B Line Lake St Rapid Bus, Midtown Rail Transit

[RailBaronYarr]

I'm definitely a fan of connecting whatever aBRT route goes in as far east as possible. The further east you can get from Uptown (or to Uptown from the east) on a fast moving, relatively high-frequency bus, the better.

[RailBaronYarr]

Love the stop spacing on the greenway streetcar.

I like that they will study enhanced bus on Lake Street as well as Midtown Streetcar. They serve differnet purposes and have vastly different implementation timelines. The only part I don't like is that it's a cop out for studying a way to extend the streetcar eastward, and it practically says as much in the report. If they build the streetcar as planned, it likely will never get extended.

I'm confused.. if they were to implement an aBRT on Lake, why have a greenway streetcar with basically identical stop spacing? Wouldn't the benefit of having a streetcar (single or double track, or even a dedicated bus) in the greenway be that you could stop far more frequently but have better service because you're not competing with traffic and stopping at lights? Why double up on the stops (basically the same cross streets)? No snark intended, just curious at the benefit this provides.

[Viktor Vaughn]

I'm interested in the single/double streetcar option in the Greenway. On the double-tracked-streetcar-in-the-Greenway page it says it would require rebuilding bridges over the Greenway, so I could see that would make it a lot more expensive (assuming the bridges don't have to be rebuilt anyway). But what's the tradeoff? Would the streetcar be mostly double-tracked and just go to a single track under certain bridges? Or will it be mostly single-tracked with a few passing lanes? How much will this slow the streetcar down? What limits will this put on frequency?

I guess it's just discouraging they're pulling the option of a fully double-tracked streetcar off the table completely. I was hoping they'd find a way to make it work. Of all the Mpls streetcar routes, the Greenway streetcar is my favorite because it's the only one with it's own right-of-way (and grade-separated!).

This corridor needs to be fast enough to be part of the regional network. If you were traveling from Hopkins to the airport, I would hope SW to Greenway to Hiawatha would be a lot faster than SW to Hiawatha, even with the extra transfer.

[beykite]

This corridor needs to be fast enough to be part of the regional network. If you were traveling from Hopkins to the airport, I would hope SW to Greenway to Hiawatha would be a lot faster than SW to Hiawatha, even with the extra transfer.

Also I would think the people taking this from Hopkins to the airport and visa versa would be much more willing to transfer to another train as opposed to a bus.

[MNdible]

I'm interested in the single/double streetcar option in the Greenway. On the double-tracked-streetcar-in-the-Greenway page it says it would require rebuilding bridges over the Greenway, so I could see that would make it a lot more expensive (assuming the bridges don't have to be rebuilt anyway). But what's the tradeoff? Would the streetcar be mostly double-tracked and just go to a single track under certain bridges? Or will it be mostly single-tracked with a few passing lanes? How much will this slow the streetcar down? What limits will this put on frequency?

My understanding is that, at the frequencies and headways we're talking about, there really is no trade-off. It would be mostly double tracked, and they can time and coordinate things so that the limited single track sections will give them the capacity they need. Obviously, in the future when bridges do need to be rebuilt, they could gradually eliminate the single track sections at fairly low additional cost.

[twincitizen]

I'm confused.. if they were to implement an aBRT on Lake, why have a greenway streetcar with basically identical stop spacing?

A bus on Lake Street will never be fast enough, ever. Look at the 53. Barely faster. The streetcar is needed to connect the "rapid" Metro Blue and Green lines in <15 minutes. It would help create network effects and increase ridership on both lines.

Both are good ideas: better buses on Lake Street and a rapid connection between the Metro Lines. If you look at the benefits of aBRT as it applies to Lake Street, the most significant improvement could be the off-board fare collection, rather than the stop spacing or signal priority. Would we ever have streetcar, full aBRT, and local buses running in this corridor? Probably not, that would be a misallocation of transit resources. But I could see a Midtown Streetcar and improved local buses that implement many aBRT qualities running in tandem.

And to add to what MNdible said about single/double tracking: apparently some group of fools are convinced that the bridges are historic and should be preserved! What a crock!

[RailBaronYarr]

http://metrotransit.org/Data/Sites/1/me ... Report.pdf
http://metrotransit.org/Data/Sites/1/me ... s/lake.pdf

It seems like an aBRT on Lake from Snelling through Uptown would be 31% faster from end-to-end than current service, with average travel speeds of 15.5 mph (33 minutes end to end for 8.5 miles). The distance from Green Line to Blue line is ~4.1 miles, meaning the aBRT would complete that in... 15.8 minutes! I'm not arguing that both wouldn't make sense to have (if possible), but it doesn't seem like a streetcar would have much value with the stop spacing suggested.. let's say because it's in the trench without traffic/lights it can go 30% faster, it saves 5 minutes from LRT to LRT, not worth the money in my books. Now, if it replaced the 21 for local service by connecting to a Selby Streetcar (perhaps transfer-less?), then we would only need 2 lines to provide rapid and local service along Midtown and in to St Paul (rapid riders could transfer to Green Line). In the meantime, pit the 21 in the Greenway on the cheap.

[Tcmetro]

As much as I would rather see a double track LRT line in the trench, the streetcar proposal is an acceptable compromise. Traffic on Lake St is simply too busy to see any real improvements in speed. Also, with the exception of the 5th Ave station and maybe the Bloomington station, the streets feel pedestrian friendly and well connected to Lake.

[twincitizen]

I think putting transit in the trench will make the Greenway better, even if it means some negative impacts to the trail here and there. A streetcar in the Greenway means it will be lit up, all the time, especially around the bridges. There will be cameras up and down the line to monitor the track and stations. People will be waiting at boarding platforms and walking to/from stations. This is going to infinitely up the "eyes on the street" quotient of public safety.

Regarding physical impacts to the trail: If we have to pinch here and squeeze there, maybe the bike trail becomes less of a superhighway on really nice days when it is busy. But for most hours of the day, most days of the year, it would remain an excellent commuting and recreational trail.

P.S. In a perfect world, I'd love to see the whole trench ROW rebuilt. Double track streetcar (LRT-ready for when we need it), and a rebuilt bike/ped trail with built-in heating elements to melt ice in the winter (no more bitching about development creating shadows). Solar panels on all adjacent development to supply electricity.

[mattaudio]

I'd also hope that we see the track and catenary built to LRT spec, so down the line if it ends up getting fully double tracked, there's only a little station work to get it to be LRT compatible.

[VAStationDude]

Unless we build a streetcar network (please Dear God no) some of the full LRT costs would be offset by having a common fleet for the green line, blue line and midtown. If we end up with a street car on Nicollet then we'll have the sunk costs that come with a new fleet type so we might as well go with streetcar in the trench.

[twincitizen]

I have always advocated for using single-car LRVs in the Greenway. The tracks will be connected at West Lake Station anyways. Probably not connected on the Hiawatha end due to engineering challenges and potential expense. It makes zero sense to introduce another vehicle type, stock parts, train maintenance workers, etc. Even if we did build out a streetcar network, Midtown wouldn't share trackage with any of them due to the grade separation. As far as I'm concerned, Midtown is part of the Metro LRT system moreso than a "streetcar". We just have to call it a "streetcar" for now so none of the Greenway Groupies get freaked out and oppose it.

[RailBaronYarr]

Not sure why we keep hearing the argument that Lake Street will always be too busy for fast bus service. It assumes we can't/won't do anything to ensure that buses can go faster (like dedicate a lane in each direction and allow all that car traffic to spill on to the surrounding grid, of which streets are 60+ feet wide - might as well utilize them).

If the goal is to use the trench for high speed, then scrap the aBRT idea on Lake. By that I mean only the increased stop spacing - do the upgrades to stop infrastructure like off-board pay, better shelters, etc, but keep it as the "Enhanced 21" local service while the trench serves the high-speed link between the Green/Blue lines, eventually beyond and possibly converted to LRT. I'm a fan of doing something now, on the extreme cheap, as David Levinson suggests: https://streets.mn/2012/07/01/do-or-do- ... s-no-plan/ but seems like MT is already down a path and this didn't meet the criteria as well as a S/D tracked streetcar..

[Tcmetro]

Lake Street is incredibly busy during peak hours. Just yesterday, all the 21's and 53's were travelling in groups of 2 or 3, and all of them were full. Additionally, we have half of a trench just sitting there for rail transit. If you want to take a lane away from Lake St, then you will need to add a lane to 31st, or maybe turn 29th and 31st into a one-way couplet.

If the streetcar goes through, then I would imagine that 21 would be whittled down. The streetcar will make all the major stops, and connect to pretty much every cross-route (except the 22, a 5 min walk from Bloomington Av stop), and will likely take a chunk of the ridership off the buses. The key here is frequency. The streetcars need to run at 5-7 minute intervals during the daytime.

[mattaudio]

I really do hope that we have a plan in mind for future connections to the ends of a Midtown line, rather than ending with tail stations at each end. At West Lake, I don't know why they would have a separate station. Can't it share a station and then have a pocket track for the west for the midtown LRVs to layover and reverse?

Similarily, on the Hi-Lake end, I think it would be just as possible to use the existing Lake Street viaduct station for this service. It would require tying into the existing flyover, but this is an operational advantage since a crossover would not be needed. http://goo.gl/maps/GNzHv Then, a pocket track between 32nd and 35th could facilitate layover and reverse.

This would serve to provide operational flexibility down the road... If Riverview ends up as LRT down the road with a full wye at Hwy 62, this service could interline down Hiawatha and then up Riverview for a quick one seat ride from much of South Minneapolis to DT St. Paul and vise versa.

Or, imagine that we end up building a line down the BNSF ROW from Penn Ave station to West End (or beyond). Then we decide we need a new north-south LRT spine under Nicollet in a couple decades. At that point, the Green Line between West Lake and Penn Ave would become a non-rev connector of the two operating districts (more reason to skip the 21st St station) and Southwest LRT could finally route via Uptown and Nicollet/Lake.

[RailBaronYarr]

Again, the proposal by Metro Transit for the aBRT is 7.5 minute service (at peak hours) and travel speeds that met the criteria set out for Grn/Blue line travel time (on this board) of 15 minutes. If we're choosing to ignore what they're saying, then fine. I'm tending to lean optimistic (enhanced bus service with congestion-less transit in the corridor vastly improving the local service level) and on the cost-saving side (not operating a wide stop-spacing streetcar AND a local bus on Lake AND an aBRT on Lake). I just realized the 21 and 53 make basically the same stops throughout the Minneapolis portion of Midtown, so it's kind of a moot point anyway.

I think Matt makes some really good suggestions for future flexibility, and unfortunately likely none of them will be implemented..

[UptownSport]

In the meantime, pit the 21 in the Greenway on the cheap.

This makes so much sense-
Do most people ride from end to end like the 94? I rather doubt it- Getting buses off Lake would really help traffic (and the buses!)

It makes zero sense to introduce another vehicle type, stock parts, train maintenance workers, etc.

So you were against the new Siemens???

[TWA]

what would be the length of the line? Would they ultimately want to connect the SW LRT line with the central LRT line on the other side of the mississipi? I can see having a line that crosses 3 lines would be a popular transfer line. Even if it is done in several phases

[talindsay]

I'm interested in the single/double streetcar option in the Greenway. On the double-tracked-streetcar-in-the-Greenway page it says it would require rebuilding bridges over the Greenway, so I could see that would make it a lot more expensive (assuming the bridges don't have to be rebuilt anyway). But what's the tradeoff? Would the streetcar be mostly double-tracked and just go to a single track under certain bridges? Or will it be mostly single-tracked with a few passing lanes? How much will this slow the streetcar down? What limits will this put on frequency?

My understanding is that, at the frequencies and headways we're talking about, there really is no trade-off. It would be mostly double tracked, and they can time and coordinate things so that the limited single track sections will give them the capacity they need. Obviously, in the future when bridges do need to be rebuilt, they could gradually eliminate the single track sections at fairly low additional cost.

Yes, exactly. The Greenway Coalition's study back in the early 2000s showed that a mostly double-tracked streetcar with sections of single track (or gauntlet track, to eliminate the need for switches) could run 10-minute headways without ever needing to wait for a car coming the other direction. Note however that speed and headway are then a crucial factor in physical design, so while it would work perfectly with (for example) 10-minute headways at 30 mph with 30 second dwell times in the stations, if any of those factors were to change significantly then the streetcars might end up needing to wait for each other. So while a single/double arrangement is probably a good solution in this case, its capital design carries very real operational constraints - something Metro Transit has balked at in other corridors.

Realistically speaking however, the minute RT decided that Minneapolis needed a bicycle coordinator, it became clear that full rapid transit in the Greenway wasn't going to happen in the near future. I like the double/single streetcar arrangement because it doesn't preclude proper rapid transit buildout later, and allows infrastructure to get constructed in the mean time.

Now I only hope they manage to design the Hiawatha tie-in such that it doesn't preclude my long-term hope of the line diving under the intersection of Lake and Minnehaha, re-emerging in the center of Lake to cross the River into St. Paul, terminating with a junction to the Central Corridor tracks somewhere between Cretin and Snelling...

[mulad]

Some new open houses are scheduled. These meetings will have rolling 10-minute presentations about the universe of alternatives and the ones that have been recommended to move forward.

Tuesday, May 21
6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Colin Powell Center, 3rd Floor
2924 4th Avenue S.

Thursday, May 23
6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Whittier Clinic
2810 Nicollet Avenue S.