Photo by John Hoff
I spent hours today biking along the planned protest march routes, learning the terrain. While heading toward downtown St. Paul, I biked through Frogtown and noticed...
...the streets were full of litter. It was even worse than usual, and usually it's pretty bad. And folks might think, "Well, who cares about Frogtown, anyway? The delegates are all downtown."
Not really. If you want to drive to Mall of America--and a lot of the delegates do, including one person I met who was probably from the Wyoming delegation--a very logical route to take is University Avenue toward the on-ramp for I-35.
At that point, you will run into the bridge construction and get lost and confused, but I'll get to that in my next post. In any case: University Avenue is a main traffic artery, which is one of the reasons it is becoming the future light rail route. And in the area of Frogtown and Midtown, University way looks AWFUL.
I mean, I understand we can't ask the downtrodden and crack-addicted to get off the street during RNC 2008. This isn't China, after all, and let the Republicans see the poor and addicted, I say, while they whiz right past in a rented SUV. But, good grief, didn't anybody in the St. Paul government have the foresight to say: right before the convention, lets send crews up and down University Avenue to pick up the litter so it looks a little better.
No. Apparently not.
I saw one guy out on the sidewalk painting the awning of his shop.
Good man, I thought.
I may not like the Republicans a whole lot, but I sure hate to see my city looking awful in front of them. And, yes, I pick up my fair share of plastic bottles, toss 'em in my (green) bike basket, and recycle 'em when I get back to campus. Which is more than so many Republicans do. Drill through a polar bear, why don't ya?
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