urbanMSP

Slide 16 seems to show that a routing to the back of Union Depot is still under consideration, which, really? Aside from the "is it worth it to make people walk an extra 500' through the Depot to get to wherever they're actually going" issue, that adds a lot of extra movements to get to and from the OMF. Unless there's a separate OMF planned for this line, but I don't think there is?

Yeah I don't see why that's being considered. It makes much more sense to just interline with the Green Line and serve the existing platforms at Central and Union Depot.

Ramsey County has always wanted Union Depot to be a bigger destination, that’s probably why it’s on the table, I’m sure though it won’t go anywhere, just like the Gold Line ending there, it got routes through downtown.


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Routing the light rail to the back never made sense and it continues not to make sense. The platforms in the back were designed for intercity heavy rail, while the streetcars and local transportation always served the front. I'm sure logic will prevail.

I believe there's a single platform beside where buses layover that was built for light rail trains. There's even ballast, but no tracks installed. Not that it makes sense to route Riverview there, but I always wondered why they built that as part of the Union Depot renovations. Might've been because it was before they selected the alignment for the Central Corridor (now Green Line) so it was built just in case.

While I'm mainly curious about how the West 7th stretch is going to turn out, it's interesting to see possible changes to the MOA stop in the presentation slides (page 13 of the pdf), especially as they just renovated that station.

The Bloomington segment has always been far from ideal, and interlining a second line is as good a reason as we'll ever have to rethink it for better capacity and travel times.

I think the proposed new station location (I'm assuming that's 82nd and 24th?) is a great improvement over the current condition, where MOA riders (a.k.a., almost all of them south of the Airport) have to slowly wind around a big parking lot for, like, no reason.

IMO it's also a good chance to rethink the station spacing, which is bad. The 28th Ave ramp is less than a thousand feet from Bloomington Central Station; 28th Ave Station could easily be removed with no mobility impact. Same probably goes for American Blvd, which mostly serves parking lots and is only ~1000 feet from Bloomington Central. Removing ~half a mile of track, one signalized intersection, and two stops could cut maybe 5 minutes off from MOA to the Airport or Downtown, all without really affecting the walkshed at all--that would be a huge deal!

I agree with everything said about station spacing in Bloomington. To repeat, ad nauseam, MOA & 28th Ave should've been a single station (a P&R ramp with a transit station on the ground floor), located just east of the mall and connected to the mall by skyway over 24th Ave. That's two stations in one, done. And no more expensive than what they built instead with MOA Station and 28th Ave P&R ramp. As for Bloomington Central & American Boulevard Stations, if they had simply shifted the Bloomington Central platforms about 400 feet east (closer to 34th Ave), that would overlap much of the walkshed of American Boulevard Station. Two stations instead of 4, without losing any current ridership and sacrificing very little future ridership (maybe lose a teeny bit of walkshed coverage up towards 494, but those parking lots don't seem to be going anywhere). Plus by routing along 82nd Street, you cut off at least a minute of rounding that slow curve, and another minute off the super slow entry into the mall itself. So cutting two stops (~45 seconds each) and 2 minutes of super slow travel would save a minimum of 3.5 minutes per trip, each direction. With trains running 10 minute headways most of the day, over the course of a year, that actually adds up to a ton of in-service hours for Metro Transit.

All that said and re-said, I somewhat doubt that the "new" lines you see on these Riverview plans are anything more than redundancies, in the event that running Riverview trains into MOA station would create too many operational headaches for the Blue line and Riverview Line. With Riverview overlapping Blue on one end, and Green on the other, and both Blue & Green trains having to coordinate their schedules in order to avoid bunching up in the downtown Mpls 5th Street tracks, it might just be easier operationally for Riverview to stop across the street from the mall, in the event Metro Transit says "no" to having Riverview trains enter MOA station and messing up Blue Line operations.

I hope I'm wrong, but I can't see how they would be considering a replacement/relocation of the MOA LRT platforms when the entire station was just rebuilt. Granted, Riverview is still likely a decade+ from operation, so the mall station will have aged some by then and Metro Transit will be ready to have that conversation. Keep in mind that it's not just LRT riders going to and from the mall; MOA is also the busiest transfer station in the entire Metro Transit system. So if in 2030, train platforms are going to be across 24th Ave from the mall, that means also building a whole new bus station, as well as safe/efficient pedestrian travel into the mall (see 1st paragraph, 2nd sentence above).

I agree with this as far as it should have been two stations, except I will note that the city has been trying to get rid of the surface airport parking lots for years. They want some more intense development with structured parking for both the airport parking and whatever the development is. The parking lots are operating under conditional use permits with the condition that the owners start developing their properties, but the owners keep coming back with sob stories about how they're having issues with development and requesting extensions on the surface lots.

The Villager has a summary of the 4/1 PAC meeting: https://myvillager.com/2021/04/14/pac-o ... treetcars/ The PAC will meet again in mid-July. The Station Area Planning Taskforce has its first meeting tonight.

Interesting article! I recognize a lot of familiar names on the two committees

Getting streetcars across the river would require using the existing Highway 5 bridge or building a new one. The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) has raised concerns about the impact a mass transit route could have on the existing bridge.

Interesting; I'd be curious to hear what exactly their concerns are. My assumption is that, if the streetcar gets dedicated lanes on any major chunk of West 7th, that's going to be the limiting factor for the whole road east of 62. If that's true then I'd think cutting the bridge down to one car lane each way wouldn't actually have that big of an additional traffic impact. The only other thought I had is that they'd maybe like to maintain two lanes all the way to Shepard, and then only have lane reductions after that point. (Or maybe they're the ones pushing to use the CP spur because they think it will let them avoid any reduction in cars on West 7th?)

The City of St Paul has previously studied improving the connection between Hwy 5 and Shepard Rd. That would be very helpful to help reduce traffic on W 7th St.

The City of St Paul has previously studied improving the connection between Hwy 5 and Shepard Rd. That would be very helpful to help reduce traffic on W 7th St.

Turning Shepard Rd into Hwy 5 and having the city take over 7th street is also something they should consider. It would be nice if they could make the 35E-Shepard interchange into a full access one but I think the landscape there would be too difficult.

Shepard is one of my favorite roads to drive. And could definitely take a lot more thru traffic.

Absolutely not. Haven't we learned our lesson about routing highways along the riverfront? That would be a disaster. Shepard is too wide as is.

Traffic drops off significantly on 7th past 35E. I think Hwy 5 should be parkway'd from 62 beyond. That through traffic should be taking 494.

I somewhat doubt that the "new" lines you see on these Riverview plans are anything more than redundancies, in the event that running Riverview trains into MOA station would create too many operational headaches for the Blue line and Riverview Line. With Riverview overlapping Blue on one end, and Green on the other, and both Blue & Green trains having to coordinate their schedules in order to avoid bunching up in the downtown Mpls 5th Street tracks, it might just be easier operationally for Riverview to stop across the street from the mall, in the event Metro Transit says "no" to having Riverview trains enter MOA station and messing up Blue Line operations.

I hope I'm wrong, but I can't see how they would be considering a replacement/relocation of the MOA LRT platforms when the entire station was just rebuilt. Granted, Riverview is still likely a decade+ from operation, so the mall station will have aged some by then and Metro Transit will be ready to have that conversation. Keep in mind that it's not just LRT riders going to and from the mall; MOA is also the busiest transfer station in the entire Metro Transit system. So if in 2030, train platforms are going to be across 24th Ave from the mall, that means also building a whole new bus station, as well as safe/efficient pedestrian travel into the mall.

I wanted to provide an update on something I heard from project staff regarding why Riverview presentation materials have consistently included (without explanation) alternate routings east of MOA, rather than assuming usage of the existing track that loops around the empty field and crosses 24th Ave near the intersection with Old Shakopee Road. That entire concept is actually being driven by LOS (level-of-service) modeling for that intersection. Apparently, if you double the amount of train movements through that intersection, the engineers think it will result in too much "gates down" time and the car backups/delays will be unacceptable. Who knows what kind of numbers they're using for car traffic projections though. Knowing what we know about engineering, they're probably not just using 2019 traffic counts, but are projecting something absurdly high that includes a total maximum build out of all vacant property surrounding the mall and greater South Loop area, plus 1% traffic growth a year on top of that.

Next week's CAC meeting includes agenda items about a station at 82nd St and the Fort Snelling connection.

https://www.ramseycounty.us/sites/defau ... agenda.pdf

With a train every 5 minutes in each direction (assuming the Blue Line and Riverview run at 10-minute frequency) and the slow speed (5 mph) the trains have to do going in and out of MOA, I can see why the traffic engineers think that might be unacceptable. It would be ironic if the station is moved to 82nd Street since the original alignment for the Hiawatha Line had a station there.

Thinking further ahead, if the station is moved to 82nd Street, it would be nice to have the transit hub there too plus a TOD village in the empty lot. That's assuming air traffic isn't an issue.

Given how far off in the future construction of this line is, they should definitely study rebuilding the entire transit hub across 24th Ave from the mall, and connect it by skyway. If that happens, I hope they consider closing the current 28th Avenue Station. Leave the parking ramp there, riders can handle the ~1200 foot walk to the new 82nd platform or Bloomington Central

Leaving aside concerns about abandoning the relatively recently rebuilt MOA station, a new MOA/South Loop (are we still calling it that?) Transit Center on 82nd St could solve a lot of issues. It would speed the trains up to not crawl around that tight turn and negotiate the signalling mess that is the 24th St crossing and parking ramp entrance, would negate the various civil rights issues that we've seen from having our busiest transfer station be on privately-owned land, and, if we're reasonable for once and actually decommission 28th Ave Station as a part of the project, would fix one of the station spacing issues and open up an additional half-acre for redevelopment where the little surface parking lot is. As far as TOD goes, the new Element hotel on the north side of 82nd is seven stories tall, so presumably anything south could be as tall or taller.

Edit: great minds, etc.

ii. Mixed traffic and single-track options

Imagine all of the issues discussed above, plus Riverview arrival times being consistently inconsistent due to trains running in mixed traffic with single track segments. The compromises to quality transit service being mulled by this project would potentially ruin the quality of service across the entire LRT system.

It's absolutely insane to me that Ramsey County continues to advance a $2B project that would make transit worse along this corridor and other corridors. Say what you will about the Gold and Purple Lines, but they would at least improve transit service from the existing condition and compliment the overall system.

I'm sorry, I lose my mind every time I hear an update about this project.