumb enough to try to operate one in the Intermodal Station will go broke with no customers. Why? If I’m going to a nice restaurant for dinner, I’m not going to the airport or the train station or the bus station. I go to the Intermodal Station for one reason - to get on or off the Hiawatha. Just let me get my donut, my coffee or an egg-filled hockey puck and let me get on the train.

A sit down restaurant in a train station? That’s about the dumbest idea to come out of Milwaukee since Kilbourn and Juneau lined their streets up on different grids.

Forget the destination restaurant, Tom & Bob. A place for coffee, donuts and maybe a bagel are all we need.

The little trolley, which resembles a San Francisco cable car, well, sort of anyway, was kind of a generic model of a public transportation vehicle that used to be popular in the United States. Even though Mr. Rogers’ little trolley seemed to have a mind of its own, it was tied to its tracks and traveled only between the two destinations - a fact that seems to have been forgotten. After all, a trolley can only go where its tracks go, a severe limitation at best.

While trolleys were a major component of public transportation at one time, trolleys are virtually extinct in the United States today. They fell out of favor with the rise of automobiles and buses, because trolley tracks run down the middle of traffic lanes in major thoroughfares. Trolley tracks still exist in many cities, long since paved over.The last operating trolley in the United States is in New Orleans. If you’ve ever driven in New Orleans and been stuck in the traffic that piles up behind the trolley, you instantly know why the rest of them are all gone.

Another type of trolley, often known as an interurban railroad, has also pretty much disappeared from American life. In Milwaukee, interurban lines once ran north to Sheboygan, west to Waukesha and Oconomowoc, southwest to East Troy and the North Shore ran to Chicago. Most of them failed in the 1940’s because no one was riding them. The North Shore, the interurban line that ran to Chicago, lasted into 1963 but it, too, succumbed to low ridership. When the Edens expressway opened in 1951, the first nail was in the coffin, and when the Northwest Expressway, now known as the Kennedy opened, the line hemorrhaged riders until there was just no one left to ride the rails.

Even though the interurbans and trolleys all failed, for some reason, the movers and shakers who grew up with Mister Rogers seem to think the Neighborhood Trolley is a good idea. They cannot believe a trolley is just a cute anachronism. Sadly for trolley fans, their day is past. Trolleys are useless, fixed to an inflexible route and unable to change once built. Regardless of the romance of building a trolley, the ignored fact is that far more people will not ride it than will ride it. Despite the millions of dollars that such a boondoggle would cost to build, the millions of dollars that it will require to subsidize the operating expenses, and the much more attractive alternatives offered by rubber tires, the fans of the trolley insist on installing one in every major city.

Well, why not? The real trolley will be just like Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood trolley. Both will have the very same destination. The only difference is that the real trolley will carry millions upon millions upon millions of taxpayer dollars to the very same place as Mister Roger’s trolley:

The Neighborhood of Make Believe.