F Line BRT (Central-University)

[LakeCharles]

Has Northstar helped or hurt the cause of transit in the Twin Cities? Has the Red Line helped or hurt the cause of transit in the Twin Cities? Are Anoka and Dakota Counties now stalwart transit supporters because of these investments in their communities?

Those two combined cost $445 million dollars. I don't think that investment made the GOP even a tiny bit more likely to support transit in Minneapolis.

[Trademark]

The transfer issue is extremely easy to solve, just inaugurate a Northtown to Downtown express service. It may already be justified.

Folks, I'm not saying that Anoka County shouldn't get transit. I'm not even saying it shouldn't get aBRT (I think a line on University Ave NE and Cleveland makes sense). But prioritizing Anoka County over a place with high ridership in the sixth aBRT line is a bit of a stretch. Metro Transit has already built an extremely expensive and poorly patronized commuter rail line that predominantly serves Anoka County.

I understand the geographic and political argument for spreading the wealth around. But that argument is weak! The single best way to justify future transit spending is to plan, build, and operate transit lines that are successful. If you can show that the money is being well spent, you will get more money. If you can show that the money is not being well spent, you will not.

Northstar is actually a good example of this. Has Northstar helped or hurt the cause of transit in the Twin Cities? Has the Red Line helped or hurt the cause of transit in the Twin Cities? Are Anoka and Dakota Counties now stalwart transit supporters because of these investments in their communities?

This doesn't mean that you cannot factor in a political argument. A lot of transit in St. Paul is justified on the grounds of east/west regional balance. But it's defensible, because despite being smaller than Minneapolis, St. Paul is still a place where high frequency, high capacity transit can be successful. I don’t mind letting political considerations affect the order of projects. But I don’t like letting political considerations affect the quality of projects. To take the point to an absurd end, it would be fine to look into BRT to Washington County and bump it up the priority chain. But would it make sense to build LRT from Stillwater to Afton because you want Washington County to support transit? Of course not.

All of these projects are trade-offs to some degree. There are always competing interests, and geography and politics are two of them. But let's compare like with like. These projects still need to stand on their own merits as transit projects, and I think a Central-Nicollet aBRT is far superior to a University-Central aBRT in terms of utility to riders and ridership overall, and that ought to outweigh how many legislative districts it touches.

I agree that soley appeasing legislative districts is stupid. But it is extremely disingenuous to compare this route to either Northstar or the Red Line. Route 10 has had established service for decades with quality ridership and a proper anchor in Northtown. This is not Northstar providing service to parking lots 5 times a day. Or the Red Line providing service to a majorly car centric area with an unproven route that doesn't connect to downtown. Once again forcing a same direction transfer. We know the problems of those lines. And it's not just the fact that they go to the suburbs. Both of those lines had no history prroven demand. This line does. As someone else said northtown is the stop with the greatest ridership. If it was just down to the fact that it had a transit station. Then why isn't columbia heights transit center the highest one. It is closer to downtown. People right now want to get to Northtown and the northern suburbs beyond and will continue to want to get there at higher numbers as gentrification and the suburbanization of industrial jobs continue.

Where there is already existing demand for transit in the suburbs we need to take advantage of it and grow it. Even if it means that it will be a bit of less ridership for a section. The costs of going up university are not extreme. It's not like we have to put rails in the ground. And making university even somewhat pedestrian friendly as all of these aBRT lines will be another added benefit.

Just putting an express downtown to northtown bus doesn't help things by itself. There is still plenty of ridership coming from the northside transferring on broadway or lowry on the 30 and 32. That goes up the 10 to northtown. And your forcing them once again to do a same direction transfer. This is the same thing that we talk about anytime a republican cries foul bout overall travel time of a route. It's not jus about the route from one end of the line to the other. It's about providing that quality service to all points in between which the F Line provides.

And if it's extended over south to Lake street it will also allow a greater number of people a one seat ride as a lot of the major destinations and transfers on the 18 come before Lake street.

Last thing. On your point that we can wait to do a line til University/Cleveland because we need to prioritize high ridership with the 6th aBRT route. I think that with the success of the other aBRT routes. We have wiggle room. This isn't like commuter rail where one bad route dooms it for a generation here. We have multiple successes already. And also when would a University/Cleveland actually get built. Probably not within the next 10 lines. For sure not before the current ones, then a route on Grand, the 4, probably another route on the east side, the 22, Lowry, maybe even the 724 as an extension of the C Line. That's just off the top of my head. All the while you've majorly cut service to Northtown

[Hero]

Fridley has a population density of 2,735/sq mi while Wittier neighborhood has a population density of 17,000/sq mi. why not build transit where the people are? Not to mention University is about as pedestrian friendly as Cedar is in Apple Valley.

[Trademark]

Fridley has a population density of 2,735/sq mi while Wittier neighborhood has a population density of 17,000/sq mi. why not build transit where the people are? Not to mention University is about as pedestrian friendly as Cedar is in Apple Valley.

Agreed this is why we should extend the F Line to Lake street. But also Nicollet avenue will get it's BRT line. If we stop the F Line in columbia heights the frequency of the northtown bus will drop greatly. And force people to transfer. Already the frequency of the 18 bus on nicollet is one of the best in the city. I do think it could get better but transit on the southside is already in a great place compared to the rest of the metro.

[alexschief]

I agree that soley appeasing legislative districts is stupid. But it is extremely disingenuous to compare this route to either Northstar or the Red Line.

I'm not comparing the F Line to the Northstar of the Red Line, I'm comparing the argument for that northern section to the arguments that justified both of those routes. Obviously taken in a vacuum, the F Line's northern section would be better relative to both of those duds, but that's faint praise. That fact alone does not make the politics-over-quality argument any stronger.

The argument you need to make is that the northern segment of the F Line is at least closely comparable to the Nicollet corridor to allow political considerations to be the deciding factor. I don't think it's even close. Just to make the point, I've pulled up the ridership data from 2017 (just because I have that year handy). I count just over 1,000 rides from that five mile northern section. On Nicollet, from 22nd to 28th alone, a distance of less than a mile without any transfer stations, I count about 1,600 riders. There would be an enormous gain in ridership if the five mile University NE segment of the F Line were traded for five miles of Nicollet down to Richfield, it's not debatable.

In my ideal world, Northtown continues to boast good local and express service, but it doesn't get an aBRT connection until later.

[EOst]

While it's no way to plan/build a transit system, there is absolutely a political element of "geographic parity" or whatever you want to call it, that is going to be expected by suburban legislators and the city/county officials that lobby them.

Note too that the $25M in existing federal funding is from the TAB, which is made up of those very same city/county officials. This is a new allocation from the Regional Solicitation to create, for the first time, a dedicated funding stream for these ABRT lines.

[Trademark]

I agree that soley appeasing legislative districts is stupid. But it is extremely disingenuous to compare this route to either Northstar or the Red Line.

I'm not comparing the F Line to the Northstar of the Red Line, I'm comparing the argument for that northern section to the arguments that justified both of those routes. Obviously taken in a vacuum, the F Line's northern section would be better relative to both of those duds, but that's faint praise. That fact alone does not make the politics-over-quality argument any stronger.

The argument you need to make is that the northern segment of the F Line is at least closely comparable to the Nicollet corridor to allow political considerations to be the deciding factor. I don't think it's even close. Just to make the point, I've pulled up the ridership data from 2017 (just because I have that year handy). I count just over 1,000 rides from that five mile northern section. On Nicollet, from 22nd to 28th alone, a distance of less than a mile without any transfer stations, I count about 1,600 riders. There would be an enormous gain in ridership if the five mile University NE segment of the F Line were traded for five miles of Nicollet down to Richfield, it's not debatable.

In my ideal world, Northtown continues to boast good local and express service, but it doesn't get an aBRT connection until later.

I get what you mean but also the northern section of the 10 isn't the only thing that we must compare. It will also be the southern section of the 18 and places like richfield and bloomington that will also miss out if Nicollet doesn't get a seperate aBRT line. It's a near guarantee that Nicollet will have an aBRT line in the near future. Especially now that streetcar funds will be used for aBRT. And while there's no doubt that whittier is a dense part of the line which is why we should extend the F Line to Lake street. I don't believe that we should leave those areas out of quality service.

Once aBRT is applied. The local routes will have their frequency cut. If the F Line ends at columbia heights. It will be highly unlikely that there will be better then 30 minute service to Northtown.

[MNdible]

Extending to Lake Street also has a couple of additional benefits:

1. The ability to use the existing Nicollet Ave bus garage for layovers, etc. (if not for storage/maintenance -- I understand it's full right now).
2. The potential to start leveraging the street car funds for public improvements associated with reopening Nicollet sooner rather than later. I recall that some of the land was purchased using funding from this pot.

[alexschief]

I agree that soley appeasing legislative districts is stupid. But it is extremely disingenuous to compare this route to either Northstar or the Red Line.

I'm not comparing the F Line to the Northstar of the Red Line, I'm comparing the argument for that northern section to the arguments that justified both of those routes. Obviously taken in a vacuum, the F Line's northern section would be better relative to both of those duds, but that's faint praise. That fact alone does not make the politics-over-quality argument any stronger.

The argument you need to make is that the northern segment of the F Line is at least closely comparable to the Nicollet corridor to allow political considerations to be the deciding factor. I don't think it's even close. Just to make the point, I've pulled up the ridership data from 2017 (just because I have that year handy). I count just over 1,000 rides from that five mile northern section. On Nicollet, from 22nd to 28th alone, a distance of less than a mile without any transfer stations, I count about 1,600 riders. There would be an enormous gain in ridership if the five mile University NE segment of the F Line were traded for five miles of Nicollet down to Richfield, it's not debatable.

In my ideal world, Northtown continues to boast good local and express service, but it doesn't get an aBRT connection until later.

I get what you mean but also the northern section of the 10 isn't the only thing that we must compare. It will also be the southern section of the 18 and places like richfield and bloomington that will also miss out if Nicollet doesn't get a seperate aBRT line. It's a near guarantee that Nicollet will have an aBRT line in the near future. Especially now that streetcar funds will be used for aBRT. And while there's no doubt that whittier is a dense part of the line which is why we should extend the F Line to Lake street. I don't believe that we should leave those areas out of quality service.

Once aBRT is applied. The local routes will have their frequency cut. If the F Line ends at columbia heights. It will be highly unlikely that there will be better then 30 minute service to Northtown.

I want to almost fully replace the 18 with the F Line.

That's the entire reason why I want to get rid of the northern section of the F Line. It would be entirely possible to extend the proposed F Line route to Lake Street or a bit further and be done with it. But that would leave a ton of Nicollet ridership to the south of Lake on the table. It doesn't make sense to just end a route in the middle of the highest density ridership area, you want to shoot through it cleanly.

But then, it would not be possible to tack the 18 route onto the proposed F Line route, because the resulting route down to the South Bloomington Transit Center would be over 22 miles. Operationally, that's just too long. That's why I want to chop off the northern segment of the proposed line and replace it with Nicollet, because then you've got something of a functional distance and a coherent concept overall.

There's room for an ugly compromise here. Keep the current F Line route, and then just tack on the highest density portions of Nicollet and end it at the 66th Street Station on the METRO Orange Line. That leaves you with a route that's pushing it in terms of length (around 19 miles) and is a bit awkward in that it forces you to leave rump 10 and 18 lines. But it's also better than what's currently proposed.

However, I think the approach I've advocated is the simplest.

[Trademark]

I'm not comparing the F Line to the Northstar of the Red Line, I'm comparing the argument for that northern section to the arguments that justified both of those routes. Obviously taken in a vacuum, the F Line's northern section would be better relative to both of those duds, but that's faint praise. That fact alone does not make the politics-over-quality argument any stronger.

The argument you need to make is that the northern segment of the F Line is at least closely comparable to the Nicollet corridor to allow political considerations to be the deciding factor. I don't think it's even close. Just to make the point, I've pulled up the ridership data from 2017 (just because I have that year handy). I count just over 1,000 rides from that five mile northern section. On Nicollet, from 22nd to 28th alone, a distance of less than a mile without any transfer stations, I count about 1,600 riders. There would be an enormous gain in ridership if the five mile University NE segment of the F Line were traded for five miles of Nicollet down to Richfield, it's not debatable.

In my ideal world, Northtown continues to boast good local and express service, but it doesn't get an aBRT connection until later.

I get what you mean but also the northern section of the 10 isn't the only thing that we must compare. It will also be the southern section of the 18 and places like richfield and bloomington that will also miss out if Nicollet doesn't get a seperate aBRT line. It's a near guarantee that Nicollet will have an aBRT line in the near future. Especially now that streetcar funds will be used for aBRT. And while there's no doubt that whittier is a dense part of the line which is why we should extend the F Line to Lake street. I don't believe that we should leave those areas out of quality service.

Once aBRT is applied. The local routes will have their frequency cut. If the F Line ends at columbia heights. It will be highly unlikely that there will be better then 30 minute service to Northtown.

I want to almost fully replace the 18 with the F Line.

That's the entire reason why I want to get rid of the northern section of the F Line. It would be entirely possible to extend the proposed F Line route to Lake Street or a bit further and be done with it. But that would leave a ton of Nicollet ridership to the south of Lake on the table. It doesn't make sense to just end a route in the middle of the highest density ridership area, you want to shoot through it cleanly.

But then, it would not be possible to tack the 18 route onto the proposed F Line route, because the resulting route down to the South Bloomington Transit Center would be over 22 miles. Operationally, that's just too long. That's why I want to chop off the northern segment of the proposed line and replace it with Nicollet, because then you've got something of a functional distance and a coherent concept overall.

There's room for an ugly compromise here. Keep the current F Line route, and then just tack on the highest density portions of Nicollet and end it at the 66th Street Station on the METRO Orange Line. That leaves you with a route that's pushing it in terms of length (around 19 miles) and is a bit awkward in that it forces you to leave rump 10 and 18 lines. But it's also better than what's currently proposed.

However, I think the approach I've advocated is the simplest.

Okay I understand your approach. I just disagree that having two routes with one mainly north of the city and one mainly south of the city is necessarily problematic. I think doubling up the frequency in the highest ridership segment by having the F Line run to Lake and the Nicollet Line running to Lowry can functionally achieve many of the same objectives but still maintaining both ends of the routes while also guaranteeing 5 minute frequencies in one of the crucial core areas of our network.

But I also get your idea of using a University aBRT to supplement that lost route north of columbia heights. I jus think that the likelihood of a route like that being implemented is extremely low and to cut the northern half and hope another route can take its place I jus don't think is a good decision.

I don't think the F Line is perfect. Personally I think this would have been a very strong candidate for light rail from Columbia Heights to Lake street (using 394 to lyndale or hennepin to connect to uptown optimally). But it's the world we're in.

I enjoy the debate tho and the discussion. I wish more people cared as passionately as you do about improving transit in this city. (Especially people in the state legislature).

[Trademark]

Extending to Lake Street also has a couple of additional benefits:

1. The ability to use the existing Nicollet Ave bus garage for layovers, etc. (if not for storage/maintenance -- I understand it's full right now).
2. The potential to start leveraging the street car funds for public improvements associated with reopening Nicollet sooner rather than later. I recall that some of the land was purchased using funding from this pot.

Are there driver facilities and breakrooms for layovers located in the Lake Street BRT station? Otherwise I agree Nicollet garage would be a great resource to use too. I jus think connecting directly with the BRT eliminating walking would make Orange Line to Whittier/Stevens Square transfers easier. Especially for southbound lake street to Orange Line transfers having to walk from Blaisdell or post K-Mart removal eliminating the 2 block walk. I know it's not insanely long but eliminating walking distance between transfers is a major benefit to increase network utility.

[alexschief]

The F Line planning process emerged into the open today. On the project website, you can now view the Draft Corridor Plan and comment.

I posted the full comment on Twitter, but I still strongly believe (see previous posts in this thread for an extended argument) that this project would be strengthened if the route were extended onto Nicollet Avenue. The corridor is unquestionably one of the strongest candidate for aBRT service and would be a natural extension of the currently-planned F Line route. The issue that prevented it from making the priority list in late 2020/early 2021 (the zombie streetcar project) has been turned from a detriment into a strength thanks to the Minnesota Legislature allowing money raised by the streetcar taxing district to go to an aBRT project instead.

If the F Line were extended onto Nicollet, it would bring aBRT service to this corridor 6-10 years before it would arrive as a standalone service. Further, it would be even more useful than a standalone service because it would provide access to more destinations without a transfer by through-running downtown.

In past projects (B Line eliminating the jog to University, E Line extended to Westgate, Rice and Robert combined into the G Line) Metro Transit has been willing to break with the pattern set by predecessor routes and I think this is a slam dunk case for them to do it again. If you agree with me, please take the survey and say so in a general comment. I'd also urge you to contact your state senator and representative if you live along either Central or Nicollet and tell them that you want to see this combined aBRT service.

[thespeedmccool]

Two things:

1. I think Metro Transit must have already throught about an extension to Lake Street. My guess is that they don't think Minneapolis will have Nicollet reopened in time to coincide with this. That shouldn't prevent them from planning it though.
2. It seems like Metro Transit is optimistic that MNDOT is going to be cooperative with this. I tend to agree, considering their current posture toward the Central/University planning they've been doing. Expect that to change if Scott Jensen wins this year.

Otherwise, looks generally non-controversial to me, but I also don't have NIMBY brain. Wonder if there's any opportunity with MNDOT for transit advantage here.

[Silophant]

I don't expect this to get any traction, Metro Transit seems attached to the "crawling at 10mph even when it's not detoured for farmers markets and other events" Nicollet Transit Mall experience, but I left a comment requesting that they look at crossing downtown on Marq2, using the Orange Line BRT stations. It's absurd to be building a third parallel BRT corridor between Marquette and Hennepin, which aren't even half a mile apart at 12th, much less up at Washington.

[daveybabymsp]

I don't expect this to get any traction, Metro Transit seems attached to the "crawling at 10mph even when it's not detoured for farmers markets and other events" Nicollet Transit Mall experience, but I left a comment requesting that they look at crossing downtown on Marq2, using the Orange Line BRT stations. It's absurd to be building a third parallel BRT corridor between Marquette and Hennepin, which aren't even half a mile apart at 12th, much less up at Washington.

Wait it’s planned to use Nicollet Mall downtown?? Yeesh why even call it rapid at this point? I absolutely hate riding the bus down Nicollet mall it makes me want to scream. Especially when Marquette is right there…

[alexschief]

I don't expect this to get any traction, Metro Transit seems attached to the "crawling at 10mph even when it's not detoured for farmers markets and other events" Nicollet Transit Mall experience, but I left a comment requesting that they look at crossing downtown on Marq2, using the Orange Line BRT stations. It's absurd to be building a third parallel BRT corridor between Marquette and Hennepin, which aren't even half a mile apart at 12th, much less up at Washington.

I'm sort of persuadable either way on this. But I'm not sure I like 2nd/Marq. From a legibility perspective (especially if they did extend it down Nicollet), I think there are some advantages to sending suburban express buses down 2nd/Marq, while urban local buses go down either Nicollet or Hennepin. However the challenge is that when you look at the routes that go NE/SW through downtown, it makes sense to send virtually all of them down Hennepin (any bus on the Lyndale corridor, Hennepin corridor, Excelsior corridor, Minnetonka corridor) and just a couple down Nicollet (any bus on Nicollet or any bus with a weird 35W-hugging route like the #11, which I would significantly change if I could).

So maybe you could instead send the Nicollet and Central corridor buses down the Hennepin Bridge and Hennepin Ave instead, while turning Nicollet Mall into a purely pedestrian space, current design notwithstanding. That would be nice in theory, but Hennepin probably can't graciously handle that volume of buses without bus lanes, and even then it may not be a good fit. Metro Transit has limped along for many years now with all of these buses on one and then the other due to reconstruction, but it has led to a lot of congestion. Maybe the legibility benefits and livability benefits are good enough (and there's not some catch where you have to pay the feds a lot of transit money back or something) are worth the congestion trade off to just make Hennepin the local bus corridor and Nicollet the walkable corridor. I'd certainly look into it, but I wouldn't make predictions either way.

At any rate, one benefit of combining the Nicollet and Central corridors, is exactly this; you'd reduce bus congestion by eliminating redundancy. Right now, both buses are running every 15 minutes, with a combined eight buses every hour in one direction on Nicollet Mall, a combined aBRT route at 10 minute headways would have just six buses every hour in one direction along that congested overlap.

[BoredAgain]

I know it will be decades, but I guess it's time to start lobbying for a bus tunnel under nicollet the next time it gets refreshed.

[Trademark]

I don't expect this to get any traction, Metro Transit seems attached to the "crawling at 10mph even when it's not detoured for farmers markets and other events" Nicollet Transit Mall experience, but I left a comment requesting that they look at crossing downtown on Marq2, using the Orange Line BRT stations. It's absurd to be building a third parallel BRT corridor between Marquette and Hennepin, which aren't even half a mile apart at 12th, much less up at Washington.

I'm sort of persuadable either way on this. But I'm not sure I like 2nd/Marq. From a legibility perspective (especially if they did extend it down Nicollet), I think there are some advantages to sending suburban express buses down 2nd/Marq, while urban local buses go down either Nicollet or Hennepin. However the challenge is that when you look at the routes that go NE/SW through downtown, it makes sense to send virtually all of them down Hennepin (any bus on the Lyndale corridor, Hennepin corridor, Excelsior corridor, Minnetonka corridor) and just a couple down Nicollet (any bus on Nicollet or any bus with a weird 35W-hugging route like the #11, which I would significantly change if I could).

So maybe you could instead send the Nicollet and Central corridor buses down the Hennepin Bridge and Hennepin Ave instead, while turning Nicollet Mall into a purely pedestrian space, current design notwithstanding. That would be nice in theory, but Hennepin probably can't graciously handle that volume of buses without bus lanes, and even then it may not be a good fit. Metro Transit has limped along for many years now with all of these buses on one and then the other due to reconstruction, but it has led to a lot of congestion. Maybe the legibility benefits and livability benefits are good enough (and there's not some catch where you have to pay the feds a lot of transit money back or something) are worth the congestion trade off to just make Hennepin the local bus corridor and Nicollet the walkable corridor. I'd certainly look into it, but I wouldn't make predictions either way.

At any rate, one benefit of combining the Nicollet and Central corridors, is exactly this; you'd reduce bus congestion by eliminating redundancy. Right now, both buses are running every 15 minutes, with a combined eight buses every hour in one direction on Nicollet Mall, a combined aBRT route at 10 minute headways would have just six buses every hour in one direction along that congested overlap.

The problem for Nicollet Mall is not the amount of buses but rather the amount of traffic lights and the lack of any type of signal priority. 20 buses an hour. (6 each for central and Nicollet bet and 4 each for the 11 and 17) is not too much for a street like Nicollet to handle.

[daveybabymsp]

Metro Transit & the city should install brt stations on Nicollet mall, then remove all other stops. Make every bus on Nicollet “rapid”. Add signal priority on top of that. Would be such an improvement for downtown transit

[Trademark]

Metro Transit & the city should install brt stations on Nicollet mall, then remove all other stops. Make every bus on Nicollet “rapid”. Add signal priority on top of that. Would be such an improvement for downtown transit

If this is done then the Orange Line should move on to Nicollet also.