Blue Line Extension - Bottineau LRT

Roads - Rails - Sidewalks - Bikeways
DanPatchToget
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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby DanPatchToget » August 3rd, 2020, 2:59 pm

Since it's pretty much back to the drawing board, how about rerouting it to Maple Grove instead of a corporate campus in the middle of farm fields?
City of Brooklyn Park would never let that happen in my opinion, they were promised LRT they are still going to want it.


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It could still serve Brooklyn Park while also serving Maple Grove. It would just turn west somewhere (likely Brooklyn Boulevard) instead of continuing north on Broadway.

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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby EOst » August 3rd, 2020, 3:21 pm

I'd been largely dismissive of early discussions about a full subway through North Minneapolis, but I could envision a routing that would follow N 7th St at grade across I-94, and then enter a tunnel near Plymouth and re-emerge at the Broadway crescent, where the Broadway ROW relaxes
I don't think that's true. The effective ROW west of Penn is something like 74', which is why the sidewalks there are are probably the worst of any section of Broadway.

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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby snar » August 3rd, 2020, 3:26 pm

That's a better idea. I only see one obvious full take: the MPS building, which would likely be where you'd put the Plymouth Avenue (and Emerson/Fremont D Line connection) Station. Your partial takes would even be helpfully limited if you put can put a big ventilation and emergency access shaft in the parking lot of North Commons Park.
Couldn't you build the station in the lot north of Plymouth Ave (where the Liquor store is currently)?

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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby MNdible » August 3rd, 2020, 3:42 pm

I don't think that's true. The effective ROW west of Penn is something like 74', which is why the sidewalks there are are probably the worst of any section of Broadway.
You may well be right -- I just quickly eyeballed it based on the presence of the medians, but looking more closely, it looks like it may be tighter.

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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby SurlyLHT » August 3rd, 2020, 7:24 pm

Notably, you can't put it up Penn Ave to W. Broadway without having the potential of stopping LRT service if emergency vehicles are servicing a residence. I also don't see how a cost-benefit analysis would allow for a subway tunnel, unless you constructed it under a prexisting street so it can be constructed the same way the SLRT tunnel is.

They also have the grading of the alternatives.

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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby alexschief » August 4th, 2020, 7:29 am

I think everyone agrees that one end of this alignment through Minneapolis needs to be Bottineau Boulevard, and the other is obviously Target Field Station. The challenge is to do three things, (1) to get up, (2) to get over, and (3) to properly serve North Minneapolis in between.

Up: On Lyndale N, between Broadway and Plymouth, there is not a single point of vehicular egress for a property that does not also have others. The only access that needs to be preserved is at 14th Street, which is the only point of access for residents of Hall Curve and Harry Davis Lane. But they do not rely on Lyndale N itself for access, and that cross traffic could easily be governed with a boom if needed. Regardless, Lyndale is wide enough to have dedicated ROW for trains without stations, and also vehicle travel lanes if needed.

I don't see other north/south streets making anywhere near as much sense if your goal is to get a train to Broadway. It's either Lyndale or short tunnel.

Over: Broadway, while tight, it's clearly feasible. For folks who don't see that as the solution, it's hard for me to understand what alternatives might be proposed to get to Bottineau Boulevard, especially any that offer anywhere near the same benefits. Lowry is the same width (80') as Broadway. N 26th would need to be closed down entirely and may not have room for stations. Pick any other fringe route and you're replicating the mistake of the original alignment study, which chose what seemed to be the path of least resistance, even if it would've ended up serving almost nobody.

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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby Silophant » August 4th, 2020, 8:59 am

Twin Cities Business Mag has a pretty in-depth article on this. Sounds like CM Ellison is on board to move it to Broadway, which is a good sign. It also discusses what we learned from SWLRT, that following a freight railroad isn't necessarily cheaper if you wind up building miles of crash walls and viaducts over wetlands.
But the portion between Robbinsdale and downtown Minneapolis is stickier and will inevitably fuel dissent. Leaving Monticello makes it harder to serve Golden Valley and Wirth Park. It also means the line serves downtown Robbinsdale peripherally rather than in the middle of its business district.
“The Golden Valley stop is important,” says Mayor Harris. “We have 16,000 more daytime residents than at night. We are a significant employment base: Allianz, Tennant, Courage Kenny, and Honeywell.”
A reroute off BNSF “is a big negative,” says Robbinsdale’s Murphy. “It would cut up our downtown.”

I have a couple concerns with how unfamiliar the Golden Valley and Robbinsdale mayors seem to be with their own cities' geography, since a Bottineau Blvd alignment through Robbinsdale would be a mirror image of the BNSF alignment, with respect to Broadway, and in Golden Valley, three of those four employment centers are miles from the Golden Valley Road station. Even Courage Kenny is a bit more than half a mile away.
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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby David Greene » August 4th, 2020, 9:02 am

Penn is not a viable alternative due to the takings required. A good amount of W. Broadway is fronted by parking lots. Seems like we could do something with that.

The trickiest stretch of W. Broadway is probably Emerson to around Irving, where RIRO might be necessary. How critical are connections to the C line? It might be difficult to put stations right where the lines would cross, but a couple of blocks away is probably feasible.

Another option that was briefly looked at was split operation on Penn and Queen. It was rejected due to cost but we might have to get creative.

Anything done has to be in deep consultation with the community. Building SWLRT but not BLRT would be a really bad look.

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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby SurlyLHT » August 4th, 2020, 9:12 am

Dowling might be a possibility, run it from Lyndale to 38th in Robbinsdale and have it do a short jaunt near the lake to Bottineau Blvd. A huge chunk of the road is bordered by a cemetery. I'm sure people in Robbinsdale would scream about it going Lake Terrace Park however. This would also be a nice place to place a station on 36th and Bottineau. Lowry actually scored alright on the alternative analysis. W. Broadway was clearly labeled as infeasible.

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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby alexschief » August 4th, 2020, 10:16 am

The problem with routes further north than Broadway is that you are compounding the "Up" issue even if you think you might be solving the "Over" issue. North of Broadway, for instance, using Lyndale N becomes much more difficult, because the character is residential, the same as any other local street.

Forgive me if I don't fully trust the original alternatives analysis, given the awfulness and ultimate in-feasibility of its conclusions. Broadway is challenging, but I think less challenging than practically any of the other alternatives. Moreover, I think a large portion of the challenges are political, not technical, and I hope that is changing.

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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby mister.shoes » August 4th, 2020, 10:36 am

The TCB article mentioned using Washington as the "Up" to Broadway's "Over" in place of Lyndale. I found that to be interesting from a geometry PoV, but don't know enough about the potential political optics of making such a choice. A station around the intersection of Washington and 10th and another near Broadway would serve the north end of the North Loop and the east side of the 94 trench nicely, but would they come across as bypassing Near North to the benefit of NL yuppies?

Now that I think about it more, though, with the C Line on Glenwood(hopefully)+Penn and the future D Line on 7th+Emerson/Freemont, sending Bottineau up Washington and then across on Broadway would make for a lovely network of interconnected lines.
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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby Bakken2016 » August 4th, 2020, 10:37 am

But honestly, screw the suburban ridership. Build a line that serves transit dependent people. Karen with her car in Brooklyn Park will either drive or continue taking the express bus!

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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby alexschief » August 4th, 2020, 10:52 am

The TCB article mentioned using Washington as the "Up" to Broadway's "Over" in place of Lyndale. I found that to be interesting from a geometry PoV...
Yeah, I'd love to know what people are thinking, because I had a very hard time imagining how to get the train from Target Field Station to somewhere like Washington and 10th. The only possible solution involves a lot of slow street running, slow curves, and probably some elevated sections. The pinch point at Metro Transit's driveway between the new MTPD building and the Junction Flats seems difficult to manage. The entire enterprise seems incompatible (and hypocritical?) with the stated worry about travel times through North Minneapolis.

The article reveals in a way how transit priorities are shaped, even by people who claim they are focused on equity. Somehow connecting buses to peripheral train stations was thought to be an adequate solution for the residents of the Northside, but the North Loop, which already has lots of bus service and general proximity to Target Field Station, is presented as a transit desert. Somehow a two-seat ride with a bus component was thought to not deter Northside riders, but a couple of minutes of delay from street running in North Minneapolis is presented as a fatal issue for suburban commuters. It's the classic fallacy of splitting riders into "captive" and "choice" and then focusing obsessively on the latter.

Anyway, bringing transit through the North Loop seems best solved with buses, and we already know how to do it.

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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby LakeCharles » August 4th, 2020, 11:45 am

Since it's pretty much back to the drawing board, how about rerouting it to Maple Grove instead of a corporate campus in the middle of farm fields?
The huge advantage of the routing north on Broadway through Brooklyn Park is servicing North Hennepin Community College. It enrolls 10,000 unique students per year.

If you turned west on Brooklyn Boulevard though you'd also hopefully have a stop for Hennepin Technical, which while smaller would be still be nice.

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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby blo442 » August 4th, 2020, 12:00 pm

I know some armchair traffic engineers might take issue with this assertion, but based on conversations I've had with a rail staff person at MT, there is no E-W "over" street in North Minneapolis wide enough to accommodate at grade two-way LRT and auto traffic safely. (Except Olson Hwy but that ship has sailed)

Look at 5th St downtown as an analogue to what Broadway LRT might look like. Both have 80' ROW. 40' width is generally reserved for the LRT & platforms/median. (Yes, there are some places in the LRT system where this drops to 30', but those correlate with the places where people get hit by trains because there is no safe center island when crossing. Many MT planners/engineers would have liability concerns with continued use of that design) 40' LRT ROW, plus 11' sidewalk/buffer on each side a la University, leaves 18' for cars on the wider section, 12' in the crescent. That's a very very tough pill to swallow politically, and has its own safety problems: can we allow auto access across the tracks to businesses on the "wrong" side?

In the end, do those concerns outweigh the costs of tunneling? Or might BRT come out on top when alternatives are re-analyzed due to the lower ROW impacts/ability to run in mixed traffic?

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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby Silophant » August 4th, 2020, 12:14 pm

I don't think anyone suggesting a Washington to Broadway routing has thought about it in any more depth than "We need to get the train from the North Loop to Robbinsdale, the 14 goes from the North Loop to Robbinsdale, just have the train do that".
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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby Record Machine » August 4th, 2020, 12:37 pm

Elevate it from Roy to N Memorial right down Broadway.

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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby Bakken2016 » August 4th, 2020, 12:45 pm

Basically lets not be cheap with a transit project that will serve lots of people!

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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby mister.shoes » August 4th, 2020, 1:04 pm

The TCB article mentioned using Washington as the "Up" to Broadway's "Over" in place of Lyndale. I found that to be interesting from a geometry PoV...
Yeah, I'd love to know what people are thinking, because I had a very hard time imagining how to get the train from Target Field Station to somewhere like Washington and 10th. The only possible solution involves a lot of slow street running, slow curves, and probably some elevated sections. The pinch point at Metro Transit's driveway between the new MTPD building and the Junction Flats seems difficult to manage. The entire enterprise seems incompatible (and hypocritical?) with the stated worry about travel times through North Minneapolis.
Unlike most of my musings on routing of transportation, I've spent zero time inspecting grade changes and ROW width and corner angles and whatnot on this one. Working solely from satellite imagery, I imagined the track leaving Target Field Station and landing on 6th Ave, taking a right onto 7th St, taking another right onto Oak Lane/Tenth Ave, then left onto Washington. None of those turns are a full 90°, though again see note above about grades and ROW.

Further north, I thought the tracks could depart Washington...
a) around 18th Ave, angling to the NW across 94 before landing on Broadway near 4th Street (w/ on/off ramps to/from 94 realigned a little) OR
b) just past Broadway, again angling to the NW across 94 before landing on 21st Ave (pissing off Kemps) and continuing along 21st to a block or two past MPS to join Broadway just east of the curve OR
c) just past Broadway, curving enough to the north to cross over a [realigned] 94 off ramp before landing on the north side of Broadway near 4th Street

None of these do anything for the ROW problems on Broadway itself, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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DanPatchToget
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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby DanPatchToget » August 4th, 2020, 1:13 pm

A few points I'd like to make:
1) The Blue Line has to be extended somewhere. Through-routing is more efficient and allows more possibilities for a one-seat ride.

2) Let's not pretend suburbs don't exist. Two of the busiest transit stations in Minnesota are located in Twin Cities suburbs (Mall of America in Bloomington and Brooklyn Center Transit Center). So where ever the Blue Line Extension ends up, it will be in a suburb, but that doesn't mean it can't also serve urban residents. Southwest LRT via Uptown, had it been built, is a case in point as the travel time was nearly the same as the Kenilworth route while serving many more people and jobs.

3) We might have to bite the bullet and go with underground light rail through all or part of North Minneapolis, but of course that will require planners and politicians to be brave enough to suggest that. I don't see any at-grade options that are feasible assuming they want the new alignment as close to the original alignment as possible, and I'm sure businesses along Plymouth, West Broadway, or any other arterial street in North Minneapolis don't want to deal with the construction impacts that University Avenue businesses had to deal with during Green Line construction.


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