Green Line / Central Corridor construction thread (archive)

[seanrichardryan]

Was a three car train hanging into the intersection at Cromwell?

[ProspectPete]

Looks minor, there is some debris from an automobile in te street and metro transit police and other officials milling around, they seem to be inspecting parts of the train which is stopped over 280 at this time. No sign of any damaged car.

[VAStationDude]

The METRO maps on lrvs no longer have station to station times listed.

[IllogicalJake]

The METRO maps on lrvs no longer have station to station times listed.

Didn't notice any change to the one I was just on, still had stop times... Did it still have the "Green Line Opens June 14th" message?

[MSPtoMKE]

Schedules for connecting bus routes have been posted: https://www.metrotransit.org/Green-Line-buses

Some highlights:
-Although the Blue and Green Line schedules have not been posted yet (ruh-roh!), there is no Owl service on the 16, so that means the Green Line will have it.
-Route 16 ends at 23rd Ave next to Stadium Village Station, not at Oak St. That is a bit more inconvenient for the U of M, as well as transfers.
-Route 67 service on Franklin Ave ends at about 11pm on weekdays, and about 8 pm on weekends. Since route 8 had no evening or weekend service, it is still a large improvement.
-I still don't understand why route 83 ends at Roseville Super Target, not Rosedale Transit Center. Perhaps an extra bus would be needed to operate farther.
-Route 129 connecting Huron Station to the U of M is shown as a Metro Transit Route, not a U of M shuttle route
-Route 134 has some trips extended from Highland Village to W. 7th St. Two reverse-commute trips remain, which I believe were originally going to be cut.

[mulad]

Regarding the crash today, the Strib blog post is now saying that the driver had been found a block away, so the hit-and-run statement was probably not quite right. It's also now saying the driver was trying to turn from University onto Eustis, which is entirely different from when I first read the page and it sounded like the driver was trying to get from Cromwell (perhaps from the highway ramps) onto University. It still says the train was going eastbound.

[Anondson]

Wager the driver was on their cell phone...?

[mplser]

Unless the driver was illegally turning against the light, that's not really a problem. It's normal to be pulled partway into an intersection when turning left. When I learned to drive, I was taught to wait until it was clear, potentially finishing the turn after the light turned red.

Certainly some folks push that too far -- ideally you only get into that position after someone else ahead finishes the turn. Sometimes you get two or three cars waiting in a row, which isn't great, and at a certain point, people may start really blowing through a red.

I'm assuming here that we're talking of a car coming from a cross street, since cars turning left from University always get a green arrow. Trains only go when the main travel lanes have a green ball, and the left turn lanes have red arrows.

yeah it was a side street, and they ended up sitting there until the light turned red then they cut in front of the through traffic onto University. I can imagine this sort of thing being a problem when there's lots of traffic.

[mulad]

Aha -- The Strib post has now been updated to say that the driver has been cited for an "improper U-turn". If I'm reading it right, he was going eastbound on University, then attempted the turn at Eustis, which is a southbound one-way (though it has a left-turn lane leading to the bridge's left turn lane to get onto northbound MN-280 -- I hate setups like that).

Edit: Well, it does have big honking straight-ahead arrows on the pavement...

https://maps.google.com/?ll=44.965954,- ... 7&t=h&z=19

(I tried embedding that, but it only shows the 45-degree view and you can only see it with the straight-down aerials)

[LRV Op Dude]

Looks minor, there is some debris from an automobile in te street and metro transit police and other officials milling around, they seem to be inspecting parts of the train which is stopped over 280 at this time. No sign of any damaged car.

This would be the third accident involving LRV in the last few weeks

[mamundsen]

Looks minor, there is some debris from an automobile in te street and metro transit police and other officials milling around, they seem to be inspecting parts of the train which is stopped over 280 at this time. No sign of any damaged car.

This would be the third accident involving LRV in the last few weeks

Ch 5 news said it is 3rd in 3 weeks and that there have been 82 in 10 years on the Blue Line.

It's amazing how much some people don't pay attention to signage.

[mulad]

I forgot to mention in my earlier post that the driver was also cited for not having any insurance.

I suppose I'll reserve judgment for later (maybe the insurance thing was just from the driver forgetting to have an up-to-date card in the vehicle), but this can be taken as a reminder that some folks really shouldn't be driving, whether for poor skill or the financial inability to maintain a vehicle. Those are reasons to continue improving transit service, as well as having appropriate land uses and infrastructure to let people bike/walk.

[mulad]

It looks like the buses that currently use Wabasha Street to go westbound/northbound from downtown Saint Paul will shift over to Minnesota as the 16 diminishes in frequency, the 50 is replaced by LRT, and the 94 is reoriented to run east-west along 5th and 6th Streets. Only the 3, 62, and 67 are shown on the Green Line buses page, but the 75 and 262 will probably also shift from Wabasha to Minnesota.

[Scott Wood]

This would be the third accident involving LRV in the last few weeks

Ch 5 news said it is 3rd in 3 weeks and that there have been 82 in 10 years on the Blue Line.

It's amazing how much some people don't pay attention to signage.

I'm not going to defend the wisdom of making a U-turn there (much less doing so without noticing the train), but based on Streetview it looks like the signage could be improved. I don't see any "no U-turn" sign, and the "no left turn" sign is on the right side of the road rather than overhead (potentially blocked from view by traffic in the right lane). There are the straight arrows painted on the lane, but those are less clear than a sign forbidding U-turns, are potentially obscured by heavy traffic, and are no longer visible once you actually reach the intersection.

Why don't they use one of these, and put it on the mast arm overhead?

I wonder what the accident rate was when the Blue Line started running, versus once people had gotten used to it -- though a center-running line is probably going to have a higher accident rate than one that mostly uses traditional railroad crossings along with some grade-separated stretches.

[Nick]

Also there the Houston Metro bus was crashed by light rail because Houston Metro Bus driver was not stop for it. LOL

[web]

This would be the third accident involving LRV in the last few weeks

Ch 5 news said it is 3rd in 3 weeks and that there have been 82 in 10 years on the Blue Line.

It's amazing how much some people don't pay attention to signage.

I'm not going to defend the wisdom of making a U-turn there (much less doing so without noticing the train), but based on Streetview it looks like the signage could be improved. I don't see any "no U-turn" sign, and the "no left turn" sign is on the right side of the road rather than overhead (potentially blocked from view by traffic in the right lane). There are the straight arrows painted on the lane, but those are less clear than a sign forbidding U-turns, are potentially obscured by heavy traffic, and are no longer visible once you actually reach the intersection.

Why don't they use one of these, and put it on the mast arm overhead?

I wonder what the accident rate was when the Blue Line started running, versus once people had gotten used to it -- though a center-running line is probably going to have a higher accident rate than one that mostly uses traditional railroad crossings along with some grade-separated stretches.

The green line has a lot of protection from traffic as opposed to that Houston video but MOST are like houston and people will never learn. A train cannot stop in 2 seconds. They deserve it. Hope the metro didnt have to pay out to any of those bad drivers

[VAStationDude]

I just saw a test train going east slowly approach 12th and Cedar and without stopping get the vertical bar. It then made it through 11th into the 10th Street station without stopping. Last week those trains were waiting a complete auto cycle to get the vertical bar.

[twinkess]

To be clear, they're not running the signal, its just timed correctly now?

[VAStationDude]

Correct. The timing was correct that particular instance.

[VAStationDude]

So last week in the idiotic MPR article about test train run times the Saint Paul public works guy told everyone to calm down about test train run times because signal systems were not yet up and running. I see why he urged people to chill out. This afternoon I walked from Regions Hospital through the Robert Street Station area, between the government buildings north of 12th street, down Cedar, across 94 to 6th street. I did not see or hear a train while near Robert. By the time I got past 11th an east bound (south) train was crossing I94 and pulling through 11th. It stopped at 10th Street Station for probably about 30 seconds then proceeded rather quickly through 10th, 7th, 6th and 5th. There were a couple little slow downs at 10th street in front of the churches and the access to Town Square parking. I imagine those signals just need a little tweaking to give a vertical bar signal five seconds sooner. By my estimation, it took less than two minutes for the train to get from north of the 10th Street Station. stop at the station and get to Central. Last week I could nearly beat the train on foot from Robert Street station to 6th Street. I'd guess just the improvements to the stretch from Robert to Central shave at least seven minutes from the slower, pre signal equipment travel times.