urbanMSP

Some construction updates based on what I've seen recently:
-the foundations for the following stations can be seen: Golden Triangle, Opus, Shady Oak, and Hopkins
-lot of electrical and utility lines can be seen where the EP Town Center and 21st Street stations will be
-the new freight rail alignment is complete between Belt Line Boulevard and Wooddale Avenue, and track has been laid between Wooddale Avenue and Blake Road
-railroad crossing panels for the light rail have been installed at 11th Avenue, the entrance to Hopkins Honda, 5th Avenue, and the entrance to Redstone Grill in Eden Prairie
-the Hopkins-Minnetonka viaduct is taking shape
-the viaduct over Prairie Center Drive looks almost done
-the trail bridge over Belt Line Boulevard looks at least half way done
-the trail tunnels under Blake Road and Wooddale Avenue look pretty much complete
-the new freight rail connection from the TC&W to the MN&S is very slowly taking shape

Anyone else find the location of City West Station odd? I biked over there yesterday and the only people I can see benefiting from this are park & riders and workers at Optum who can use the train for their commute (which is probably a small number of the overall workforce).

I realize it's too late to change the alignment, but I wanted to make a map of where I think City West Station should've been located. https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid= ... sp=sharing

Anyone else find the location of City West Station odd? I biked over there yesterday and the only people I can see benefiting from this are park & riders and workers at Optum who can use the train for their commute (which is probably a small number of the overall workforce).

I realize it's too late to change the alignment, but I wanted to make a map of where I think City West Station should've been located. https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid= ... sp=sharing

Yeah it's definitely the weakest of the "office park" stations, and that's saying something since none of them really have land use conducive to great ridership. I'm not sure even your suggested alignment makes things much better; the low-rise office parks and strip malls along Shady Oak aren't really going to generate trips, and I don't see Eden Prairie doing much better at TOD than Bloomington has with their many underused Blue Line stations. It feels like they decided that Optum was essentially the only meaningful trip generator in this segment, and then optimized for what would be fastest/easiest to build/least disruptive to cars--and to be fair, they're probably right about the first part.

The most baffling thing to me is that they didn't even bother to add a pedestrian bridge/tunnel across the highway to Yellow Cir Dr. Not that there's much on the other side, but still, there are some parcels that will be like 500 feet from the station as the crow flies, but over a mile walk to actually get there.

Anyone else find the location of City West Station odd? I biked over there yesterday and the only people I can see benefiting from this are park & riders and workers at Optum who can use the train for their commute (which is probably a small number of the overall workforce).

I realize it's too late to change the alignment, but I wanted to make a map of where I think City West Station should've been located. https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid= ... sp=sharing

Yeah it's definitely the weakest of the "office park" stations, and that's saying something since none of them really have land use conducive to great ridership. I'm not sure even your suggested alignment makes things much better; the low-rise office parks and strip malls along Shady Oak aren't really going to generate trips, and I don't see Eden Prairie doing much better at TOD than Bloomington has with their many underused Blue Line stations. It feels like they decided that Optum was essentially the only meaningful trip generator in this segment, and then optimized for what would be fastest/easiest to build/least disruptive to cars--and to be fair, they're probably right about the first part.

The most baffling thing to me is that they didn't even bother to add a pedestrian bridge/tunnel across the highway to Yellow Cir Dr. Not that there's much on the other side, but still, there are some parcels that will be like 500 feet from the station as the crow flies, but over a mile walk to actually get there.

Anyone else find the location of City West Station odd? I biked over there yesterday and the only people I can see benefiting from this are park & riders and workers at Optum who can use the train for their commute (which is probably a small number of the overall workforce).

I realize it's too late to change the alignment, but I wanted to make a map of where I think City West Station should've been located. https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid= ... sp=sharing

The photo of Opus Station appears to actually be the Golden Triangle Station.

Here's a photo update for the Met Council meeting next week.

https://metrocouncil.org/Council-Meetin ... E-PPT.aspx

SWLRT pushing back its opening date, now 2024 at least, due to construction issues (somehow they are still discovering new soil problems on the chosen alignment).

There were some other clues that the schedule might be pushed back, now we've got confirmation.