urbanMSP

Depends on the context. Are we talking about how great it would have been if it was tunneled/elevated/running along I94? Then the justification makes sense. The best time a fully grade separated line with the same number of stops could make would be, say, 35-40 minutes. Since people primarily are n...

I've always wondered that too, why we have a 50th St station but no station at 42nd or between 32nd/35th. Hiawatha changes angle south of 46th St (plus the tunnel is a pedestrian obstacle), so the distance between the 46th St and 50th St stations is a bit greater than the distance between the 46th ...

I've been twitterizing this, but seriously, how can city folks say it's about the pedestrians/cyclists trying to cross University? Trains come by at most every 10 minutes in each direction, so 5 minute headways til you see a train. At most, a 3 car train (shy of 300 ft) should take 30 seconds of gr...

Apparently a car decided to drive on the tracks (what makes people think this is a good idea?) and got stuck on a switch... Delayed departure from Union Depot by about 15 minutes. Hope the switch wasn't damaged this time.t As for just "Minneapolis" or especially "St Paul", that w...

Anecdotally, I was in Midway yesterday and the trains stopped at just about every stop light, but so did the cars. So even with stops at Fairview and Snelling stations, the trains were pretty much even with traffic. I have a feeling that the cars will eventually pull away when they get into less co...

This would be the third accident involving LRV in the last few weeks Ch 5 news said it is 3rd in 3 weeks and that there have been 82 in 10 years on the Blue Line. It's amazing how much some people don't pay attention to signage. I'm not going to defend the wisdom of making a U-turn there (much less...

Is there some way Metro Transit can make Google Maps do anything? How would they know anything Google Maps is going to do? They can make sure that the information is present in the data that they export for use by Google Maps and similar third-party applications. Whether Google checks for updates i...

Aside from spite, why would we want to do that? An at-grade tunnel in an area with minimal utility work and no need to interact with signals, etc., will be (in the grand scheme of the line) very inexpensive. It adds utility and flexibility to the line, and gives the option to extend the 2, which se...

CTIB still needs to pay operating subsidies and debt service on the Central Corridor, and the two new line extensions (plus the existing Hiawatha) being entirely in Hennepin county seems like evidence that Hennepin is getting its money's worth (at least relatively speaking). Why should Gateway have ...

I think that would still add a lot of time -- and even on a grade separated segment, an "express train" would get held up behind a Blue Line train that does make the stops. You're also dropping stops that would have been on the Greenway line. At the very least there needs to be a stop wher...

Red versus blue isn't a problem for most color blind people (red versus green would have been bad). I agree that they should have made it more obvious, though, such as offsetting the lines vertically at the transfer point. BTW, is this the first time we've seen the station-to-station travel times fo...

A new restaurant called "Public Kitchen and Bar" is opening north of Mears Park "early this summer": http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_25361130/lowertown-new-restaurant-opening-across-from-mears-park A Google search shows a few other restaurants by that name in other cities;...

The Blue Line at Target Field runs from 4:02 AM through 1:13 AM Sunday through Thursday, so a three hour gap is quite possible. If the gap on the Green Line were really only an hour, they wouldn't need to fill it in with the overnight service on route 16 (which currently runs once an hour).

According to the article, 11.4 years is the average age of all in-service vehicles, not the average age at which vehicles are removed from service, which should be significantly higher.

Some preliminary results from the Highway Transitway Corridor Study: http://www.metrocouncil.org/Council-Meetings/Committees/Transportation-Committee/2013/December-9,-2013/Highway-Transitway-Corridor-Study,-Info-Hiniker.aspx There seems to be no transfer station planned between I-35E North and 36.....

The proposed ballpark design is drawing complaints about not fitting into the surrounding neighborhood: http://www.twincities.com/stpaul/ci_24484694/saints-ballpark-designs-early-reviews-it-doesnt-fit I can understand wanting the exterior materials to blend well with the brick-heavy surroundings (at...

I'm not sure what the absolute best idea would be there, but closing the block doesn't seem so bad to me. I've walked over there a few times after work and have been amazed at how hard it is to cross that street just one or two blocks up the hill from the end of the on-/off-ramps. People really don...

Anyway, catenary wire has started to be pulled in downtown St. Paul. There's a gap of at least a few blocks between the wire along University Avenue and what's currently in downtown -- So far, I've only seen wire on Cedar Street and 12th Street (north side of I-94 along the Capitol office building ...

Why would a flashing left be used where a green ball is not currently used?

Out of curiosity, what do people think about Pedal Pubs? I've been on them several times and didn't know that a lot of people were against the whole concept until relatively recently. I like fun. Also, who doesn't tip? Who does that??

I thought the problem in this case was that they *did* tip.