Public Transit News / Current Events (MN only)

[DanPatchToget]

https://metrocouncil.org/News-Events/Tr ... GW-Ajvcq_M

Comparison of ridership for 2020 and 2021, and a slow but steady recovery of ridership last year. All modes of transit (Metro Mobility, regular bus, BRT, and LRT) are recovering, except Northstar, which isn't mentioned at all in the article.

[Anondson]

https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-ne ... ant-acadia

[Silophant]

Why was a campus bus even on Riverside? None of the routes go there, do they?

[Bakken2016]

Why was a campus bus even on Riverside? None of the routes go there, do they?

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Looks like 4th St Circulator does, and some University Ave Circulator trips.

[Bakken2016]

Maple Grove My Ride is expanding to covering all of Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn Center, as well as CROSS Food Shelf in Rogers, MN. Your trip must still start or end in Maple Grove though.

https://www.maplegrovemn.gov/list.aspx?MID=52

[Uptown46]

I wasn't totally sure where was the best place to post this. Mods feel free to move if there's a better spot. Ramsey County is leading a Blue Line/Riverview Connection study. This is making short, medium, and long term transit recommendations for the area. The project already had an open house in March, and there's a survey and map open for comments right now on the project website: https://www.ramseycounty.us/residents/r ... tion-study

The study area covers a decently large portion of south Minneapolis in addition to Highland and central Saint Paul. My sense is this has not been publicized well in Minneapolis in particular.

[Trademark]

My choice would be aBRT from 7th Street and davern to St Paul to ford parkway to 46th street blue line station crossing the south side to the 46th street orange line station to 50th and France ending at Grandview.

[Bakken2016]

Florida federal judge strikes down mask mandate for public transportation. So short sighted, doesn't give any agency the time to prepare to transition or anything, but what should I expect in this country anymore.

[Nick]

Do you need a month to figure out how to take down signs?

[Bakken2016]

No, but a week would be nice. As I've seen signs up that still say Mask mandate extended through Jan 22. So obviously a transition period would seem to be helpful. And this part is a bit off topic, but Republicans complain about legislating from the bench, but applaud this, its hypocrisy.

[VacantLuxuries]

Always love to see a decision with national implications made by a 33 year old with a lifetime appointment who was deemed 'not qualified' by the American Bar Association.

[mattaudio]

People are still free to wear masks individually, no?

[MinneapBliss]

Of course people can still choose to wear masks, but that isn't the issue. Masks are beneficial for the wearer, but more so for people around them, hence why a mandate was essential in the first place: to protect people surrounded by others who weren't worried about covid's impact on themselves.

In close confines associated with public transportation, I think mask requirements still make sense. I know people are 'done with covid', but I feel like a caring society would still require the mild inconvenience of mask-wearing in situations that are imperative for things to operate next-to-normally, and for situations where physical distancing is sometimes not feasible. Commuting on buses and trains checks both boxes. If I was a person with underlying health concerns and I relied on public transit, either to get to work or as my work, I would be pretty discouraged by this.

[tedlanda2571]

At least initially, COVID mandates were billed as efforts not to stop the spread of COVID, but to slow it down in order to ease the burden until healthcare resources and vaccines were more readily available (remember "flatten the curve") . Both conditions of which have now been met.

There are tons of things we could do that would make the world marginally safer for some subsets of the populations, but we don't because they place a 'mild inconvenience' on the larger population. I personally think that is the correct trade-off since you can basically justify any restrictive measure under the "if it saves just one child" argument.

To the example of a public transit user with underlying health concerns, it goes back to the original arguments that were made to support mandates: they aren't intended to stop the spread.

I suppose mask mandates might buy that person a little more time before catching COVID, but it's highly unlikely to keep them free of COVID indefinitely (remember, the person in question is riding crowded busses <everyday>). So you make the trade-off: require society to mask up in order to keep some people COVID free for a few more months, even though healthcare resources for COVID are currently not constrained? That's not a slam dunk in my mind.

[Qhaberl]

Could be wrong, but does anyone else think the Covid discussion can be moved to to another part of the form? I really don’t want to see the public transit discussion turn into a why mask mandates are bad or why they are good debate.


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[phop]

Logically, scientifically there's definitely an argument for no mandate, but this decision does feel pretty absurd given that we are still taking off our shoes at airports over 20 years later for even less defensible reasons. That kind of theater is no longer really culture war coded though, so we're not going to get some random activist judge overturning it.

[mattaudio]

I'm game for random activist judges dismantling security theater too.

[Mdcastle]

Also it's not like people that are concerned can't now buy N95 grade masks that will protect themselves from others no matter what the mask status of others. I spent all day remodeling a house with two people that weren't wearing masks who tested positive for Delta the next week and I didn't get it because I was wearing an N95 mask.

[alexschief]

Metro Transit's local bus and Blue Line LRT ridership hit COVID-era peaks in March 2022. The other services are also on the upswing from January/February, but short of their ridership from Sept/Oct 2021. These are typical seasonal patterns, but at a lower baseline.

Overall the system is at 44.24% of its March 2019 ridership. You could make a case for recovery, certainly things are ahead of the 2021 pace, but the ebbs and flows of COVID and vaccination make it more difficult to say anything for sure. We'll get a much better sense when we hit the summer and start to be able to compare post-vaccination months from 2021 with 2022.

[mamundsen]

Metro Transit's service changes beginning June 11th:
https://www.metrotransit.org/quarterly- ... ay-june-11

Not very many changes this quarter. I was wondering if we'd see express bus frequency increases.