urbanMSP

Fun news, Metro Transit's fall 2018 ridership data dump is now available. The data overall shows an increase in ridership, which we know was not true for the year as a whole, so all of these numbers are a bit autumn-tinted. Couple lunch break observations: - The #5 is still the most popular local bu...

Yes, if we're going to have buses on Nicollet, then we might as well combine Hennepin buses on there as well. And bus passing lanes should have been built on the blocks where buses are dwelling at stops. And Hennepin should be three lane. The better option is to do the reverse: outer two lanes on H...

Yikes. Just about everything in St. Paul, from the A Line stop spacing to the downtown layout, is a huge mess on this map. Metro Transit needs to hire a consultant to do a better job before a map like this actually goes into service.

From the article : Any redevelopment on the lot will look to a similar project at 29th & Aldrich, where the city once owned a 50-space lot. The Aldrich parking lot was sold several years ago for development, but includes 30 public, hourly parking spaces in an underground parking garage. The bus...

I'm bullish on the prospect of the SWLRT helping to increase the pull of downtown Minneapolis. Companies tend to locate their headquarters closer to where the CEO lives, and while the LRT doesn't exactly reach the shores of Lake Minnetonka, it certainly will intrude on the mental map of the Twin Cit...

Given a finite pot of transit funds, I just don't think I'd prioritize spending on these outlying crosstown routes. I'm sure there's some degree of chicken and egg thing happening here, and I know people love the idea of building out a non-centralized transit system, but... most people still want t...

East of Nicollet, 42nd is extremely wide. Concrete curb-protected lanes should be extremely possible.

It would be nice if the county would proactively do this before more people are killed. There is no justification for four lane designs on virtually all of these county roads. Almost all of them have ADT under 20k, and should be extremely easy fixes with few (if any) tradeoffs for drivers.

I don't think extending the A Line is necessarily the right call, given how easy and obvious the 46th St Station is as a bus layover facility. But I do think that, while it's not the highest priority route, the 46th St corridor should be on any list for future aBRT implementation on its own. The cur...

In the report that was linked on the last page, staff explains their findings. In short, they take a dim view of the proposed design's conformance with the historic district guidelines. They object on just about every point related to the design, but some of their objections specifically apply to th...

They have new articulated diesel BRT buses that they use on the A line now They are using the future C Line buses on the A Line so that the drivers can practice with them. They also used the artics on the first Allianz Field gameday, and imagine they will continue to do so in the future. Otherwise ...

I asked folks how their transportation went on Saturday and received almost all positive responses. - Seems like the A Line was a clear winner, with Metro Transit running some of the artics from the C Line. I hope they will be able to make that move throughout the year, even once the C Line begins o...

This project got better.

The slip lane in front of the hotel is unfortunate. The best option would be to get rid of it, the second best option would be to rough up the pavement before that crosswalk so that drivers get the message and slow down.

B Line meetings coming up soon. https://www.metrotransit.org/b-line-meetings I hadn't noticed (until I was corrected on Twitter) that the B-Line planning scope has been expanded to include Selby and downtown St. Paul. I hope that anyone who attends these meetings will press for the project to inclu...

That's really disappointing. Canceling the already infrequent overnight service in August is essentially canceling the service for the coming winter. That will put some people's lives in real danger. It's not fair to Metro Transit that their trains are being used as a shelter, but that's a role they...

*** Cleveland is the exception on bike projects in St. Paul, not the norm, and if you think that's the only bike lane fight that has happened you haven't been paying attention. The city has built or is in the process of building a dozen miles of new trails around the city, including high-quality pr...

I'm sure it has to do with St. Paul's bizarre decision to choose Lime as their preferred dockless bike company. Now, in the least surprising news of the year, Lime has pulled out as well. The big underlying issue really is that St. Paul has always been a tough market for bike share because it's a to...

The East Town Apartments cam has a new, far better angle.

I feel like we're in the 1970's again. Let's recap: Connecting AMR to 94 would: (1) Destroy tax-paying property (2) Induce more traffic, causing increases in carbon emissions and increases in airborne particulates (3) Add to the road maintenance costs of the owning authority, which is already short ...

Cropped version from the EIS, available here: https://amrtf.weebly.com/2005-eis.html It's really a much better solution than Selby to Snelling to 94. But far worse than removing the road entirely, so I'm really not sure why it would be considered. St. Paul is a city with significant tax base issues...