urbanMSP

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)

I haven't seen this longer document from the project page posted yet: https://metrocouncil.org/Transportation/Projects/Light-Rail-Projects/METRO-Blue-Line-Extension/Web-Docs/KH-Report-20210310.aspx (It's a lot of the same info as the one-page PDF, but expanded.) It's interesting how the red/pink rou...

Strib reporter on Twitter saying we should get news about a potential new alignment tomorrow. Brace yourselves, people.

https://twitter.com/ByJanetMoore/status ... 24961?s=19

Well we clearly have different ideologies. Drivers thinking they can go at a certain speed and be safe doesn't mean it's actually safe. I prefer the speed limit on all highways in the region be 55 mph, and outside of that (e.g. on I-35 south of Lakeville) then they can jack up the speed limit to wh...

Just because a highway is designed for higher speeds doesn't mean we should raise the speed limit. The problem isn't lowering speed limits, that's the solution. The problem is our impatient culture where we need to get somewhere as quickly as possible even if it means compromising the safety of our...

I would like to see stairs and an elevator down to the Greenway on either side of uptown transit station. It would allow a much safer crossing of Hennepin for people transfering from the E line south to the rest of the buses. This always struck me as a silly oversight as well. IIRC there was some v...