urbanMSP

If (big if, between continued hybrid work/WFH and also the LRT extensions) that happens, the locals could go to Hennepin instead, maybe even with bus-only lanes to fill in the gap between the south Hennepin bus lanes and the Hennepin/1st bus lanes across the river. The 17 in particular would be ver...

If express buses come back to pre-covid levels this is a bad idea. Marq/2 was packed with buses during peak hours.

They do like their own stations, but mostly for land development reasons. I could see two scenarios where they would be open to using existing infrastructure: - Union Depot gives them the space and means to create their own customer experience at the station, similar to airport lounges for preferre...

Would there ever be a market for a night train to Chicago, possibly even a private operator? Current Empire Builder block time is 7:55. Imagine a 10:30 p.m. departure and 6:30 a.m. arrival in both directions. Not an efficient use of rolling stock, but maybe the type of thing a private operator coul...

Would there ever be a market for a night train to Chicago, possibly even a private operator? Current Empire Builder block time is 7:55. Imagine a 10:30 p.m. departure and 6:30 a.m. arrival in both directions. Not an efficient use of rolling stock, but maybe the type of thing a private operator coul...

There’s not a single corridor that has the ridership to justify rail in a post-pandemic world where ridership is down by half. Heck even the current blue and green lines, if planned at their current ridership, would never be approved as rail corridors. 25k is still justifiable for rail and that's w...

A lot of LRT projects are dictated first by the availability of right-of-way, and then the route is sutured together to form an adequate ridership case post hoc. I don't know how well used the bus predecessors of the Blue Line were, but the reason the Twin Cities built its first LRT line down Hiawa...

This may have been answered before, but what’s the magic number for transit agencies to consider making the line rail The 99 B-Line had an average weekday ridership of 55,900 people precovid and will be replaced partially by a light metro. Personally if a bus line has 20-25k riders is when I think ...

Where did you get this picture from?

Would be nice if we could get Brightline on board, but they'd probably want it to be a Twin Cities-Rochester-Madison-Milwaukee-Chicago HSR service, which is a route that makes the most sense if we were to have any HSR service in our region, but it would be difficult from a political and economic st...

Was the study to Savage passed? I don't recall the entirety of Dakota County being against Dan Patch, just Lakeville, even though a station in their downtown could bring a big boost of visitors without more car traffic. The study bill hasn't passed yet. And according to Rep Jess Hansen, Burnsville ...

It's only like 80 miles to Rochester, and high speed rail can run in a greenfield ROW carved from farmland for the majority of that distance. It's much flatter land than California. Plus it's on the way to Chicago - providing utility on its own while also potentially being the first section of a hi...

Was the study to Savage passed? I don't recall the entirety of Dakota County being against Dan Patch, just Lakeville, even though a station in their downtown could bring a big boost of visitors without more car traffic. The study bill hasn't passed yet. And according to Rep Jess Hansen, Burnsville ...

I'm happy for the dan patch gag order being lifted, but still think ziprail has a snowball's chance in hell of happing (at least the true HSR 220mph proposal) regardless unless they can extend it to Chicago. Ya the 220 mph proposal will likely never happen. But for a new greenfield corridor somethi...

HERC presents challenges to redevelopment for sure, one of them being the use of waste heat for the turf at Target Field, sidewalk snowmelt around the LRT station, and maybe heating indoor spaces at Target Field. (been a while since I took a HERC tour, memory fuzzy) Not sure if all this could be fe...

Lower fares are needed. With $35 tickets which is what I've been hearing a family of 4 would be paying around $280 for a round trip. Ticket's shouldn't be more than $20 I know someone is gonna say that comparing it to Northstar is wrong, but I swear the later has some kind of discount for families ...

If you live in the service area Metro Transit micro is another option if you want to live car free. TIL. This is a really cool service. I'd love for a Southside equivalent. It would be nice but I'd settle for better east/west service in south Minneapolis. Particularly with the cost of running Metro...

Assuming the extra dollars go to purchasing trainsets, in lieu of renting, does that effectively reduce the ongoing operating costs? I'm hoping they can leverage that into either lower fares, or banking an operational profit margin to pay for future (speed) improvements. Lower fares are needed. Wit...

Maybe I just don't know what trains cost, but if the project budget grew by ~$100 million and the federal match is 80-20, then the total project cost grew ~$500 million? That seems like it's more than trainsets to me. Maybe there's other bonuses in there or something. The federal match was 80-20 on...

I'm happy for the dan patch gag order being lifted, but still think ziprail has a snowball's chance in hell of happing (at least the true HSR 220mph proposal) regardless unless they can extend it to Chicago. Ya the 220 mph proposal will likely never happen. But for a new greenfield corridor somethi...