Arterial Bus Rapid Transit Corridors

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BigIdeasGuy
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Re: Arterial Bus Rapid Transit Corridors

Postby BigIdeasGuy » December 7th, 2020, 11:56 am

I'm a little surprised there hasn't been a bigger push for the Lowry line based on equity and investing in the Northside. Moving forward North MPLS is going to have great connections going N/S yet limited E/W at least with LRT/BRT/aBRT.

I would also like to think that somehow state/county/city leaders are able to come up with a way to fund all these lines well before 2040, that might be a pipe dream though
Where would it go? To Roseville? It might be better to simply increase the frequency of the current bus 32 line and use it as a connector between the various BRT lines and Blue Line Ext. Northside has the C Line and 14 and 9 going E/W, the 32 and 30 buses are less reliable.
I would go with 2 phased approach, the first terminating at the Rosedale Center Transit Center then a second phase continuing to the Maplewood Mall tying into the Rush Line Station there.

I don't know the Northside bus routes well enough comment on those

Silophant
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Re: Arterial Bus Rapid Transit Corridors

Postby Silophant » December 7th, 2020, 1:15 pm

I think the aBRT strategy of upgrading existing high-ridership routes rather than trying to will new ones into existence like we're doing with the LRT extensions is the better bet. Boost the existing 32 to 10- or 15-minute service, for sure, but I don't know that it really warrants an aBRT upgrade until there's at least one or two high-quality connections in the almost 7 miles between Emerson and Rosedale.
Joey Senkyr
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alexschief
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Re: Arterial Bus Rapid Transit Corridors

Postby alexschief » December 7th, 2020, 2:08 pm

I think the aBRT strategy of upgrading existing high-ridership routes rather than trying to will new ones into existence like we're doing with the LRT extensions is the better bet. Boost the existing 32 to 10- or 15-minute service, for sure, but I don't know that it really warrants an aBRT upgrade until there's at least one or two high-quality connections in the almost 7 miles between Emerson and Rosedale.
That's only sometimes the strategy.

Pairing Rice and Robert (#62 and #68) is not an existing combination. Neither is the proposed Como/Maryland route, which makes significant edits to the current #3.

It has confused me from the start why some routes (like the ones above) have been edited, while others (like the #2) were passed over or were not connected (like the #10 and #18), because the current buses on those routes don't make sense unedited. Metro Transit hasn't been consistent on this point.

I would've liked them to take a corridor approach and be a bit less protecting of the existing routes. If something doesn't make sense as part of a "network next," then block it up and start over!

Oreos&Milk
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Re: Arterial Bus Rapid Transit Corridors

Postby Oreos&Milk » December 9th, 2020, 10:31 am

Disappointed American BLVD isn’t even being considered anymore. At least the 540 seems to be able to connect to 6 of the 7 major routes. Plus this will only made the midtown greenway line that more important for transfers. Maybe when we have more of that network built the numbers will change. Until then I guess it’s good nobody west of the D line and south of lake st. Are wanting easy public transport to the MOA.

r2b2
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Re: Arterial Bus Rapid Transit Corridors

Postby r2b2 » December 9th, 2020, 3:43 pm

Metro Transit has posted a new survey to help prioritize between the four "near-term" lines:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/futurebus

Tcmetro
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Re: Arterial Bus Rapid Transit Corridors

Postby Tcmetro » December 9th, 2020, 10:13 pm

Some new documents appeared on the Network Next library page.

Corridor Concepts: https://www.metrotransit.org/Data/Sites ... ec2020.pdf

Corridor Evaluation and Prioritization: https://www.metrotransit.org/Data/Sites ... ec2020.pdf

Interestingly, a lot of the conceptual service plans don't include overlapping local routes. The 14-22 and 62-68 reorganizations are probably the most radical.

Silophant
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Re: Arterial Bus Rapid Transit Corridors

Postby Silophant » December 9th, 2020, 10:52 pm

Ooooh, good find.
Joey Senkyr
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MSPtoMKE
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Re: Arterial Bus Rapid Transit Corridors

Postby MSPtoMKE » December 9th, 2020, 11:09 pm

Anyone else not able to load those pages, or anything else on the Metro Transit page?
My flickr photos.

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mister.shoes
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Re: Arterial Bus Rapid Transit Corridors

Postby mister.shoes » December 9th, 2020, 11:28 pm

Same here. Ah, technology.
The problem with being an introvert online is that no one knows you're just hanging out and listening.

alexschief
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Re: Arterial Bus Rapid Transit Corridors

Postby alexschief » December 10th, 2020, 9:03 am

D Line length: 17.8 mi
Central length: 13.0 mi
Nicollet length: 9.2 mi

BUT...

Central's length north of I-694 is about 5 miles. Both Nicollet and Central share a 1 mile redundancy downtown. A combined Central/Nicollet route would be about 16.2 miles, less than the D Line, and completely practical. You could even add some length back in to connect Nicollet's terminus to the Orange Line BRT. On Google Maps, I can make a 16 mile route.

Metro Transit's own data (Page 15) shows that transit ridership falls off a cliff north of Central and 53rd Ave. I simply cannot understand why they are insisting on tacking on that section all the way to the Northtown Mall, instead of merging Central with Nicollet. They have already made an obvious combination with Rice and Robert, why not do it again?

Image

One final note: many of these route concepts mention the "Washington Avenue transit spine" as if this is a done deal. I know people have been calling for fewer jobs and for the #7 and #14 buses to run straight through on Washington, but it suggests to me that more work has been done behind the scenes on this. I can only assume bus lanes are part of the package. Would be great, not just for transit, but also to slow cars on that street.

Silophant
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Re: Arterial Bus Rapid Transit Corridors

Postby Silophant » December 10th, 2020, 9:45 am

I wonder if they're banking on funding from Anoka County for the Central corridor, but expecting it to be contingent on continuing service past 694. That's about the only reason I can think of to chop off the 18's three-mile half-hourly tail, but then to upgrade the 10's 5-mile half-hourly tail up to 10-minute service. While they're definitely two of the best routes, I suspect it's not just coincidence that the only two of the original nineteen corridors in the Network Next study to exit Hennepin/Ramsey Counties for a significant length (not counting 2nd St NE or Century Ave) made it to the final stage.

I was unable to get to the documents last night, but could this morning. I have local copies saved now, so if anyone's still having trouble I can throw them onto Dropbox or something.
Joey Senkyr
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DanPatchToget
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Re: Arterial Bus Rapid Transit Corridors

Postby DanPatchToget » December 10th, 2020, 10:08 am

The 10U branch from Central & 53rd to Northtown has a frequency of every 20-40 minutes give or take, and to/from Northtown where there's two branches of the 10 going there the frequency is every 10-15 minutes give or take. Was this similar or different pre-COVID?

If aBRT service were to be truncated at Central & 53rd to make a combined Nicollet-Central Corridor more feasible, it would be nice to have a local connector service running every 10-20 minutes on each branch between Northtown and Central & 53rd.

Tcmetro
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Re: Arterial Bus Rapid Transit Corridors

Postby Tcmetro » December 10th, 2020, 10:16 am

The Central map doesn't show any ridership at Northtown, but I would imagine it's in the low to mid hundreds per day.

I can see a few reasons for sending the Central line to Northtown:
- there's already a ridership base from NE to Northtown
- leverage transit dollars for University project
- reduce need for a new University bus or extra local 10 buses
- connect a major suburban transit hub
- existing stop spacing on University is friendly with BRT service
- Fridley seems to be persuing higher density housing in the corridor

amiller92
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Re: Arterial Bus Rapid Transit Corridors

Postby amiller92 » December 10th, 2020, 10:24 am

Looking at this purely via self interest, if they are going to make the 14 every ten minutes, that would help offset my disappointment that the Cedar line won't get this far south.

Outside of pure self interest, it should still connect to the new development at the 4700 block of Cedar and once it does, it may as well also connect to 66th Street and the new developments nearby in Richfield and on to MOA. Yeah, those are going to be relatively affluent people living over the L&B, but Cedar Ave from 38th Street to there also has plenty of merit too. There's also benefit in enhancing those rich people's ability to drive less too.

The speed advantage over the 14 might also make it more viable for my wife to get to work in the north loop (the time to get through downtown, especially in the winter, currently makes the 14 nowhere near competitive with driving).

alexschief
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Re: Arterial Bus Rapid Transit Corridors

Postby alexschief » December 10th, 2020, 10:37 am

The Central map doesn't show any ridership at Northtown, but I would imagine it's in the low to mid hundreds per day.

I can see a few reasons for sending the Central line to Northtown:
- there's already a ridership base from NE to Northtown
- leverage transit dollars for University project
- reduce need for a new University bus or extra local 10 buses
- connect a major suburban transit hub
- existing stop spacing on University is friendly with BRT service
- Fridley seems to be persuing higher density housing in the corridor
Most of these are great reasons for continuing rump #10 local service through the area, which I would never suggest getting rid of. But I'm not sure they justify the expense and opportunity cost of extending aBRT service through the area.

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Tiller
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Re: Arterial Bus Rapid Transit Corridors

Postby Tiller » December 10th, 2020, 4:14 pm

Are there specific congested areas or streets for Nicollet/Central with congestion that make combining them impractical, that could be solved with engineering like bus lanes/signal priority?

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Re: Arterial Bus Rapid Transit Corridors

Postby DanPatchToget » December 10th, 2020, 4:18 pm

The Canadian Pacific railroad crossing on Central Avenue will impact on-time performance depending on how many trains go through there each day, and I don't think there are plans to eventually grade-separate that crossing.

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Re: Arterial Bus Rapid Transit Corridors

Postby Silophant » February 19th, 2021, 5:16 pm

The presentation is up for next Wednesday's Met Council meeting, with the recommendations for the F, G, and H Lines:

Image

This was the order I was hoping for, so I'm happy to see it. Hopefully the additional $56M in funding for the F Line (over the $25M they'll be allocating through the Regional Solication process) will be easier to secure than the D and B line funding was.
Joey Senkyr
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Tcmetro
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Re: Arterial Bus Rapid Transit Corridors

Postby Tcmetro » February 19th, 2021, 5:35 pm

Glad to see the process rolling along. The G Line will be really helpful for transit in the east metro, those corridors are long overdue for quality service levels.

alexschief
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Re: Arterial Bus Rapid Transit Corridors

Postby alexschief » February 19th, 2021, 6:34 pm

I'm not surprised to see Central chosen! The importance of that corridor is why it's driving me nuts that it's not paired with Nicollet.

While I think this is a missed opportunity, I hope there will be further opportunities to fight about it when the F Line project is more fully planned, just as the B Line was ultimately extended down Selby (although an F Line that went down Nicollet while keeping this same alignment would be too long).

I also am not too bent out of shape about it, because I actually think there's an opportunity to fix this later on. University NE would be a good route for aBRT implementation down the road, I think in the K-T range. But with no stations planned for 53rd St, there's no reason the University NE portion of this F Line wouldn't be severable, and couldn't be attached to a University NE aBRT route (I've written about one possibility for such a route) in the future. Lobbing off 5 miles from the the Central aBRT route would free it to cross downtown and continue down Nicollet.


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