Public Transit News / Current Events (MN only)

[Nick]

I took the Orange Line Friday night, and that 30 minute frequency is brutal. There were a few people (most of whom were not smoking) on it, at least.

[Silophant]

I was hoping to see at least some later LRT trips added, even if there's not enough operators yet to do improved daytime frequencies. I thought the move to allowing people to become LRT operators directly instead of working their way up through the bus ranks would have a bigger effect.

[Bakken2016]

I was hoping to see at least some later LRT trips added, even if there's not enough operators yet to do improved daytime frequencies. I thought the move to allowing people to become LRT operators directly instead of working their way up through the bus ranks would have a bigger effect.

LRT hired 20, and only 3 stayed through the whole process.


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[Silophant]

Ouch.

[J. Mc]

Bus Operator Hiring Update and June 17, 2023 Service Changes Presentation for May 22nd, 2023 Transportation Committee meeting:

https://metrocouncil.org/Council-Meetin ... pdate.aspx

[icelake]

Which bus routes will be included in the free fare pilot?
The Transportation finance and policy bill includes “sec. 122 TRANSIT FARE ELIMINATION PILOT PROGRAM” where the metropolitan council must select two bus routes to include in a free fare pilot. The pilot will run from July 1st 2023 to the end of 2024. Do we know which routes are likely to be chosen?
Personally, I’d like to see free fares along the route that was being considered for the Minneapolis streetcar line. Basically, Nicollet and Central avenue, at least from Lake street to Columbia Heights.

[Bakken2016]

Which bus routes will be included in the free fare pilot?
The Transportation finance and policy bill includes “sec. 122 TRANSIT FARE ELIMINATION PILOT PROGRAM” where the metropolitan council must select two bus routes to include in a free fare pilot. The pilot will run from July 1st 2023 to the end of 2024. Do we know which routes are likely to be chosen?
Personally, I’d like to see free fares along the route that was being considered for the Minneapolis streetcar line. Basically, Nicollet and Central avenue, at least from Lake street to Columbia Heights.

So routes 10 and 18, those would be good options in my opinion!


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[Silophant]

I know Sydney Jordan authored that provision, and was pushing it to be Rt 10 (which goes through the middle of her district). Gotta imagine that whatever routes are chosen, it'll be the whole route - once someone's on a bus, there's not really a way for them to pay a fare midway through the ride because they left the pilot zone.

[Eoin_Urban]

Would anyone know where to find some data on the operating Cost per hour and/or mile for minibuses? I've been digging through study/report PDFs from Google for a couple hours now trying to find some. It doesn't have to be laser-accurate.

The only one I found was from the 1980s - but I don't trust that the rate of inflation for transit operating costs would be close to the general rate of inflation for operation costs from 40 years ago.

I can find information on operating costs for normal buses - minibuses have some lower level of operating costs compared to normal buses though, right?

I've always been told the biggest cost with operating a bus is paying for the driver. Jarret Walker notes that

In wealthy countries, transit operating cost is mostly the cost of labor. This is usually around 70% of the total cost of operations. So:
Smaller buses are not much cheaper to operate, unless you pay the driver less.

https://humantransit.org/2011/07/02box.html
I don't think ATU would ever agree to paying drivers less to drive smaller buses but maybe the private companies like First Transit and Schmitty & Sons do have that in their contracts which is why they drive smaller buses?

[Eoin_Urban]

The Red Line was not about transit, it was about adding through lanes and turn lanes to Cedar Ave in Apple Valley, consolidating access, replacing millions of dollars worth of aging stoplights, etc. If 350 people get to ride a bus each day that's just a bonus.

Oof, I didn't realize how bad the project cost can be misrepresented. Of the initial $112 million project, the Red Line only cost $21 million. $57 million was for roadway work. Another $34 million was for express bus service. https://metrocouncil.org/Council-Meetin ... 04-SW.aspx

I also imagine there's some strings attached to the FTA FFGA, where if service were suspended/eliminated then the federal transit dollars used to construct the line would have to be repaid in some fashion.

Red Line didn’t have federal dollars used if I recall correctly. It was all local funding.

Only 27% federally funded according to this report from MnDOT. ($19.7 million)
http://www.dot.state.mn.us/govrel/repor ... -Final.pdf

[alexschief]

Metro Transit ridership has increased for the first four months of thus year, hitting 137,331 daily riders in April. That's 52.2% of April 2019 ridership, which marks a new high in % of pre-COVID ridership.

The D Line broke 10k weekday riders in April, which sets a new high (although just because it is new, the D Line is likely going to be setting new highs every month for a while). Combined, the three aBRT lines carried 19,550 weekday riders (similarly, thanks to the addition of the D Line, aBRT will probably keep setting modal records every month until next winter).

While neither the Blue nor Green Lines hit post-COVID highs, they each came fairly close. Taken together, the two LRT lines carried 43,218 weekday riders which is a post-COVID-high, topping September 2022. Both lines are tracking the overall system in ridership recovery, consistently hitting just over half of April 2019 ridership.

May is usually a strong month for ridership and the trajectory for the entire system is positive right now. I'd expect when we get the data from this past month we'll see a lot of services hit post-COVID ridership peaks.

[Zkools20]

This may have been answered before, but what’s the magic number for transit agencies to consider making the line rail

[Trademark]

This may have been answered before, but what’s the magic number for transit agencies to consider making the line rail

The 99 B-Line had an average weekday ridership of 55,900 people precovid and will be replaced partially by a light metro.

Personally if a bus line has 20-25k riders is when I think we should be seriously considering rail. The D Line is difficult though as there isn't a ton of right of way for the majority of the route so unless it's elevated it would likely have to be a streetcar which wouldn't really improve service or capacity significantly.

[alexschief]

A lot of LRT projects are dictated first by the availability of right-of-way, and then the route is sutured together to form an adequate ridership case post hoc.

I don't know how well used the bus predecessors of the Blue Line were, but the reason the Twin Cities built its first LRT line down Hiawatha wasn't because there was a bus on that route doing numbers, but because that right-of-way already existed and could plausibly link together three major trip generators (downtown, the airport, the mall). The predecessor to the Green Line (Route 16) had very strong ridership numbers and in an ideal world the lesson of that line's success would've spurred many imitators, but instead it's really the exception. That line was able to be built primarily because University Ave is extremely wide, so again the right-of-way was available, and the pre-existing ridership then helped indicate that it was the better choice than I-94 for an LRT line to connect both downtowns.

Most of the SWLRT corridor makes a ton of sense, but again, it goes through the woods because that's where the right-of-way was. The Bottineau LRT corridor initially made the same mistake and only has had to recalibrate because freight railroads are the most immovable force in the universe. Still, the proposed route through North Minneapolis is not replicating a specific bus corridor, the buses that it would partly replace are not especially successful, and it barely has enough space to fit the train without eliminating car travel altogether (still requiring some takes). Right now, the only place in the Twin Cities where there is available right-of-way and a high-ridership bus in close proximity is the Midtown Corridor.

Anyway, none of this answers your question especially well. There are some benchmarks floating around academia that are helpful even if transit agencies don't use them. My old professor in planning school, Erick Guerra, was co-author on a paper that suggested residential population thresholds of 30 people/acre for LRT and 45 people/acre for MRT.

[Trademark]

A lot of LRT projects are dictated first by the availability of right-of-way, and then the route is sutured together to form an adequate ridership case post hoc.

I don't know how well used the bus predecessors of the Blue Line were, but the reason the Twin Cities built its first LRT line down Hiawatha wasn't because there was a bus on that route doing numbers, but because that right-of-way already existed and could plausibly link together three major trip generators (downtown, the airport, the mall). The predecessor to the Green Line (Route 16) had very strong ridership numbers and in an ideal world the lesson of that line's success would've spurred many imitators, but instead it's really the exception. That line was able to be built primarily because University Ave is extremely wide, so again the right-of-way was available, and the pre-existing ridership then helped indicate that it was the better choice than I-94 for an LRT line to connect both downtowns.

Most of the SWLRT corridor makes a ton of sense, but again, it goes through the woods because that's where the right-of-way was. The Bottineau LRT corridor initially made the same mistake and only has had to recalibrate because freight railroads are the most immovable force in the universe. Still, the proposed route through North Minneapolis is not replicating a specific bus corridor, the buses that it would partly replace are not especially successful, and it barely has enough space to fit the train without eliminating car travel altogether (still requiring some takes). Right now, the only place in the Twin Cities where there is available right-of-way and a high-ridership bus in close proximity is the Midtown Corridor.

Anyway, none of this answers your question especially well. There are some benchmarks floating around academia that are helpful even if transit agencies don't use them. My old professor in planning school, Erick Guerra, was co-author on a paper that suggested residential population thresholds of 30 people/acre for LRT and 45 people/acre for MRT.

Central Ave has the right of way and the ridership for rail. (I'm counting anytime that there's at least 5 lanes of traffic/parking as adequate right of way for rail). The A Line has the right of way but not the ridership.

[acs]

There’s not a single corridor that has the ridership to justify rail in a post-pandemic world where ridership is down by half. Heck even the current blue and green lines, if planned at their current ridership, would never be approved as rail corridors.

[Trademark]

There’s not a single corridor that has the ridership to justify rail in a post-pandemic world where ridership is down by half. Heck even the current blue and green lines, if planned at their current ridership, would never be approved as rail corridors.

25k is still justifiable for rail and that's what both lines are getting around right now. And growing year over year. Local routes like the 21 and the 10 are coming back quicker then other routes, and those buses are consistently packed. Midtown and Central definitely deserve rail.

[Tcmetro]

Met Council agenda item for next week about free fares: https://metrocouncil.org/Council-Meetin ... t-PPT.aspx

Routes 32 and 62 are proposed to go fare-free from 7/1/23 to 12/31/24.

[daveybabymsp]

Met Council agenda item for next week about free fares: https://metrocouncil.org/Council-Meetin ... t-PPT.aspx

Routes 32 and 62 are proposed to go fare-free from 7/1/23 to 12/31/24.

Interesting that they are testing it on routes with a future aBRT conversion. I wonder if the 32 on Lowry is a good candidate. I don’t have the data but I feel like a decent number of riders on a crosstown like that are transferring to or from another route like the C line, D line, 10, etc which will make the free fair pointless since they have to pay for the transfer.


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[Silophant]

Hard to say. There's definitely a lot of transfers on to and from the 32, but I think it's about as good as (non-21) crosstowns get, with Rosedale on one end and North Memorial/Hyvee/Robbinsdale on the other. I think it's more useful to pilot free fares on routes like this than on, say, the D Line or the 10 - the busiest routes are going to be busy whether there's fares or not.