urbanMSP

Minneapolis requires a special permit for buses on the parkways, I'm not sure about in St Paul

Ah, that makes sense.

It does?

Between EPD and Grand, Lexington gets over 20,000 ADT. It gets 13,500 ADT through the park. Any bucolic appeal to this "parkway" has long been destroyed. Those tens of thousands of private cars don't need a special permit, why should a bus?

Trucks over 9000 pounds are also prohibited: https://library.municode.com/mn/st._pau ... PAWHTRARPR

It does?

Between EPD and Grand, Lexington gets over 20,000 ADT. It gets 13,500 ADT through the park. Any bucolic appeal to this "parkway" has long been destroyed. Those tens of thousands of private cars don't need a special permit, why should a bus?

EPD? That’s a pretty obscure acronym. Took me a while to figure out what you meant.

I moved into that house eons ago, just as they were finishing up the original ‘traffic calming’ project. That was probably the first time I ever heard that phrase.

It was a beautiful project; today it looks nothing like its original grandeur. The fatal flaws included the 4-lane highway feel of it—despite the bricks, grasses, trees, sprinklers, & gateway signage—and the lack of parking, oddly enough, which made it feel even more highway like.

The Parkway part of it was the fear that it would become another Snelling Ave., with diesel buses & trucks belching smoke & noise. In those days, Mpls & St Paul were trying to mollify homeowners who might otherwise end up in the burbs, so they thought in those terms.

A significant problem with Lexington is that there's very little retail along it, except for just a few intersections with other major streets. That probably depresses the transit travel demand a lot.

I still really wish that Metro Transit could have picked a different vehicle type from the ones they use, and I complained to them when the service started, saying they were really terrible. The wheelchair lift and the fold-up seats all shake and rattle a lot, and it had been far worse just after the Green Line started because Lexington had long stretches of pavement that were very rough and in dire need of repair.

I've gained a relatively strong stomach over the years of riding the bus, but that really tested my tolerance levels.

Around that time, I had also taken some trips on some suburban MVTA buses of the same size that seemed much nicer -- particularly with low floors so that they didn't need the huge wheelchair lift and could get by with a simpler ramp instead. Granted, the roads were probably in better shape, but the ride just felt many times better than the vehicles used for the 83.

Also, I'm not entirely convinced that they needed these minibuses. The tight spot is just north of the intersection with Energy Park Drive/Front Avenue, where the rail bridge arches over the roadway. I think there's enough room under the bridge for a regular bus, though they'd have to be near the road centerline to fit. Taking an outer lane could result in a collision, since that got down to 9'4" for the right edge in the northbound direction. 40' buses seem to have roof heights in the range of about 9'3" to 11'1", depending on whether there's extra equipment up there or not (like batteries and electronics for hybrid buses). I think most 25-30' buses like the 87 on Cleveland/Raymond generally have roofs on the low end of that scale.

Of course, I think the city has restriped that bit of Lexington now to remove the extra northbound lane, so the clearance can now be considered up to 12'8". I suppose the road surface probably isn't flat there, which might reduce the effective clearance, but I'd still think there would leave close to a foot of wiggle room.

There's also another bridge a few blocks east of Lexington on Chatsworth Street that has a clearance of 14'3", without any arching going on to make things complicated. Going that way would have required an annoying jog in the route, but might have been worthwhile to get a r"egular" bus on the service.

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/03/1 ... X9DBOSK8FQ

• Quarterly review of bus routes that will include shifting to added service, rather than simply cutting non-efficient routes.

• Four staff members to clean trains throughout the weekday through peak hours, up from a single staffer.

• Improved parking access for the disabled at 15 transit centers and new concrete pads at 50 bus stops.

• An anti-harassment campaign to promote "respect, kindness and inclusion among our riders."

• Ongoing distribution of Section 8 vouchers to help homeless riders find permanent shelter.

• More on-call snow removal staff to improve bus and train access in the winter.

and more

I’d say a top priority should be to make NextTrip actually work. Fix the “real time” screens so that they use gps data instead of schedules.

So are they saying that homeless people will not be allowed to sleep on the train? Kicking them off solves nothing in the long term. Personally I don’t have a problem with homeless people sleeping on trains. I am a bit concerned about them sleeping in the seats designated for persons with disabilities.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I’d say a top priority should be to make NextTrip actually work. Fix the “real time” screens so that they use gps data instead of schedules.

I did not know that the screens did not use the information provided by the GPS. I just assumed they did use the GPS data.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I’d say a top priority should be to make NextTrip actually work. Fix the “real time” screens so that they use gps data instead of schedules.

Metro Transit is currently working on that as well.

They must use GPS data, or some non-schedule data, because I've certainly seen non-schedule data on the screens, and when texting NexTrip.

I think the issue was that while NexTrip was using GPS data to tell you that your bus was going to be late, it wasn't using predictive technology to tell you how much later it was going to get based on known conditions. In other words, even though the system knew that the bus before yours took 10 minutes longer than normal from point A to point B, it assumes that your bus would make it through that stretch in the normal amount of time.

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouv ... study-2019

I found this link on skyscrapercity. While about Vancouver, Minneapolis appears in all the various charts. While there is always room for improvement, it’s nice to see that we, comparatively, do fairly well for ourselves.

Route 62 service will be reduced in August according to this: https://metrocouncil.org/Council-Meetin ... pment.aspx

The extra service on Route 62 was funded by a CMAQ grant. Ridership must not have increased enough to justify keeping the service.

Whether or not ridership was high enough, what are the other options that the few riders who took this route will have?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The 3B provides additional service on Rice until Maryland. The added 62 service provided additional frequency a mile further north to Larpenteur on Weekdays, and two miles north to CR B on weekends.

3B service is every 30 mins on weekdays, and every 60 mins on weekends. 62 service before the CMAQ grant was every 30 mins weekdays and Saturdays, and every 60 mins on Sundays. The bulk of riders will have 4 trips per hour on Weekdays, 3 per hour on Saturdays, and 2 per hour on Sundays.

It looks like it's the 3A that offers the Rice-Maryland route, not the 3B.

Of course, using two routes to get to that frequency means that it's not always obvious that the frequency exist (you have to look at two timetables, and know that both of those routes and branches go where you're wanting to go.) It also often leads to non-even frequency spacing; instead of having the 4 frequencies roughly 15 minutes apart, the routes may have 2 frequencies within 5-10 minutes, with a 20-25 minute gap in service. Intentional scheduling may resolve some of that, but there may be competing interests for transfers or timing on other segments of the route that make it more difficult.

I can’t find the article, but I read that Tim Walz wants to open one bus line per year for the next 10 years due in part to raising the motor vehicle sales tax. A few of the lines include 169 BRT between Shakopee and Hopkins or Minneapolis, Red Line South extension, Orange Line south extension, Highway 36 BRT, and Anoka north BRT connecting north Anoka County with Northstar.

I can’t find the article, but I read that Tim Walz wants to open one bus line per year for the next 10 years due in part to raising the motor vehicle sales tax. A few of the lines include 169 BRT between Shakopee and Hopkins or Minneapolis, Red Line South extension, Orange Line south extension, Highway 36 BRT, and Anoka north BRT connecting north Anoka County with Northstar.

Check out this thread. It was discussed a while back.

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=217&start=240

Route 62 service will be reduced in August according to this: https://metrocouncil.org/Council-Meetin ... pment.aspx

Is there any more information available on this? I am curious what they'll do about the half hour service intervals they had to the County Rd B Park and Ride until midnight.