urbanMSP

Think more important is the issue brought up by our friend Chet Wedgley where the bus lanes disappear south of the Uptown Transit Center in favor of a lot of turning and more general purpose travel lanes. That seems like a really crummy trade off in a number of respects. Obviously it means that a n...

I wasn't able to tune in to the Open House--does anyone know why they settled on the two-way cycle track for the bike alternative? In earlier documents they seemed to be considering having separated one-way paths on each side (same direction as traffic).

I can understand that sometimes plans fall through for unforeseen reasons, but it would be good for the Council to propose alternative pollution mitigation measures (e.g., policies to reduce VMT, or shifting one or more bus projects to a catenary-based mode like trolleybus or LRT) to make up for aba...

My view is we would find a good balance. I think we can and should preserve the greenway but not at the cost of a needed transit improvement. Im fine with slightly shorter cars but no if it impacts planform size and having it be single lane. This would connect lake st to both of its north/south rai...

DanPatch raises great points. Would it be limited to single track by right of way or the coalition? Does the coalition even own all of the land there? Honestly I'd be fascinated with looking at some of the design and being shown why it won't technically work. This is knowledge as to why certain dec...

Yeah, respectfully, this is a corridor designated for rail in the LPA, so if it's a fantasy, it's one shared (at least on paper) by the city and Metro Transit. FWIW I do think that's the case, and the reasoning is all the surrounding context: the choice to build incompatible infrastructure at West L...

Sorry to sidetrack here but in a nutshell was there a reason to keep this on Marshall as opposed to turning at Cretin and running through St. Paul on Grand? Is there a different plan for Grand? Or just trying to keep the route as simple as possible? That's where I think Greenway rail should extend ...

I think another way of looking at this is that a transit grid makes sense for the same reasons a street grid makes sense. It would be ridiculous if Minneapolis only had Hennepin, Lyndale, Nicollet, Chicago, Portland, etc. and none of Franklin, Lake, 38th, 46th, etc.--even though none of the streets ...

Just to reiterate, I agree that EP made a lot of intuitive sense and I'm certainly not criticizing it on a high level compared to other suburban alternatives. I was just curious what the deal with those "other" nearby LRT rights-of-way we acquired were, and if the SWLRT study process had r...

A really random question for anyone who may have been following this project for a very, very long time: Does anyone know how Eden Prairie ended up being chosen as the terminus (as opposed to other Southwest burbs like Wayzata, Minnetonka, Excelsior, etc)? The earliest docs I've been able to dig up ...

You actually the more I think about it the more I like the idea of a streetcar. With Central and Nicollet not being one connected bus line having a streetcar that gets the bulk of the urban neighborhoods just outside of downtown would be convenient. Sure I’m late to the band wagon, likely right bef...

It's great to see these all funded and I think as more of these lines come on, we're gonna see it as a really transformative step in transit for the region. We've taken existing bus routes and resources and turned them into something much more efficient, for relatively little money and much less red...

Yeah it was pretty striking to me how Minneapolis barely appeared in the bus network report. The most generous interpretation is that this will be reviewed in the near future as part of a more comprehensive plan. The most cynical interpretation is that this project is first and foremost a highway re...

I think there's pretty widespread agreement that the route in North Minneapolis should fulfill two conditions: - It will run from Target Field Station to Bottineau Boulevard at North Memorial Hospital - Stations should be provided to make direct connections with the C (Penn) and D (Emerson/Fremont)...

What were the old alternative options for the line? Maybe they are dusting off one of those. They looked at Penn Ave/ Queen Ave's the most. https://metrocouncil.org/Transportation/Projects/Light-Rail-Projects/METRO-Blue-Line-Extension/Publications-And-Resources/Environmental/FEIS/Main/BLRT_FEIS_Cha...

Not an expert on how these things work but if they're expecting to get through all that process by the end of the year, I have to imagine that the new alignment is probably not gonna be radically different from the options that were presented before.

I know the time for feedback on station designs has long since passed, but I was looking over the plans and it occurred to me what a missed opportunity it is that we aren't building the Chicago stops as floating stops. Buses stopping in the bike lane is not great, especially when there was the oppor...

I agree that there are too many stations planned; it would be smart to consolidate the Davern and Homer stops into a single station somewhere like Rankin or Madison. I think especially given that other concessions have already been made that will slow things down (like less traffic separation/a mixe...

Once again allowing regional interests to control the direction of transit investments will focus them where they are not needed. This is why we need an additional urban funding district There's really nothing a city, county, regional planning council, or urban funding district can do if the state ...

There's a bill in the legislature to set aside funds for a study of transit on 55. The analysis has to include Highway BRT but doesn't seem obligated to select it, which I guess is an improvement over how the Orange Line went down. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/bills/text.php?number=HF64&type=bill&...