urbanMSP

Do the young kids on here remember that Bottineau was originally planned as LRT, then switched to a multi-year planning effort for BRT, before some major political capital was spent (Mike Opat?) to move it back to LRT?


The Blue Line was such a resounding success that continued investment in ...

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My thought had been that the text just says the report has to be in before next summer, there's no reason they can't just punch something out real fast in the next month and continue as they were, but, yeah, just submitting the existing alternatives analysis would be even ...

I’m not saying that a theoretical Uptown to NE line would have lower ridership than the BLE.

I’m saying that the ridership of an Uptown to NE line would be unable to meet the cost benefit metrics of a federal grant program, either one that either exists today or a theoretical future one that ...

I will not pretend to understand what the federal funding criteria specifically look at, however, my point is that for a similar cost figure you could make an elite tier subway line that would have (at the very least) similar ridership to BLE estimates that connects multiple of our urban cores ...

The adjusted ridership projections for the BLE might not be something we would have been excited about if originally proposed, but there isn't a chance in hell that an Uptown to Northeast subway would have the ridership to justify the deep bore subway that would be necessary to build it. Not ...

Why? I genuinely don't understand why we would care to "drag" suburbanites towards walkability and density when even our urban centers are still struggling with this in many ways.

Would you rather they drive all their cars downtown and then park?


Over 50% of the expected ridership comes from ...

So instead of supporting a project that is all ready to go, has been refocused to serve denser areas of Minneapolis, and would provide a high frequency northwestern spine line to more efficiently deploy our bus routes around, you would rather chase the idea of an as of yet unstudied line that ...

This isn’t a done deal yet. Tell your state senators you don’t want the study and that the only point to it is to make sure the project misses the window for federal funding.


What’s the elevator pitch for this line being successful at this point? There’s less commuter demand than when ...

What is the benefit of rail over true dedicated BRT?


In this specific case, that it would interline with the Blue Line. All of the stations along the extension would gain a one-seat ride to the airport & MOA. That's a worthwhile benefit to building this corridor as LRT, even if the projected ...