C Line - Penn Avenue North Rapid Bus

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Anondson
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Re: C Line - Penn Avenue North Rapid Bus

Postby Anondson » July 19th, 2019, 1:03 pm


Silophant
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Re: C Line - Penn Avenue North Rapid Bus

Postby Silophant » July 19th, 2019, 1:08 pm

Ugh. Wonder what the problem is?
Joey Senkyr
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mamundsen
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Re: C Line - Penn Avenue North Rapid Bus

Postby mamundsen » October 4th, 2019, 3:50 pm

Removing electric buses (again?)

https://twitter.com/startribune/status/ ... 30019?s=21
Metro Transit said it will temporarily discontinue groundbreaking electric bus service on the C Line linking downtown Minneapolis to Brooklyn Center until problems with the vehicles’ chargers are fixed by the manufacturer.

SurlyLHT
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Re: C Line - Penn Avenue North Rapid Bus

Postby SurlyLHT » November 12th, 2019, 10:43 am

Regarding the recent conversations isn't the Royalston Station a planned stop?

Secondly, the placement of the stations is messing up traffic on Penn and probably going to create accidents. I was behind a C Line which was trying to board someone with a wheel chair at Penn and Golden Valley road and was stuck for quite awhile with cars backing up on Penn and honking and sneaking by the bus on the already narrowed road due to apartment construction. (If you've seen them use the wheelchair holder on the bus it's not quick for the bus operator.)

This morning, I saw a car trying to make a left while going south on Penn at Plymouth. Due to there being no turn lane 8 cars backed up an only 2 made it through the light. What was the configuration of Penn beforehand?

Silophant
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Re: C Line - Penn Avenue North Rapid Bus

Postby Silophant » November 12th, 2019, 11:00 am

I believe that Royalston Station will be a stop once the C Line moves to Glenwood, when the Blue Line goes into service along Penn, though it's unclear to me what'll happen if it gets delayed indefinitely or moved to a different alignment.

For the wheelchair issue, did you happen to see if it was a C Line BRT bus, or one of the normal buses that they've got filling in until the electric buses get fixed? The C Line buses have a new automatic wheelchair restraint system that is supposed to be much faster than the driver getting up and strapping the wheelchair down, though I haven't seen it in action.
Joey Senkyr
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SurlyLHT
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Re: C Line - Penn Avenue North Rapid Bus

Postby SurlyLHT » November 12th, 2019, 12:59 pm

It was a BRT bus. I've also ridden bus and seen the operator struggle with those new wheelchair restraint systems. (I also notice the electric buses are back.)

Bakken2016
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Re: C Line - Penn Avenue North Rapid Bus

Postby Bakken2016 » November 25th, 2019, 3:24 pm

In just three months, we need to be building these faster!

http://www.startribune.com/ridership-to ... 565437302/

grrdanko
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Re: C Line - Penn Avenue North Rapid Bus

Postby grrdanko » November 25th, 2019, 5:16 pm

In just three months, we need to be building these faster!

http://www.startribune.com/ridership-to ... 565437302/
It's 5 months. Still impressive though.

Bakken2016
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Re: C Line - Penn Avenue North Rapid Bus

Postby Bakken2016 » November 25th, 2019, 5:49 pm

In just three months, we need to be building these faster!

http://www.startribune.com/ridership-to ... 565437302/
It's 5 months. Still impressive though.
Oops, that’s what I meant!


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talindsay
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Re: C Line - Penn Avenue North Rapid Bus

Postby talindsay » November 25th, 2019, 10:38 pm

One, two, five (*three sir*) three!

SurlyLHT
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Re: C Line - Penn Avenue North Rapid Bus

Postby SurlyLHT » November 26th, 2019, 10:48 am

It's also worth noting that neither the A nor the C are in particularly dense areas. (They have good numbers of transit users however.) I'm wondering how fast the rider will go up when they start a line in a truly dense area.

Oreos&Milk
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Re: C Line - Penn Avenue North Rapid Bus

Postby Oreos&Milk » November 26th, 2019, 9:26 pm

You mean like the D line. It’s already so high traffic I wonder if there won’t be enough busses to fill the demands of that corridor?

alexschief
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Re: C Line - Penn Avenue North Rapid Bus

Postby alexschief » November 27th, 2019, 8:48 am

My prediction is that the B Line will end up being the highest ridership aBRT route, even though the corridor is currently behind the #5 corridor and a combined #10 and #18 (Nicollet/Central) corridor.

The density of activity along the Lake St. corridor is tremendous, and there's more development in the pipeline there than anywhere else outside of downtown. The B Line will make a really important new connection between light rail lines, and just be a dramatic upgrade over the already-packed, stop-start #21 bus. If/when Hennepin County comes to its senses and puts bus lanes between West and East Lake Stations, so much the better.

CalMcKenney
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Re: C Line - Penn Avenue North Rapid Bus

Postby CalMcKenney » November 27th, 2019, 9:32 am

Agreed with the B Line statement. Incredible density and foot traffic in the area that will only continue to expand. I would also add that we may be surprised by the ridership numbers on the B line compared to the #21 bus. I live in Uptown and most of my friends live there and none of them use the bus system, they simply Uber everywhere. I have a feeling the easier to understand route, upgraded and easier to identify stations, and a better experience may convince some of them to hop on the bus when they otherwise would have Ubered. Would still prefer the light rail option there for that reason, but I think we should see very large ridership on the B Line.

SurlyLHT
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Re: C Line - Penn Avenue North Rapid Bus

Postby SurlyLHT » November 27th, 2019, 1:44 pm

What is the Status of the Streetcar line on the Greenway? That might affect the B Line. Bringing things back to the C Line, the corridor may densify. There has been some activity on the major cross streets of Plymouth and Broadway.

Silophant
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Re: C Line - Penn Avenue North Rapid Bus

Postby Silophant » November 27th, 2019, 2:21 pm

I'm afraid the streetcar is on hold until Hennepin County remembers that they're able to fund transit that doesn't run out to second-ring suburbs.
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CalMcKenney
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Re: C Line - Penn Avenue North Rapid Bus

Postby CalMcKenney » November 27th, 2019, 2:30 pm

Not to get political, but if we had an administration that explicitly and actively supported city's improving public transport, I would hope to see our local government seize on the opportunity and push through some bold policy's like the Greenway streetcar/light-rail. One can hope.

HiawathaGuy
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Re: C Line - Penn Avenue North Rapid Bus

Postby HiawathaGuy » November 27th, 2019, 2:50 pm

I'm afraid the streetcar is on hold until Hennepin County remembers that they're able to fund transit that doesn't run out to second-ring suburbs.
Quite true. However, I think we have a unique situation where this falls entirely within the City of Minneapolis, is owned by Hennepin County, but any transit option would need to be managed by Met Council. This doesn't mean the parties couldn't come to a quick agreement, but it does seem a bit overly complicated.

Silophant
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Re: C Line - Penn Avenue North Rapid Bus

Postby Silophant » September 14th, 2020, 8:15 am

Apparently the BCTC chargers are finally completely fixed. Hopefully they're confident that it was a one-time thing, and they'll still be willing to use electric buses on future BRT (and normal) routes.
Joey Senkyr
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tmart
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Re: C Line - Penn Avenue North Rapid Bus

Postby tmart » October 15th, 2020, 9:50 am

With the D Line funded and Bottineau LRT looking more and more like it might get rerouted to actually serve North, I was thinking about how there are gonna be three high-frequency lines that originate in North and all run across Downtown in the same direction. If all those lines run with high frequency, it's actually starting to get a bit redundant (which is a fantastic problem to have!).

I wonder if there's any chance that, rather than shifting to Glenwood, it would make sense to have the C Line terminate at Bryn Mawr station so it could act as a feeder for both the Blue and Green Lines. Obviously that would be contingent on both of those lines being built and having high enough frequency that the transfer is very fast. But eventually we'll want to have trunk lines and feeder lines in some reasonable approximation of a grid, rather than just having everything fan out from Downtown, and the C Line is probably the most sensible candidate. As a plus side, by not duplicating all that Downtown service, it potentially frees up capacity for more frequency all around.

The main drawbacks I can see are:
- No one-seat ride Downtown (which isn't actually that important if the trunk lines are high frequency, but planners seem to put a premium on it)
- Losing transfers to D/E/Orange Lines
- No rapid transit on Olson or Glenwood (except N/S at Penn)


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