Red Line (Cedar Avenue BRT)

[FISHMANPET]

Yeah, that number's not passing the sniff test. Could it be double counting trips that end there?

How many buses stop at Coffman Union at the U? That's pretty busy.

[HuskyGrad]

I went down to the Cedar Grove stop last Friday, since I was bored enough to check on the progress of the outlet mall..

How's the pedestrian access to the new outlet mall?

[mulad]

Looks like I have to do more decoding of the schedule data -- I was just looking for "Weekday" routes, but it looks like the GTFS feed data includes both the current schedule and at least one future version that needs to be filtered out. I'll get some better numbers later.

I didn't go onto the mall property, but it seemed closer to the station than I expected -- the shortest route is to go on the roadway that bisects the property (called Paragon Parkway on some plans -- Google Maps shows it as Eagan Outlets Parkway). I'm not sure if there will be good sidewalks there or not, though. There aren't obvious pedestrian crossings on Nicols Road, except for one pair of curb cuts on the south side of the intersection with Cedar Grove Parkway. There's a new sidepath (asphalt, presumably bike+ped) on the south side of Cedar Grove Parkway, filling in a gap which had existed from Rahn Road westward.

The apartments coming off of Cedar Grove Parkway (Google calls them Cedar Grove Trail and Cedar Grove Lane) are fairly new.

There's a narrow, fragmented sidewalk on the north side of Cedar Grove Parkway extending west from Rahn Road a bit, ending at a stairwell. I'm not sure if they'll rebuild that in a better way -- there's little excuse for missing sidewalks in an area with retail, a decent transit station, and some half-decent density. They still need to work on getting better grid-like connectivity in the neighborhood, though -- if not with actual roads, then at least with more bike/ped paths.

[acs]

http://www.startribune.com/local/south/267427891.html

Should surprise nobody here that the red line isn't going to meet its first year ridership goals. 839 average weekday ridership vs the projected 976.

[mattaudio]

Did automobile traffic reach its induced demand goals? I assume they wanted single occupancy automobile use to rise, since they significantly expanded capacity and LOS along the corridor?

[exiled_antipodean]

I count about 70 trips each weekday in each direction, which makes for about 5-6 people on each of the 140 trips. The mind boggles at the waste that is going on here.

[HiawathaGuy]

I count about 70 trips each weekday in each direction, which makes for about 5-6 people on each of the 140 trips. The mind boggles at the waste that is going on here.

Anecdotally, one could say the same about Northstar. But both are building blocks for our expanding transit system. They may not make sense at first, but I do believe they are both worthwhile in the long haul.

[mattaudio]

Really though? The problem with both is that the project actually made the adjacent station nodes less appealing for walkable development. Whether it was 8-laning Cedar Ave with double left turn lanes or building Northstar stations in corn fields rather than existing towns, these two projects epitomize transit failure.

[nate]

The opportunity cost of this line --and to a somewhat lesser extent Northstar -- is nearly rage-inducing. The useful things that could have been funded for the ~$400 MM cost of those two projects....

[acs]

So where do we go from here on the Red Line and Northstar? Keep things like they are, never expanding Northstar to St. Cloud or adding inline stations to Cedar? Do we say "screw it" and shut them down? Or do we double down and invest more to remedy the shortcoming? The reputation of commuter rail in the region is sorely tarnished. At least highway BRT has the opportunity to redeem itself with the orange line.

[talindsay]

Or do we double down and invest more to remedy the shortcoming?

I think that comes down to a decision about whether or not the shortcomings are fatal flaws or merely implementation issues. I suggest that the Red Line is fatally flawed in that only one end is a trip generator, and that trip generator is only a secondary trip generator when the rest of the line is bedroom communities. The only thing I can imagine dramatically increasing the Red Line's ridership is if they actually provided a one-seat ride to downtown; but of course that would add so much time to the trip that they'd have to either cut frequency or substantially increase the number of buses. The big problem here is that they're trying to provide symmetrical transit at high frequency all day in a place where the built environment is actively hostile to this type of service - low-amenity bedroom communities are going to have extremely peaky use, and nobody who boards the line south of the River intends to get off at another destination south of the River.

[bubzki2]

The opportunity cost of this line --and to a somewhat lesser extent Northstar -- is nearly rage-inducing. The useful things that could have been funded for the ~$400 MM cost of those two projects....

Yes, but there's also an opportunity cost associated with not getting Northstar to St. Cloud. The half-way implementation was the worst possible outcome for that line. As for the Red Line, well, they wasted a perfectly good color.

[twincitizen]

Red Line really should be viewed as an extension of the Blue Line rather than a wholly separate thing. Correcting the Cedar Grove delay issue and speeding up operations in the MOA Transit Center will make that more realistic. Both of those things are funded and actually happening too, so that's good. Ridership will hopefully increase accordingly. I disagree that it should provide a one-seat ride to downtown. Red Line connects walk-up riders to other Red Line stations that provide express service, while simultaneously connecting to the all-day frequent service of the Blue Line. If there was "one thing to dramatically increase the Red Line's ridership", it would be a lack of free parking in and around MOA. Too bad the state just gave MOA a huge tax break on their expansion to specifically pay for infrastructure such as parking. Oops. I guess the next best thing would be a large increase in jobs and residential density along the Red Line itself, but that's gonna take a generation.

Note: I'm not actually defending the amount of capital spent on building the Red Line. The ridership (present or projected) simply doesn't justify that expenditure, and yes the super-stroadification made the area even less walkable. Oh yeah, and I totally agree on the name...this thing should have been purple or yellow at best. For the next 20 years at least though...it's not hurting anyone, sadly.

Northstar on the other hand is just a giant vacuum sucking dollars away from CTIB's operations budget. It costs way, way too much to run. Extending it to St. Cloud isn't going to make that better. If extending Northstar to St. Cloud made financial sense, people would be clamoring for it. Outside of hardcore transit enthusiasts and St. Cloud area boosters, they're not. Don't expect it to happen anytime soon.

[exiled_antipodean]

I count about 70 trips each weekday in each direction, which makes for about 5-6 people on each of the 140 trips. The mind boggles at the waste that is going on here.

Anecdotally, one could say the same about Northstar. But both are building blocks for our expanding transit system. They may not make sense at first, but I do believe they are both worthwhile in the long haul.

It would be interesting to compare the per-ride subsidy. Northstar wasn't crazy, as commuter rail that hits small towns (some of them with a walkable grid system) works in other cities. But the implementation: so flawed with stations in the middle of nowhere.

Ironically the idea of the Red Line was crazier, but I actually think it could be re-jigged to make it more useful. More chance of adding useful density around Red Line stations than Northstar stations, but in both cases it'll be a long haul.

[mulad]

One issue is that they're still stuck with duplicative services since there aren't quite enough stations on the route. Good ridership requires a decent mix of speed, frequency, hours of service, and stops that provide access to the right places that have people and destinations those people want to get to. Adding a Palomino Drive stop would probably help a lot on that front, and it would be nice if they set up a shuttle service or connecting route from there to the Minnesota Zoo (an amusing idea I had was to link that stop to the zoo's monorail, but I assume that's been dismantled at this point, and the hardware was just too old anyway).

The area is in desperate need of better bike/ped connectivity. They need more sidewalks, paths, and highway crossings.

[Mdcastle]

If Riverview gets built as LRT that would be a better use of the color red, you'd have an iron triangle between the downtowns and the airport/mall in the primary colors. Cedar could be purple or blue dashes. I do think they should either give up on it or extend it to downtown. A bus stop isn't going to attract much high density development so people are mainly going to drive to stations, it's a lot to ask people to switch modes twice on the way to downtown.

[Minneapolisite]

Some transportation geeks just care more about the challenge of turning horrible transit routes into better (not good) transit routes rather than improving routes that make sense and have OK ridership into great routes with even higher ridership. That or because it's a "fill-in-the-blank-with-a-primary-color Line". "But Minneapolisite, there are transit-dependent people out there!" Yeah, and there aren't in areas like Loring or Powderhorn fucking Park? Can we get these people to start talking about making the #11 and #23 into high-frequency routes if we call them the "Fuchsia Line" and "Turquoise Line"?

https://streets.mn/2014/07/31/lets-fix-w ... -red-line/

[VAStationDude]

Transit operating funds come from two pots in Minnesota. Ctib funds for transit ways and the state - dedicated mvst and general fund money. Both are dependent on political support from legislators and their constituents in out state Minnesota and the suburbs. As much as I would like better service in Minneapolis I don't think shitting on the suburbs is a good approach. If we stop operating park and rides we lose the people needed to keep state funding. If we build out a regional system that is widely popular then transit advocates in the center cities can achieve the type of service expansions desperately needed in Minneapolis.

[Minneapolisite]

But that's not happening, is it? Streets.MN posted a map of ridership of the bus routes dating back to 2011 or 2010 and there were routes that had ridership back then similar to hi-frequency routes...they still haven't been upgraded to that status years later. Not much point in bending over backwards for the burbs when we're just not getting reliable transportation to get around our own city, but they sure are getting more than their fair share. I hit some places on 38th today east of Nicollet and figured since the 23 was supposed to show up in a few, I'll just hop on there instead of dealing with biking on 38th. Bus was at least five minutes late and I saw none coming on the horizon and it's a 30 min wait between buses if it did arrive early. So I had to carefully bike down 38th and wait for cars to pass where parked cars barely leave room for a car and bike to be side by side. All that time a 23 bus didn't pass me along the way.

The thing is, there is more interesting stuff on the 23 for suburbanites than all the park and rides out there combined, so a high frequency, color coded bus route from the light rail would benefit them greatly. In any case, they've already had their park and rides: where are our buses? Just for fun, I put together a "lo-frequency" map of areas that aren't served by the "hi-frequency" ones. I noticed they still haven't updated it to add the Green Line.


original image from Metro Transit

[VAStationDude]

Four things.

If, God forbid, I ever move from south Minneapolis to Eagan I would drive to Victor's 1959.

This might require even more brain power than an 800 word rift on Chicago dive bars so I hope you're up to the task. Can you think of a reason why the 23 would be off schedule on August 2, 2014?

If you're looking for a bus route that is underserved the 23 might a bad example. The number of total trips is pretty decent per service hour but people tend to ride very short distances like into uptown along Hennepin or to and from light rail. I've ridden the route probably 25 times and don't recall ever seeing more than fifteen passengers on bus one time.

The reality in Minnesota is that transit has a very limited constituency. Without support from suburban legislators there is zero possibility we'll ever get a full abrt network or improvements routes like 4.