Blue Line Extension - Bottineau LRT

[mattaudio]

Would you have preferred the original proposed BLE alignment out Olson Highway the north through the Bassett Creek/RR corridor across swamp to Robbinsdale?

[nils]

Would you have preferred the original proposed BLE alignment out Olson Highway the north through the Bassett Creek/RR corridor across swamp to Robbinsdale?

Ultimately, if you want people to choose the train, it has to be meaningfully better than the alternatives they already have. If there’s no plan to invest in grade-separated transit through dense urban areas, then the original alignment would have been preferable to the current one.

Betting $3 billion on the idea that riders with other options will willingly add 10–20 minutes to their daily commute is, in my view, a poor bet.

[Mdcastle]

I'll take the bet since it means they get to ride a real train instead of nothing but a bus.

[Bakken2016]

Nils, it’s ridiculous to choose a routing that would have bypassed the more transit dependent parts of North Minneapolis.

I will take a slightly longer travel time to serve the people who need it most.

Also, at this point this conversation is just going in circles. A mode and routing has been chosen by Hennepin County and the Met Council and that it what it’s going to be.


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[Tiller]

It's also worth mentioning that this will be part of a transit *system*, not a single line by itself. Traveling to/from downtown Minneapolis will be only part of the utility this line offers. The more connecting services, the more useful it will be! Having a one-seat ride along the blue line will provide a variety of transfer options. The C and D lines will both also benefit from a connection like the Blue Line Extension opening.

[nils]

I'll take the bet since it means they get to ride a real train instead of nothing but a bus.

This is totally out of touch with the average person, and is emblematic of the rot that consumes transit planning in this country.

Adding even just ~5 minutes to one-way commute times wastes an hour every week for riders (assuming they are only dependent on the train for their commute). That’s ~50 hours a year.

Over the course of their working life, they will lose a full year of time that could’ve been spent with family, friends, hobbies, etc.(!).

“But don’t worry, it’ll be time well wasted, as it will be spent waiting for and riding on a *real* train instead of a lowly bus!”

[Mdcastle]

There's a very commonly used phrase called "rail bias".

[Tom H.]

The network effect is definitely real. It may be ~5 minutes longer to ride from some terminus to downtown, but what about the time saved for someone travelling from, say, Cedar-Riverside to Robbinsdale? Or Robbinsdale to Brooklyn Park? Many (most?) trips are not terminus-to-terminus rides, but rather shorter segments, most of which are not meaningfully served today. And the network effect continues to compound as we add connections and lines to the system, including aBRT.

[nils]

There's a very commonly used phrase called "rail bias".

Rail bias is strongest in areas with a high density of choice riders (people with options, higher income, etc.), which is the exact opposite of the demographic makeup of the BLE.

To the extent that you care about ridership, I’d say that rail bias as a concept is a very strong argument against the BLE. Rail bias is generally a powerful tool to increase system-wide ridership and build up the fare box, as it brings choice riders into the system, and the BLE largely fails to capitalize on that.

The BLE is intended as an equity investment, not a choice-rider magnet, which is well-intentioned and ultimately a good thing. However, the problem with that approach is that while it’s okay to lean on rail bias for ridership in choice-rider-dense areas (where riders with shorter time preferences can freely choose another option) that isn’t the case for most of the riders in this corridor. So instead of providing a historically underserved group with better transit, you’ve saddled them with a service that is slower, less frequent, and less convenient than their current direct bus options, with no easy way to opt out.

Does anyone genuinely believe that building a train that will cost $50 million per year instead of, say, doubling the frequency of the C and D lines (for significantly less than $50 million per year) will better serve these transit dependent communities?

[nils]

The network effect is definitely real. It may be ~5 minutes longer to ride from some terminus to downtown, but what about the time saved for someone travelling from, say, Cedar-Riverside to Robbinsdale? Or Robbinsdale to Brooklyn Park? Many (most?) trips are not terminus-to-terminus rides, but rather shorter segments, most of which are not meaningfully served today. And the network effect continues to compound as we add connections and lines to the system, including aBRT.

Shorter segments suffer most from worse frequency, and we kneecap our ability to increase frequency when we make bad investments.

The operating subsidy of the D Line is $22 million annually, C Line is $12 million. BLE is estimated at $50 million per year (almost double the cost of C/D on a per passenger basis), and it will increase the relative subsidy required for the C & D lines, as it will poach some of their revenue.

You could double C/D frequencies, and add a BRT line along a similar (but better) alignment than the BLE and save money.

[Oreos&Milk]

Nils, it’s ridiculous to choose a routing that would have bypassed the more transit dependent parts of North Minneapolis.

I will take a slightly longer travel time to serve the people who need it most.

Also, at this point this conversation is just going in circles. A mode and routing has been chosen by Hennepin County and the Met Council and that it what it’s going to be.


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I think we can have our cake and eat it too!

I think once we build the entire blue (and green lines) we should look into methods to building an express option into the line. The logistics might be difficult but at least knowing how and what that would look like and how much cost would be needed would be worth studying that way we can also work to find out how much added value could be derived from such a thing. Also which stations would be on the limited express stops and what impact and trade-offs in total travel times would that mean.

I think it would be a VERY valuable study and worth it once we have both full lines established and have a track record of how things actually work end to end on both lines.

[Tiller]

As someone who misses 24 hour LRT service - imo another benefit to having some express trackage would be we could use it to run at least limited service overnights as well as during some longer maintenance times where currently everything just gets completely shutdown. Also ofc it would be nice to have some fast travel times between major transfer points.

[HuskyGrad]

As someone who misses 24 hour LRT service - imo another benefit to having some express trackage would be we could use it to run at least limited service overnights as well as during some longer maintenance times where currently everything just gets completely shutdown. Also ofc it would be nice to have some fast travel times between major transfer points.

Part of the maintenance work that has been going on over the past few years will allow trains to run bi-directionally on either track. This will allow them to single track around maintenance in the future.

[nils]

Nils, it’s ridiculous to choose a routing that would have bypassed the more transit dependent parts of North Minneapolis.

I will take a slightly longer travel time to serve the people who need it most.

Also, at this point this conversation is just going in circles. A mode and routing has been chosen by Hennepin County and the Met Council and that it what it’s going to be.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I think we can have our cake and eat it too!

I think once we build the entire blue (and green lines) we should look into methods to building an express option into the line. The logistics might be difficult but at least knowing how and what that would look like and how much cost would be needed would be worth studying that way we can also work to find out how much added value could be derived from such a thing. Also which stations would be on the limited express stops and what impact and trade-offs in total travel times would that mean.

I think it would be a VERY valuable study and worth it once we have both full lines established and have a track record of how things actually work end to end on both lines.

Coordinating the 20-24 trains that will be navigating their line’s ~100 at-grade crossings / intersections to avoid bottlenecking downtown will be difficult enough.

At the very least we would need to add a tunnel downtown, but it seems very unlikely that the system will have the ridership necessary to justify the continued investment.

Would make infinitely more sense to stop the BLE in Robbinsdale and build the tunnel as part of the initial project.