Green Line / Central Corridor construction thread (archive)

[VAStationDude]

Lines are tensioned on Cedar between 94 and 6th street. According to construction updates live wire testing east of Chatsworth stated September 16.

[mulad]

Anyone know what the signal on the right-hand side of this photo is for? (The one appearing to stick out from the "Capitol/Rice Street" signs.) It seems to always stay red. I noticed some similar ones at the Metrodome station this evening, covered up with black plastic bags (though you could still see the red light--which also didn't change at all--through the thin plastic). It doesn't really seem well-positioned for signaling pedestrians or cars or anyone, really...

[commissioner]

lrvopdude might have a better explaniation but those are interlocking signals for the lrv's. They are the same ones as on the Hiawatha line (Blue line). My guess is they are testing them to make sure they work. I have seen others on the green line that have been lit up for a time then go dark again. Eventually they will turn them toward the station

[mulad]

Hmm, I suppose that may make sense, since there would probably be an interlocking setup of some sort for the crossovers half a block west of this location. Doesn't make much sense to me why they're rotated 90 degrees away from the track, but maybe they're trying to avoid confusing drivers?

[commissioner]

There is near each one, It's basically a small metal structure maybe 20' by 10' give or take with a bunch of electronic equipment that controls the switches and signals. The best example of what I'm talking about is the blue structure next to the Midway McDonalds

[mattaudio]

1. They are tensioning the catenary in front of MPR this morning.
2. Those structures can have futures as faux cottages. The Nokomis East Neighborhood Organization is working to paint the one at 50th/Hiawatha, possibly as soon as this fall.

[LRV Op Dude]

That is a rail signal. It a common practice to turn and cover rail signal when they are out of service. Note that LRVs will be tested on the line and it does confuse rail operators that are trained to stop for a red rail signal.

[LRV Op Dude]

Bus operators will start training on the Washington Avenue Transit Mall this week.

[Silophant]

Awesome. Does that mean buses will start running on the transit mall within a couple months?

[Tom H.]

Excellent - I'm going to have to keep an eye open to figure out how the heck those buses are going to serve stops along the WATM. That is, as soon as I find out where the stops are. The only one I've found so far are the big bus pull-outs across from Coffman.

[Tcmetro]

I believe the stops are Coffman and at the Moos Tower/Transportation Building.

[David Greene]

Awesome. Does that mean buses will start running on the transit mall within a couple months?

At Monday's Met Council transportation meeting a staffer indicated the transit mall would open in December. No specific date was given. They've noted downticks in ridership on re-routed bus lines during construction.

[Silophant]

Awesome. Does that mean buses will start running on the transit mall within a couple months?

At Monday's Met Council transportation meeting a staffer indicated the transit mall would open in December. No specific date was given. They've noted downticks in ridership on re-routed bus lines during construction.

I'll bet they have. The reroutes are pretty substantially less convenient for a lot of near-campus trips.

Excellent - I'm going to have to keep an eye open to figure out how the heck those buses are going to serve stops along the WATM. That is, as soon as I find out where the stops are. The only one I've found so far are the big bus pull-outs across from Coffman.

Assuming you're referring to the way all the planning drawings indicated that buses would use the LRT guideway along the WATM, leaving the lanes adjacent to the curbs exclusively for bikes, I just don't buy that they will. They can't between Pleasant and Church, since the 2-foot concrete walls between the bridge's LRT guideway and traffic lane continue almost all the way to Church St. There's no way for buses to get onto the guideway, nor off of it to serve the pull-outs. The section east of Church doesn't have walls, but it does have a 3-4" half-curb that the buses probably can mount/dismount, but not without a pretty severe hit to passenger comfort/tire alignment. I predict that the buses will use the curbside lanes for the whole length of the transit mall.

[Tom H.]

Yes, I agree, that seems like the best solution. I still don't know where the buses are going to stop on the Transportation Building / Moos Tower block. There aren't any Bus Stop signs (or spots for them), and trees are planted continuously on both sides right next to the curb. They wouldn't seriously have the buses cross sides and drop off on the LRT platform, I hope.

Would they?

[talindsay]

Assuming you're referring to the way all the planning drawings indicated that buses would use the LRT guideway along the WATM, leaving the lanes adjacent to the curbs exclusively for bikes, I just don't buy that they will. They can't between Pleasant and Church, since the 2-foot concrete walls between the bridge's LRT guideway and traffic lane continue almost all the way to Church St. There's no way for buses to get onto the guideway, nor off of it to serve the pull-outs. The section east of Church doesn't have walls, but it does have a 3-4" half-curb that the buses probably can mount/dismount, but not without a pretty severe hit to passenger comfort/tire alignment. I predict that the buses will use the curbside lanes for the whole length of the transit mall.

I suspect, and sincerely hope, that you're right. There's just no good reason to introduce all the operational issues that would come about by having the buses drive on the tracks when there's a traffic lane right next to it. Obviously emergency vehicles will use the traffic lane, not the rail tracks, and so there's something to be said for keeping the cyclists along here aware that they will be sharing the lane with occasional vehicles anyway. Given that many of the buses in this section will be replaced by the light rail anyway, there's only going to be maybe six buses in each direction every ten minutes, so I would think the operational issues of having the buses run in the same space as the trains would be much worse than the minor inconvenience to cyclists of having the buses in the traffic lane.

[UptownSport]

I'm sure I'm not understanding- vehicles are going to also drive the rails?
Is there earthly precident for a bus driving down a dedicated, operational track?

[eazydp]

It appears up to 20 buses will be running on the WATM during rush hour. I could not find any evidence that there will be a spot near Moos/Transportation building. From the initial design, it looks like West Bank and Coffman will be the drop off spots. With that many buses, I would guess it would get too backed up without area with a lane for buses to pass.

Bus routes serving this station: 2, 16 (Owl Period Only), 121, 123, plus the following University of Minnesota commuter routes: 111, 113, 114, 115, 118, 152, 252, 272, 355U, 465, 579, 652, 690, 692, 695, 698, 789

Source: http://www.metrocouncil.org/Transportat ... urce=child

[talindsay]

I'm sure I'm not understanding- vehicles are going to also drive the rails?
Is there earthly precident for a bus driving down a dedicated, operational track?

Yes, that's what they're proposing. It's done inside the Seattle bus/rail tunnel, that's the only example I've ever seen but rumors are that it's done elsewhere as well. It seems an incredibly poor choice in this instance however. In Seattle they do it because the tunnel had been built as a bus tunnel and the rails were added later; without forcing people to transfer to rail at one end and transfer again at the other end, they couldn't eliminate buses from the tunnel, and there wasn't enough space to give each a dedicated lane space. In our case on WATM there's separate ROW available and paved, so I just don't see any good reason to do it.

[Tom H.]

The outside paved lanes have bike markings (not sharrows), and have been labelled as 'Bike / Emergency Vehicle' lanes on a lot of the official documentation I've seen, while the guideway is always labelled 'LRT / Bus'. I don't see why emergency vehicles couldn't go up on the tracks to get around buses - seems simpler than putting the buses on the rails all the time.

[bptenor]

I didn't follow this particular corridor from the beginning of its planning, or really paid any attention to transit corridors until about four years ago, but could the "LRT/Bus" label be a remnant of the planning stage before they picked a mode of transit for the Green Line? It seems far-fetched, but I see no reason why buses can't use what look like dedicated bus lanes to me. I'm befuddled.