urbanMSP

I continue to be highly impressed with the number and diversity of riders at off peak times on this line. I rode to the West Bank today (Saturday) at around 5:30, and the train was full of people from the time I got on at Lexington. Lots of folks got on and off at every stop, and we were just short ...

A couple of positive things to report: -For the first month, the train stopped at Marion (the point where the track switches from the middle of the street to the side of the street) almost every single time I rode it. It has made the light at Marion for me each of the last three days. - For the firs...

Unimpressed.

St. Paul Mayor Considers Traffic Light Changes to Speed up Green Line Ride: http://kstp.com/article/stories/s3513740.shtml and St. Paul Mayor: We'll get those Green Line times down: http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/morning_roundup/2014/07/st-paul-mayor-well-get-those-green-line-times-down.html...

Encore on the left:

Slick.

To truly fix the NE Metro water issue (self-inflicted) will cost tons of money. Mining groundwater to grow grass fields was terrifically unsustainable there and will cost $200M+ – $600M+ to keep growing grass there and not suck the lakes dry. Will this cost be covered by the NE cities or the entire...

HuskyGrad, do you know why the train stops at the pedestrian crossing a block west of the Fairview station and blows its horn twice before proceeding to the station? I'd assume the neighbors asked for this because of the large number of disabled folks that live in this area, but was wondering if the...

days like today, where I wait for nearly a half-hour for a train to show up Is this happening often? That, to me, would be a bigger deal than the long runtime. Reliability was really the only reason to build a surface light rail line here (well, that and to surreptitiously reconstruct University Av...

IMO, the problem is political. My speculation is that St Paul officials made a calculated decision to not use the prioritization/preemption tools at their disposal, in order to avoid howls of outrage from drivers. Frederick Melo is a pretty well connected reporter, and you can start to see the publi...

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....

The second worst is watching your train stop at a light that is still green, because the train phase is ~10s shorter than the car green light. If you sit at the front of the train, you will see this happen all the time.

Well there seems to have been a big step back this week in signal timing. Yesterday Lexington to Central was 20 minutes for me, then around 20 again in the afternoon. This morning it was 25 minutes. N=3, I know...but damn.

A few updates on the user experience on the east side of the line: 1) Signal timing is working quite well within DT St Paul. Sometimes there is a short stop right before it goes over I-94, but otherwise the train moves really well from MLK Blvd all the way down to Union Depot. 2) Signal timing along...

St Paul and Minneapolis use different controller vendors and software. Might explain some of the disparities that have been reported between the two cities on the line.

Oh, and mulad, thanks for your efforts in this. You should have gotten paid to do it.

The fact that they're hitting these ridership numbers without the U of MN, Concordia, Hamline, and the various high schools along the line in full session is incredibly promising.

Some positive notes from my trip home this evening: 1) The "next train arrives in xx minutes" announcements were working, and they were accurate. 2) No red lights at all between Central and Marion. Only a 30 second pause at Marion, then no red lights until Lexington, again for a short paus...

I saw that exact situation, on Griggs. A promising sign.

It seems to me like the simplest system would be to equip the trains with signal-preemption devices that would only be used if it was running behind schedule. It isn't critical that the trains hit a green wave and fly through the line as fast as possible...it's that they stay on schedule and don't g...

My sense is that ridership in week 2 is a little lighter than week 1, but it is good news indeed that we're hitting those numbers already, without school in session.

Mulad, I think you and I were on the same train this afternoon:D It was certainly nice to have a smooth ride out of St Paul. I wrote Russ Stark, my city council member, and asked him to advocate for better signal priority. He wrote back within a few hours, and said he, too, rides the train daily, an...