Green Line LRT

[David Greene]

Three additional stations (Western Ave, Hamline and Victoria) were added to the Green Line to ensure the train did not just whisk people between the two downtowns. These were added over initial objections by the federal government, which footed half the $1 billion construction tab.

I wish they'd gone into a little more depth on this. The coalition that made the missing stops happen didn't just get them approved "over the objection" of the feds. They *changed the federal rules* to make it happen. That work had an impact far beyond the Green Line, far beyond Minneapolis/St. Paul and far beyond Minnesota. The coalition won an award from the EPA for the use of NEPA to improve communities, precisely because the work had ramifications for the whole country.

[Tom H.]

Green line has been running with some two-car trains this morning - anyone know if this is a capacity test (to see if two-car trains could suffice), or a technical issue? My train was rather crowded this morning with only two cars.

[VAStationDude]

I saw there were issues on both the green and blue line including short term bus substitution between 38th and Downtown East.

[mulad]

I have no idea why they've been running more 2-car trains. I still think they tend to accelerate a bit faster than 3-car trains, so they might be trying them out to see how they affect schedules. Unfortunately, a lot of the gains you might get from better acceleration get negated by the fact that there are always people hanging out toward the tail end of the platform, who all have to shuffle forward to board. That must make the second car in any 2-car train become more crowded. There really should be some announcements whenever trains are shorter than 3 cars long, and there should be some markings on the platforms to show how long these different trains are, so people can get into position before the train arrives. I'd also like to see some markings for where doors are supposed to end up, though I'm not quite sure if the door positions match between the Siemens and Bombardier cars (though I think I've only seen Bombardiers one time on the Green Line in revenue service).

[mattaudio]

Maybe someday we can put that on the platform signage just like many other systems around the country....
2 min | GREEN | 2 cars
4 min | BLUE | 3 cars

[VAStationDude]

The computer voice announcements are apologizing for the several two car trains in service today.

[grant1simons2]

I just saw a one car pass by the u. Just one car.. Not 2 or 3

[EOst]

Was on a westbound train tonight that announced (very quietly; they really need to turn up the speaker volume in some cars) that the train would be delayed at Downtown East for "at least 15-20 minutes," "no indication" from central on how long the delay would be. I ended up getting off and walking to the bus, but I'm still not sure exactly what happened.

[Tom H.]

I noticed an eastbound train stopped at Stadium Village for a good 5 minutes - just dwelling, not sure of the reason. I walked down Washington and saw another eastbound train similarly dwelling at East Bank. Eventually they started moving again, but the delay was quite long.

[mulad]

A bunch of ridership figures in this announcement from Metro Transit about the Green Line having more than 1 million rides in September (specifically, 1,063,512). Combined ridership on the 16, 50, and 94 was 653,208 in September 2013 versus 1,185,217 for the 16, 94, and Green Line last month. That's a year-over-year increase of 81%, though I suppose buses were still being impacted by construction a year ago, and it's hard to say what impact the route restructuring of connecting buses has had.

https://www.metrotransit.org/metro-gree ... -september

[IllogicalJake]

I noticed an eastbound train stopped at Stadium Village for a good 5 minutes - just dwelling, not sure of the reason. I walked down Washington and saw another eastbound train similarly dwelling at East Bank. Eventually they started moving again, but the delay was quite long.

There were LRT Maintenance trucks with lights flashing at the tracks between Downtown East and Government Plaza. I couldn't see what they were doing, but I'd guess it's all related.

[MNdible]

So, 120K monthly riders between the 16 and the 94. It would be interesting to know what the breakdown between the two routes are.

There are now 228 Green Line trips and 220 trips on routes 16 and 94, each weekday

220 daily trips x 25 days (to accommodate for fewer trips on weekends) = 5500 monthly trips, which means about 20 riders per trip -- not much.

All of which is a long way of asking what the future of the 16 route really is.

[RailBaronYarr]

So, 120K monthly riders between the 16 and the 94. It would be interesting to know what the breakdown between the two routes are.

There are now 228 Green Line trips and 220 trips on routes 16 and 94, each weekday

220 daily trips x 25 days (to accommodate for fewer trips on weekends) = 5500 monthly trips, which means about 20 riders per trip -- not much.

All of which is a long way of asking what the future of the 16 route really is.

And just for reference, this report shows that in winter 2010, weekday boardings per route were:

94: 4,238
50: 7,227
16: 17,037

They don't list per trip but per in-service hour, so tough to compare to the trips. The 120k trips/month /25 days gives ~4,800 trips/day. I would imagine most of that is on the 94 since I doubt the Green Line soaked up much of the existing 4,238 trips that aimed at speed DT-DT.

All of which is to say, yeah... what's the future of the 16.

[twincitizen]

Lowered frequency, I'd guess. It's currently running on 20-minute headways from 6am to 10pm, and on 30-minute headways outside of that. It has 20-minute headways on Saturdays and Sundays even! I could see it changing to 30 minutes all of the time, which will free up a good chunk of service to re-purpose elsewhere in the system. I don't think it will happen too soon though...they'll wait and see how it all plays out. If you're going to reduce service in a RCAP, that's a Title VI issue, and they're going to need solid data to justify the reduction. For example, how does the 16's frequency compare to other routes with similar ridership? I think a reduction to 30-minute headways is certainly justifiable, but not likely any lower than that.

On 20 minute headways, assuming an 80-minute round trip cycle (30 min each way + 10 min layover on each end), you need 4 buses/drivers to operate the route. With 30 minute headways you only need 3. With 40 minute headways, you only need 2. There's certainly savings to be had, but I think the savings would have to be put back into N-S connecting routes in this same area.

[kellonathan]

A new StarTribune column highlighting Green Line ridership numbers.

September ridership on the Green Line tops 1 million
http://www.startribune.com/local/blogs/279160901.html

[grant1simons2]

http://finance-commerce.com/2014/10/gre ... 6-winners/

16 winners of the Green Line challenge. I personally like the "Borrow the Internet" one!

[FISHMANPET]

Can anyone explain what the purpose of the complex intersection of the Green and Blue line is, operationaly? I've been on Blue train going north that got stuck in the middle track a couple of times, and I'm not sure why it exists at all. What is the operational purpose of such a weird intersection? What train movements are they hoping to make that they couldn't do with just simply merging the two tracks that requires a weird 3rd track?

The most obvious extra movement you could plan for, I would think, is a Green train going West that pulls into the intersection, and reverses direction to go south on Blue, and likewise a Blue train going North that stops and reverses to go East on Green (for special events at the TCF stadium or something) but as best as I can tell, in the current configuration, you can't use that middle track to go from Green West to Blue South (though you can use it for Blue North to Green East).

[go4guy]

Has anyone seen an empty train? Or a train with very few people on it? Maybe in St Paul or something? I ask, because reading thru the Strib comments, it would appear that nobody is riding the train. Yet just last week, I drove thru campus at 9:30 at night, and the train was packed. I can see why the numbers were so high.

[Tom H.]

I'm at Government Plaza right now, and the westbound tracks are completely backed up. I see at least 4 trains sitting at each block from Gov Plaza to at least Nicollet mall. Anybody know what's going on?

[Silophant]

From Metro Transit's Twitter:

Blue Line: minor delays are expected for the next hour due to a mechanical issue in downtown Minneapolis. Thank you for your patience.