urbanMSP

Yep, plenty of ballast on 25th Ave SE waiting to be used.

- Not really sure what is going on from Rice to Robert, or on Cedar St. I did see that the new bridge over I-94 is almost ready for a concrete pour.

On University on the north side of the Capitol Building, there is substantial work yet to be completed. Right now, it is still very much a dirt/sand hole. To the east, the trench (yes, that's right, a trench) walls are poured.

Around the corner past the trench, the station and track work on Robert up to the 94 frontage road appears nearly complete.

94 is being closed in sections tonight for LRT bridge work.

I was near the Raymond Avenue station this morning and they were filling in the non-track portion of the median with some sort of stone work. It was hard to get a good view, but it seems like they are really putting some money into making the full median look good in this part.

Yep, granite and sandstone pavers, according to this paywalled F&C article: http://finance-commerce.com/2012/09/wor ... to-alleys/

Any reason why we couldn't make the downtown a Fare Free Zone as well? How much do they actually recover by charging people $0.50?

That might encourage thugs from Chicago to come up and abuse us.

That might encourage thugs from Chicago to come up and abuse us.

haha great!

As far as the Campus fare free zone goes, I hope they be sensible about it and include the Stadium Village station in it. Since the point is to make it easier to get around the Minneapolis campus, they might as well include all three stations that serve it

Sidebar: When I was a U student, I always felt that the people who took the Campus Connector busses from Coffman to the West Bank were ruining America.

...like really. Superblock freshmen from the suburbs: Walk to class. It's good for you.

Speaking of campus connector, what do people think about my gold streetcar (http://goo.gl/maps/zvT7E ) in addition to the green line? Gold Streetcar would use the intercampus ROW then interline with Green Line LRT from Stadium Village to West Bank. For now, it could turn around at the junction of Green/Blue. But down the line it could take a quick hop on the old MILW ROW then run down Washington Ave. With the exception of that last segment, which would likely be feasible after other streetcar lines shared a Washington ROW, it would probably not be that expensive.

The $0.50 downtown fare is not nearly as much of a discount as it seems since it only pays for a single ride. On average, transit routes in the Twin Cities only bring in $1.00 per trip segment because transfers get used so heavily, and busy routes with lots of intersecting lines and/or lots of destinations along their corridor can go well below $1 per ride. Hiawatha brings in somewhere around 87 cents per passenger. The 16 and 50 bring in $0.75 and $0.86, respectively. The 21 gets down to $0.70 per ride. (Cost per ride also goes down as routes become more popular, though, partly since each individual ride tends to get shorter as service frequency goes up.) So, the downtown fare is worthwhile to collect on a purely financial basis even though it seems like they can't possibly be getting anything out of it.

But making bigger free-fare zones or making the entire system zero-fare probably wouldn't be a bad idea -- the current University of Minnesota shuttle system has a lower per-passenger subsidy than almost anything in the Metro Transit system. I don't have same-year data, unfortunately, but here's an example: The cost to move a single student on the campus shuttles in 2008 averaged $1.28, while the cost to move a single rider on the 16 bus in 2010 averaged $2.01. With the 16 rider paying an average of $0.75, Metro Transit just barely wins out in the subsidy battle, fronting $1.26 of that cost.

Operational costs would go down if we got rid of fares, more passengers would be attracted to the system, and dwell times would go down because all-door boarding could be used everywhere and there wouldn't be problems with people hunting around for change forever. But of course it would be a huge political battle.

As for making a fare-free zone on campus, it could be a good idea. The biggest problem is that it might cause a huge spike in ridership in that one spot, requiring longer trains more often. But just as the Cost-Effectiveness Index had long threatened to prevent building those 3 stations in Saint Paul, the stations on and near campus have been spaced out quite a bit to discourage students from using it like the Campus Connector. The West Bank station was also moved a bit more toward Cedar Avenue so residents at Riverside Plaza and other nearby developments could reach it more easily.

That's why I thought it may be wise to interline a campus connector streetcar on the Green Line from Stadium Village to West Bank... help prevent crush loads on green line LRT.

That might encourage thugs from Chicago to come up and abuse us.

haha great!

isn't this sentiment what's behind golden valley's objections to lrt?
"the city people are coming to get us"

Sidebar: When I was a U student, I always felt that the people who took the Campus Connector busses from Coffman to the West Bank were ruining America.

...like really. Superblock freshmen from the suburbs: Walk to class. It's good for you.

I used it all the time when I had a class on one bank and 15 minutes a class on the other bank. Now that I'm not a student and work on the East Bank but live on the East Bank, I find myself walking quite a bit more, though that may be because the connector isn't very useful for me during construction.

Here's an update that the Met Council posted for their upcoming meeting on Monday, September 24th. There are photos of each station, and it seems like the first track has been laid in the maintenance facility.

Note: URL is a Pdf
http://councilmeetings.metc.state.mn.us ... Update.pdf

Operational costs would go down if we got rid of fares, more passengers would be attracted to the system, and dwell times would go down because all-door boarding could be used everywhere and there wouldn't be problems with people hunting around for change forever. But of course it would be a huge political battle.

Yes! Yes! And YES! Also it would be adding tens of thousands of new riders simultaneously taking their cars off the road, reducing the wear and tear on roadways and the need for road capacity expansion, saving $$$!

Pioneer Press has a good, lengthy article on the construction progress and life along the corridor.

http://www.twincities.com/ci_21603669

Operational costs would go down if we got rid of fares, more passengers would be attracted to the system, and dwell times would go down because all-door boarding could be used everywhere and there wouldn't be problems with people hunting around for change forever. But of course it would be a huge political battle.

Yes! Yes! And YES! Also it would be adding tens of thousands of new riders simultaneously taking their cars off the road, reducing the wear and tear on roadways and the need for road capacity expansion, saving $$$!

get rid of fares? you mean making the train and buses FREE to ride! I think there would be to much abuse and over usage of the system. Since you brought it up I think a simple $1.00 per ride would be nice and do away with the 2 and 1/2 hour limit to transfer. For me it's a major reason I don't take the bus why be worried and rushed during my shopping or travels when I can drive and take my time. Of course still buying two tickets probably be cheaper than all the gas spent but still it's annoying at times...

Anybody else think those dividers at some of the stations (black posts with black chains) looked ugly and will doubtfully block people from jumping over them just out of spite and to "fight the system"

That does bring up a similar point... I don't use the bus for running errands because the fares are high for short hops. It would be cool if there was a way to hit your go-to card on the way out of a bus and then the fare would be lower for a short trip.