Public Transit News / Current Events (MN only)

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Bakken2016
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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby Bakken2016 » October 2nd, 2018, 9:56 am

Does anyone know anything on the Park and Ride at I94 and Manning in Lake Elmo?

Tcmetro
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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby Tcmetro » October 2nd, 2018, 10:04 am


Bakken2016
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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby Bakken2016 » October 4th, 2018, 7:42 am


Silophant
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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby Silophant » October 4th, 2018, 9:30 am

Good. That was perplexing me a couple months ago, when they announced a partnership with Xcel to move towards electrification, then immediately announced an order for not-electric buses.

It strikes me that that's a small silver lining with the D Line delay - by the time we get around to ordering buses for it, MT will have a year or so of real-world performance data from the C Line electric buses. Maybe we can get the full order electric, instead of half and half.
Joey Senkyr
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Bakken2016
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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby Bakken2016 » October 5th, 2018, 12:20 pm

Highlights on December Service Cuts from Transportation Committee Met Council Meeting:

• Eliminate Route 16 west of Fairview
• Eliminate Route 84 north of Midway Parkway
• Eliminate Route 20
• Route 67: span reduction & peak frequency reduction
• Route 70: Eliminate midday service west of downtown
St. Paul
• Routes 263 and 270: restructure
• 35W South corridor: Eliminate trips for 6 am work start
on most routes

Silophant
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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby Silophant » October 5th, 2018, 12:29 pm

I feel like the 16 and the 84 should have been the first to go when they started having driver shortages, and even now, they should just bite the bullet and kill the routes entirely.
Joey Senkyr
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Bakken2016
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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby Bakken2016 » October 5th, 2018, 1:16 pm

I feel like the 16 and the 84 should have been the first to go when they started having driver shortages, and even now, they should just bite the bullet and kill the routes entirely.
While that seems ok, just watch how many people would complain when you loose local stops. The 16 could probably leave and not phase anyone, but the 84 serves Highland and that would cut off service to an entire area.

kellonathan
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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby kellonathan » October 5th, 2018, 2:07 pm

Starting October 13, several stops will be eliminated to speed up route #2. Glad to see some 1/4mi stop spacing in action. We should do this system-wide.

https://www.metrotransit.org/route-2
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Personal thoughts and personal opinion only. May include incomplete information.

DanPatchToget
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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby DanPatchToget » October 5th, 2018, 2:25 pm

Starting October 13, several stops will be eliminated to speed up route #2. Glad to see some 1/4mi stop spacing in action. We should do this system-wide.

https://www.metrotransit.org/route-2
*Except in the suburbs. We need all the bus stops we can get.

EOst
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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby EOst » October 5th, 2018, 10:48 pm

• Route 70: Eliminate midday service west of downtown St. Paul
Ouch. No midday service at all on St. Clair? It's nearly a full mile between Randolph and Grand.

Tcmetro
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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby Tcmetro » October 6th, 2018, 12:28 pm

Seems like the Transportation Committee has pulled the December service change presentation from Monday's meeting agenda.

Interestingly, they are voting to proceed with an unsolicited proposal from Metropolitan Transportation Network, Inc (a school bus operator) to operate four Metro Transit routes for three years. The pulled powerpoint identifies the routes to be contracted as #16, #84, #118, and #762.

The route changes from the removed proposal include:

Frequency: 21 (daily), 46 (weekend), 134, 270, 768, 850, 854, 865
Span: 16, 70W (weekday), 67 (weekend), 71 (Sunday), 133, 135, 146, 156, 552, 553, 554, 578, 668, 755, 763
Frequency and Span: 25 (weekday), 67 (weekday), 761, 766
Eliminate: 20, 16 west of Fairview, 84 north of Midway Pkwy

Supposedly these changes will reduce peak requirements by 12 buses, but a lot of the off-peak proposals seem motivated by falling ridership.

twincitizen
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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby twincitizen » October 6th, 2018, 4:21 pm

A hybrid solution to save Route 70 service - eliminate the 84 entirely, and put those service hours into keeping the Route 70 running all day. Instead of terminating at Ford/Cleveland, the Route 70 would absorb that tail end of Route 84 that serves St. Paul Ave down to the Shepard/Davern area (i.e. the only portion of the 84 that is not served by the A Line)

P.S. Also, put the 70 on Cleveland Ave already, concentrating frequency there, instead of running infrequent service on Cretin, literally just 2 blocks from Cleveland.

Scott Wood
Metrodome
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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby Scott Wood » October 6th, 2018, 6:06 pm

A hybrid solution to save Route 70 service - eliminate the 84 entirely, and put those service hours into keeping the Route 70 running all day. Instead of terminating at Ford/Cleveland, the Route 70 would absorb that tail end of Route 84 that serves St. Paul Ave down to the Shepard/Davern area (i.e. the only portion of the 84 that is not served by the A Line)

P.S. Also, put the 70 on Cleveland Ave already, concentrating frequency there, instead of running infrequent service on Cretin, literally just 2 blocks from Cleveland.
It seems like 87 would be a more natural route to extend to cover the southern part of 84, in terms of continuing to serve a roughly similar travel direction (it'd also provide a much better span/frequency than the 70, though of course that also makes it more expensive to extend without reducing frequency via branching). It'd be nice to at least keep the 70 around long enough to see if the new Snelling/St Clair apartments have an impact on ridership, though. Not that I expect a single apartment building to sustain the line, but if ridership is already on the edge maybe it could provide the boost needed to avoid the axe.

mamundsen
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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby mamundsen » October 7th, 2018, 6:33 am

Highlights on December Service Cuts from Transportation Committee Met Council Meeting:

• Routes 263 and 270: restructure
Where can I find the details on this restructure? There was another post that said it’s a frequency change. Which is it? The 270 is very full with 20 standing at times. I’d hate to see it moved to less frequent.

jebr
Nicollet Mall
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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby jebr » October 8th, 2018, 2:03 pm

The 84 truncation is especially interesting to me. Midway Parkway seems like a pretty arbitrary ending point (it does serve the Fairgrounds, except southbound during the State Fair when that stop is closed,) but I'm not aware of any year-round bathroom access there for drivers, and there's not any shopping center or other obvious retail district that makes it a clear destination for day-to-day use. I'd imagine most people going to the fairgrounds, even during non-State Fair times, would use the A Line unless they're extremely familiar with the transit system. I'm guessing it's the stop that makes it short enough to eliminate a bus from the rotation on this route.

That said, there's very few stops that are being eliminated (excluding a couple stops where the A Line and 84 stop at different locations at the same intersection.) From my view, the stops eliminated are:
  • Snelling/Hoyt (NB only, SB has A Line stop there.)
  • Snelling/Roselawn
  • Snelling/Har Mar Access Road (SB only, NB is consolidated into the A Line stop)
  • Snelling Ave Exit/Co Rd B2 (NB only, SB does not stop at the ramp onto Snelling Ave.)
  • Rosedale Big Bowl stop (SB only, NB does not stop at Big Bowl.)
Of these, the Snelling/Roselawn one seems the most critical loss. It's a half-mile from an A Line stop, and there's no other local buses closer in. Perhaps an infill station here is needed for the A Line; it was on one of the initial plans but was dropped from the final plan as a station to be built for launch day of the A Line. Snelling/B2 is an oddball one; it's relatively close as the crow flies to Rosedale, but the walking situation here is...not good at all, especially from B2 into the shopping center. Better ped access here (ideally a stairs/ramp up from B2 to the shopping center instead of having to walk all the way to the mall entrance road) would help a lot! The 65 does still serve this stop, though transferring from the A Line NB to the 65 NB requires a short walk from the mid-block Har Mar stop to the NE corner of Snelling/Co Rd. B.

Ideally, I'd rather have the 84 continue northbound into Roseville a bit more to better utilize the long layover time at Rosedale (Co. Rd. C would be convenient to access some of the shops there, and perhaps a Lydia stop could be added to increase frequency near UNW.) There was some talk in the A Line extension study of extending the 84 as a test run, though the driver shortage makes that difficult.

The 16 route shortening, while a bit disappointing to me personally (there's times where it's convenient to be able to use it to go west into Minneapolis instead of walking to Snelling/University from my apartment) makes sense as a cut. It's rare that I'll see more than one other person on the bus with me, and multiple times I've been the only person (apart from the driver) on the bus. With limited resources, it makes sense to use those resources elsewhere.

Anondson
IDS Center
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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby Anondson » October 14th, 2018, 4:57 pm

The retooling of the 2 bus in the news.

http://www.startribune.com/the-drive-me ... 497530141/

Silophant
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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby Silophant » October 16th, 2018, 8:35 am

CM Fletcher told the DMNA annual meeting last night that he's been lobbying Metro Transit (and thinks he's close to succeeding) to reroute the 7 through downtown so it goes straight down Washington from Seven Corners to the North Loop, instead of swinging down to 4th for no discernable reason.
Joey Senkyr
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MNdible
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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby MNdible » October 16th, 2018, 8:51 am

No discernable reason, except for that it better serves the downtown core where lots of riders want to go.

xandrex
Wells Fargo Center
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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby xandrex » October 16th, 2018, 10:25 am

Yeah, the 7 has kind of a wacky route, but it sure seems like it's more useful for folks who need access to the core of downtown than just running on Washington, especially when the part it skips is the deadest stretch on the entire street.

DanPatchToget
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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby DanPatchToget » October 16th, 2018, 10:47 am

Where are more people traveling on this bus: through downtown, or into downtown? That should give you the answer as to whether it should be a quicker trip on Washington as a sort-of downtown bypass, or making a jaunt into the core.


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