Will Bachman is the Co-Founder of Umbrex, a collection of independent consultants who are mainly McKinsey, Bain, or BCG alumni. I occasionally work on projects through Umbrex (I am a McKinsey alum).

Will was kind enough to consider doing one of his weekly podcasts on Start Reading Now, and he gave me over a half-hour to talk about my favorite topic. 

If you've never heard me talk about it at length, here's your chance - right? (There's a bit of a joke there, which you'll have to listen to the podcast to discover!)

You can listen here, or click on the file below.

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This last Friday you may have seen a story on KARE11 or KSTP about how a Metro Transit Light Rail Transit (LRT) driver killed Nicholas Westlake in July 2017 when the train's driver blew through a clear stop signal and broadsided Westlake's car.  Representative Linda Runbeck of Circle Pines is now introducing a bill in the Minnesota House that would allow criminal charges to be brought against LRT drivers in such situations, as state law currently disallows this.(!) I recommend you  watch the stories to get the full details.

But the detail I want to talk about today is the fact that the 2017 fatality is just one part of a deeply troubling trend at the Met Council's Metro Transit division. Specifically, according to my analysis of data from the National Transportation Database, Metro Transit's Light Rail Transit (LRT) system is the least safe system of any of its self-selected peer transit systems. 

For instance, as the attached charts show, Metro Transit's multi-billion dollar light rail (LRT) system has by far the overall worst safety record of any of its (self-selected) peer systems. 

Drill down into the NTD data, and since the launch of the system's second LRT service (the Green Line) in 2014, Metro Transit LRT has had the most collisions, the most safety events, and the most injuries per million train miles of any of its peer transit systems across the country. The only one out of four safety factors in which Metro Transit LRT is not in last place, is fatalities per million train miles - with a less than stellar 7th place finish out of 10 systems. 

In fact, Metro Transit's relative performance is so bad, it is just 3 points shy of the worst possible sum of rankings for safety performance, scoring 37 of 40 points.  By comparison, Denver's LRT system twice finishes in 1st place, and twice in 2nd place for a laudable overall score of 6 out of 40.*

A final part to this story is that earlier this month, Governor Tim Walz installed a new chairwoman atop the Met Council, Nora Slawik. In a move that appears to have puzzled the editors of the Star Tribune, Slawik then quickly ousted the long-time leader of Metro Transit, Brian Lamb.  On January 24th the Star Tribune  wrote: 

His "track record makes the opaque nature of Lamb’s exit puzzling to several people directly involved in Twin Cities transit who spoke to an editorial writer. While each offered different perspectives on Lamb being replaced, all agreed that his departure comes at a critical time for Metro Transit..."

But given Metro Transit's safety record, perhaps it IS in fact a good time for new leadership?

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*I rank each city compared to its peer, by category, and assign it the number of points that correspond to its rank - e.g. an 8th place finish earns a city 8 points. A lower score is better.  ​The list of peer cities was defined by the Met Council in 2018, as the agency sought to allay citizens' fears regarding the then proposed operation of the Green Line extension in a shared rail corridor. 

On Sunday, November 11th I was invited to join Roshini Rajkumar's 5th Annual Philanthropy Roundtable on WCCO Radio to talk about Start Reading Now. I was joined by Krsitine Fortman of the Minneapolis Heart Institute, and Steve Cramer of The Minneapolis Downtown Council. 

The segment is about 40 minutes long, so put it on in the background and learn about these three non profits, and several others mentioned by callers.

Thank You, Roshini!

Download here.

I was on the radio with Justice and Drew on behalf of the Center of the American Experiment, talking about the Minneapolis 2040 plan. The plan seeks to drive wholesale changes in the housing stock of the city, in pursuit of "reducing disparities" and addressing climate change. 

But a funny thing happened on the way to the socialist party - citizen activists from both North Minneapolis and Southwest Minneapolis rose up in collective opposition to the plan. Now, any plan that can bring together the poorest and wealthiest parts the city together in opposition must have a few problems with it. 

Perhaps my favorite "highlight" of the plan is the following statement: 

"In Minneapolis, 9 out of 10 trips are taken in personal automobiles, accounting for approximately 24 percent of the the annual greenhouse gas emissions in the city. Achieving the City's goal of an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 requires reducing the number of daily car trips by 37%." 

The hubris of this "city planning" approach is startling. Thirty-two years ago, the internet did not exist, the Soviet Union did, and South Korea was run by what amounted to a form of military regime. Trying to dial in society to bring about a 37% reduction in the number of car trips, 32 years from now, is absurd. 

​My segment starts at 20:00.

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One of my other community passions is around reading, and ensuring kids have plenty of books to read.  To further that mission, I co-founded the non-profit Start Reading Now. Every year in Minneapolis we fund $50 vouchers for kids to buy 10 new books each at the start of the summer, in order to help address "summer slide" and the achievement gap. In 2018 we are serving 5,500 kids in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade.

This year we honored to be part of the Minneapolis Public Schools' kickoff event for their summer reading initiative, which they held at our book fair at Hmong International Academy in north Minneapolis. 

Nate Gotlieb of the Southwest Journal wrote a great, thorough article about what we do, and even snapped the nearby photo to capture much of the day's story...kids, books, backpacks, volunteers (that's Hannah from Atomic Data in the grey t-shirt), Clifford, etc. 

Thank you, Nate!

The guys at KTLK, Justice and Drew, were once again kind enough to let me talk about the non-profit that I chair, Start Reading Now. We will serve 5,500 kids this year, at the 30 highest poverty elementary schools in Minneapolis Public Schools.

​In addition to the details on the program, you'll discover just what sort of reader I was in 6th grade...My segment starts at 19:15.