urbanMSP

With the LPA about to be made official, any thoughts on what color this should be assigned in the overall METRO system?

If it's rail it will be the green line. Of course it will be bus so it shouldn't be any color but maybe they will stop wasting good colors on expensive buses and call it the mauve line. Or the chartreuse or salmon line. Or they could just brand all of these as the "red line" - we've already lost that color so it could just be a brand name.

If this line gets a dedicated BRT guideway, I think the service is definitely deserving of its own color.

Has monkeyshit brown been used yet?

There are plenty of good colors left: Brown, Purple, Pink, Yellow (or Gold), Silver, etc.

I don't get this idea of "wasting" good colors. These lines aren't being assigned colors because of some Platonic ideal of what a METRO line should be, they're getting assigned colors because they're an easy mnemonic branding. Sure, there are a limited number of colors that you could choose, but who here honestly thinks we're going to have enough train lines to exhaust Blue, Green, Red, Orange, Purple, Pink, Brown, Yellow, and Silver before we want to look into new branding anyway?

I think the concept of "wasting" good colors refers to saving the primary colors (Blue, Green, Yellow) and the more commonly seen secondary colors (Green and Orange) for the more prominent and highly used portions of the METRO system - light rail lines. The color branding is meant to be simplistic and easy to understand in part for visitors specifically. I think it would strike a visitor as odd and somewhat confusing to be looking over the rail map for the region and see four lines: Blue, Green, Pink, and Brown. I think people would expect the rail lines to be the more prominent colors.

Right, but remember our light rail lines will stop at Blue & Green for the foreseeable future. I don't particularly think the Red Line "deserves" to be part of the METRO branding system either (based on poor ridership alone), but the idea that it is "wasting a color" is a stretch. There are no light rail lines on the actual drawing board beyond Bottineau right now. "Rush Line" to Maplewood Mall or WBL doesn't have the ridership for rail, and both Rush and Riverview are in the very earliest stages of planning. Riverview could possibly be rail. Gateway will be bus, as will just about any other proposal in the east metro. Hennepin County doesn't have any LRT on the drawing board after Bottineau, except for possibly Midtown. Saying that these highway/guideway BRT lines don't deserve colors is a valid argument...but saying that they are taking colors away from rail lines is simply not true, unless you're looking well beyond 2040. Far enough in the future it's not even worth worrying about.

We should be so lucky that in our lifetimes we need to worry about a major transit corridor being named the "Mauve Line" or the "Puce Line". It will be quite some time before we even need to worry about using up more obvious choices like purple, yellow or brown.

I just want to note that in my post above I accidentally listed green as being a primary color (in addition to a secondary color) instead of red. Not sure why I did that, but don't worry, I know the three primary colors.

You think in terms of rgb. It's OK.

“Lessons learned from the other corridors that are ahead of us that there are fewer challenges, fewer costs and better opportunity for economic development if these corridors follow the undeveloped areas,” said Lisa Weik, Gateway Corridor Commission Chair and Washington County Commissioner. “Otherwise we see the struggles with the Southwest Corridor where cities are so developed now.”

I don't even... *headdesk*

It is shocking these people have jobs planning transit.

Woodbury city planner commenting about this project in another article:
"We certainly believe that a feeder system is a critical portion.”
http://www.woodburybulletin.com/content ... city-place

The positive side is that even with the route running north of 94, it still comes relatively close to all of the major Woodbury destinations (Tamarack Village, the State Farm Bldg. "CityPlace" development, Cabela's, Walmart/Citywalk, etc.) without having to cause major traffic disruptions and high costs during construction. Feeder lines will also help solve that problem as mentioned above. I guess I can understand why they chose the alignment, considering they also need ample room to construct new park and rides. The main flaw in my opinion is the lack of a station serving the massive Woodbury Lakes shopping center. They could spend some extra money to build a station and ped. bridge over 94 to access the shopping center, which is both a large destination and a large employment center.

They will need ample room to construct park & rides because that will be the only way to attract riders....

Inwood Drive to State Farm: 17 minutes walking on stroads over a freeway interchange. http://goo.gl/maps/LbsXN

It seems a little short sighted to serve Lake Elmo as opposed to Woodbury. Who knows if the developments will actually occur considering how every store imaginable is already on the south side. I doubt that Lake Elmo is planning high density residential either.

I wonder how much of the LPA is dedicated ROW and how much is mixed traffic.

I guess it will be an interesting couple of weeks for this corridor.

The "serving Lake Elmo" part is intriguing, given that Lake Elmo has done all it could over the past 20+ years to limit development, especially denser development and "low income housing".

That Woodbury thinks they can't retrofit BRT into their more developed areas is troubling. Contrary to what they think, they have plenty of width to do so on the arterials. Just look at what Dakota County is doing along Cedar Ave in Apple Valley....very similar developmental situation to what exists in Woodbury.

The Lake Elmo alignment is insanity. I know many of you are critical of SW and Bottineau ending in cornfields but at least there are development plans for those places and they have the potential to be more urbanized. Lake Elmo fights tooth and nail to prevent development and only reluctantly agreed to develop the area running along 94. On this line you will LITERALLY be able to get off the bus and pick corn!
That said I come back to 'standards'. If we are going to spend resources in your community then the planning and development should be laid out in advance to accompany this, otherwise happy corn pick'in.

From a (semi-)objective perspective, this sounds terrible. From a somewhat selfish perspective, I'm happy about this if it forces them to add feeder lines. Especially if one of them runs down Radio at least as far as Valley Creek. That'd make visiting family somewhat more convenient.