Public Transit News / Current Events (MN only)

[Tcmetro]

A lot of the bus stops on University have been converted to the new design as well. I imagine they are trying to get new riders to use the stop numbers for the NexTrip website, as that is the only new functionality of the new bus stop signs.

[mulad]

Yeah, I really wish they'd include the route number(s) and some other info: direction, endpoint/major destinations, frequency of service, start/end of service, and working up to full schedules and maps at bigger stops (though that stuff is fine to place inside shelters).

[talindsay]

I like the stop number as supplementary information, but a lot of their target audience may not have smart phones. They really need to have *real* information at the bus stops. A lot of cities use cylinders on the post to include all sorts of relevant information. More cost, sure, but it's still available if your battery dies.

[Tcmetro]

LA, Houston, NY, SF, Seattle have route numbers and destinations at the minimum. Chicago goes all out, with maps, service hours, and a note about frequency if buses run less than every 20 minutes.

[PhilmerPhil]

Any news on Nextrip/real time arrival signage for both LRT lines? Will it be turned on in time for the Green Line opening?
http://www.metrotransit.org/good-questi ... ve-nextrip

[exiled_antipodean]

Our bus stops are truly embarrassing for visitors, and appalling for anyone who uses MetroTransit. For the price of a couple of park and ride spots they could have timetables at every bus-stop. But they don't. Some parts of MetroTransit seem well run, whoever does their signage and communication is not even phoning it in.

[LRV Op Dude]

Any news on Nextrip/real time arrival signage for both LRT lines? Will it be turned on in time for the Green Line opening?
http://www.metrotransit.org/good-questi ... ve-nextrip

It may happen when GREEN Line starts. I noticed that when I am coming to the the station there is a announcement saying that the train is not in service. It will also say the track number.

[talindsay]

Our bus stops are truly embarrassing for visitors, and appalling for anyone who uses MetroTransit. For the price of a couple of park and ride spots they could have timetables at every bus-stop. But they don't. Some parts of MetroTransit seem well run, whoever does their signage and communication is not even phoning it in.

Absolutely agree. There are a lot of great things they could do (district signs directing walkers to the stations, for example) but before we can get to any of that they need to start providing the basics.

[mamundsen]

I saw some of the new signs tonight. I pointed it out to my wife. She pointed out that it doesn't say "Bus Stop" anymore. If you weren't aware...

[mulad]

Metro Transit's new website has caused some old URLs to go missing again, so some of my old shortcuts don't really work. The upside is that they simplified the URLs for schedules, so you can just type in "metrotransit.org/route/888" to get schedules for Northstar, for instance. Previously, that was something like "metrotransit.org/Schedules/WebSchedules.aspx?route=888" which wasn't easy to remember. It looks like the old version still redirects to the new URL format, though I know I've found a few things in my browsing history that didn't work right.

[mulad]

Kind of related to talk of slow/delayed transit, here's a pretty amazing set of visualizations of data from the Boston area: http://mbtaviz.github.io/

[Tcmetro]

With the recent service changes, a lot of the contracted bus lines switched operators:

Routes 62, 262, and 275 went from Lorenz to Metro Transit.
Routes 27 and 542 went from Metro Transit to First Transit.
Routes 351, 721, 722, and 723 went from First Transit to Metro Transit.
Routes 32, 80, and 705 went from Lorenz to First Transit.

This pretty much leaves First Transit as the sole operator of the contracted bus routes, save for the Anoka County lines (801, 805, 831) that are operated by MV Transportation.

[mulad]

I'm happy to discover that route 83 has roughly 1/4-mile stop spacing along its route, particularly along Lexington and Hamline where it doesn't share stops with any other buses: http://www.metrotransit.org/imap/map.aspx?route=83

[twincitizen]

^That is incredible. I'll have to check in with my Metro Transit employee friends to see how that happened. Since they were all newly placed stops, perhaps it was just easier for Metro Transit politically (small "p"), since they had to deal with fewer angry property owners who would now have bus stops adjacent to their yards.

I wonder if they'll get any requests to add more stops... I'm guessing not. When it comes to transit, both adding and subtracting stops is like pulling teeth. Any guesses on how long the southern portion of the route stays on 35E, before getting enough requests to put in on Lexington as originally planned? Maybe the speed of the freeway alignment actually draws more riders than that isolated, low density stretch of Lexington would, route legibility be damned.

I've been thinking more about approaching Metro Transit with my idea of doing 1/4-mile stops as a pilot project on one or two routes...and only for the most urban portions of the route where stops are requested every single block, all damn day long. It doesn't much matter if stops are placed every block in outlying residential areas, if the bus only has to stop every 1/2-mile to 1-mile. Functionally, for the south Mpls, the area between Lake Street and downtown is what should be recalibrated to 1/4-mile spacing on every route, eventually with the full amenity stop/shelter/heat/info package.

[mulad]

I'm curious if the I-35E routing is just temporary too -- there's currently construction on Lexington south of Randolph.

[twincitizen]

Nope, it's not temporary. The earlier proposed Lexington routing was scuttled by anti-transit residents on that stretch of Lexington. While it would make sense from a route legibility standpoint, that segment of Lexington is essentially a long strip of single-family homes, isolated by geography and lack of cross streets. The number of potential riders coming from that stretch has to be rather low. If the speed gained by running it on 35E means it takes one less bus to operate the route, that is probably a worthy trade-off. As I said above, the gained speed might actually attrach more potential riders than the skipped low-density part of Lexington eliminates. Then again, the route actually leaves Lexington and jogs west to Edgecumbe before taking Randolph to 35E, so I'm not sure if there's any meaningful time savings over just staying on Lexington. Certainly a perceived time difference for riders, if not actual.

[mulad]

Eh, the travel time difference is something on the order of 20 seconds going southbound, discounting lights and acceleration/deceleration (there aren't any lights or stops on Lexington between Randolph and West 7th) -- likely less going northbound because of the cloverleaf-style loop (though getting on the highway is a right turn rather than a left to go up Lexington). One of the drivers on the route tends to go pretty fast, leading to waits of 1-3 minutes at each of the time points, though the others seem to hit their times more precisely.

I do think having the stop at West 7th and Albion is nice, though -- direct transfer to the 54. Not the nicest area, but better than the next stop down the line by Mickey's.

[RailBaronYarr]

Uh, holy sh!t:
http://www.transitmix.net/map/641

[Tcmetro]

I've been slowly working on a network on that website. It's pretty awesome.

[mulad]

Hmm, the 84 isn't technically qualified as a Hi-Frequency route any longer, as the service drops to every 20 minutes after about 7:30 pm. Presumably the A Line will bump the effective frequency back up to better than every 15 minutes until 9 pm.