urbanMSP

Q2 Could we see an elevated station and track on Broadway? SWLRT and the Hiawatha Line have decent amounts of elevated rail and these tricky parts of Broadway are super long. I'm not sure elevated stations would take up significantly less space than at-grade, or cost significantly less than undergr...

The idea that they've already ruled out any underground stations is disappointing, short-sighted, closed-minded, frustrating, and lots of other words I won't use on this forum. But at least they're being very unambiguous about it, so the question now is what's the best alignment that doesn't have an...

https://ccxmedia.org/news/two-hennepin-county-commissioners-say-blue-line-extension-funding-could-be-in-jeopardy/ "Lunde says the changes outlined in the transportation omnibus bill would require counties to pay for the operation and maintenance costs of existing and future light rail lines, even t...

Freeway caps should be built as 50% private 50% public in exchange for development rights above the cap. Freeway caps should only be built when the taxes make it back. We need more money for transit so less people have to drive in the first place. That also cuts down on particulates I very, very ra...

While I'm mainly curious about how the West 7th stretch is going to turn out, it's interesting to see possible changes to the MOA stop in the presentation slides (page 13 of the pdf), especially as they just renovated that station. The Bloomington segment has always been far from ideal, and interli...

Just found out that I will be serving on the Riverview Corridor Station Area Planning Task Force!

Very exciting! I know you'll be a strong advocate for a good, LRT-style transit project.

Considering the amount of outrage over the subsidy per passenger of Northstar they should have a heart attack looking at the subsidy per rider of our low performing express bus routes. Latest I've been able to find is 2016 data but here's express routes with a higher subsidy per rider than Northsta...

Heh, it would be pretty funny in a twisted way if LA just completely leapfrogged the rest of the country in the next decade, just by being the only ones ready to accept billions in federal cash. But setting aside regional comparisons for a moment, this discussion has made me curious how an infrastru...

I really have to say that whatever people think of Northstar, that should translate almost exactly to the way we think about commuter buses in the region, which have also seen a massive hit to ridership. Yes, and I suspect there's a strong overlap at the Capitol between those who want to axe Norths...

It's embarrassing that the city lacks a bold vision for transit. If it had plans on the table for midtown Greenway train. Northeast rail. Dan Patch Line. We could include that in the infrastructure bill. Now we must wait for another opportunity. A big problem with the Obama-era stimulus was that th...

I hate to say it but I'm ready to say goodbye to the Northstar Commuter Rail. As a city and a transit community we must be able to admit our failings honestly. The limitations of the corridor and the lack of development doomed this line from the start. Don't tear down the stations just require grea...

The main issue I see with tunneling the light rail in Downtown Minneapolis is the existing alignment is elevated (sort of) at Target Field Station. With I-394 underneath where could a tunnel portal be built on the western end? An idea that's maybe less crazy than it initially sounds would be to rem...

Wow this country really just hates trains, huh. To clarify, the California rule I mentioned is for all bonds, not just rail-related ones. But it is quite frustrating and odd that the MN constitution puts specific limits on rail bonding but explicitly allows unlimited highway and airport bonding. (I...

Oh fun, we have our own filibuster-y rule, huh? I was not aware of that. I hope this could pick up votes from several outstate senators who live along the various routes that would be able to go into full study/planning if there's enough money left over for that. Could be worse: issuing more than $...

This! But also for electric scooters and non electric bikes. One of the reasons why (in a perfect world) I would prefer making the polluting things more expensive, rather than making the cleaner options cheaper, is that there are lots of cleaner alternatives to gas cars--electric cars, electric mot...

Given that electric cars currently receive a $7500 tax credit; I think a (significantly cheaper) program to put ebikes on a similar footing is entirely reasonable. We can argue in circles about whether electric cars should be so heavily subsidized; personally I'd rather see the expensive incentives ...

https://twitter.com/davidzipper/status/1371573014689673217 That's wonderful news, but the fact that it wasn't included in the stimulus bill makes me not super optimistic that anything will come of it. If we see filibuster reform, or if it gets rolled into a big infrastructure bill with a pulse in t...

Talk is of course very cheap, but Pete Buttigieg did say he wants the US to lead the world in high speed rail. Considering how the California HSR project is coming along I highly doubt that, but there is still a case to be made for implementing HSR on certain corridors. In our case that's Twin Citi...

Some of these concerns derailed North Minneapolis routes in the past (or at least, were used as a justification to support a route that whisked suburbanites past the northside). But I think the politics and the politicians have changed substantially. I don't believe that this argument that the nort...

General Question about the public coordinate maps. Has anyone found a way to zoom out on them? Every time I zoom in to look at specific parts of the map, I have to reload the page to zoom back out again.

Scrolling works for me. (Mac/Chrome)