Blue Line Extension - Bottineau LRT

[Tcmetro]

Personally, I think that putting LRT along Broadway and Lyndale would be perfectly acceptable. Sure, lanes would have to be taken, but that shouldn't be too much of an issue along Broadway and definitely not a problem on Lyndale.

I am also confounded about the decision to not put a stop near North Memorial Hospital. Most of the major hospitals will be within walking distance of LRT once the system is built out; however, it appears the exception is being made for this particular location.

As for Maple Grove v.s. Brooklyn Park... MG is a huge retail center, with large gravel mining areas that will be redeveloped at some point in time. BP has the advantage of having the Starlite Center, North Hennepin Community College, and Target Northern Campus, but I still feel that the likely development along 610 will be low-density warehouses and industrial buildings. That being said it doesn't make sense to have two branches, and I think a BRT line from Brooklyn Center TC to Maple Grove Hospital along Brooklyn Bl and Elm Creek Bl could have quite decent ridership.

[David Greene]

Personally, I think that putting LRT along Broadway and Lyndale would be perfectly acceptable. Sure, lanes would have to be taken, but that shouldn't be too much of an issue along Broadway and definitely not a problem on Lyndale.

Agreed. To me this is the alignment that makes the most sense, I drive the length of Broadway pretty regularly and while there are a few tricky spots, for the most part it should work really well.

When I asked the engineers about it, they cited travel time as the problem. Federal rules strike again.

I'm not willing to knock down houses when residents are divided 50/50 on the alignment, so what we have seems to be the best we can do under the circumstances. It's probably too late for a federal rules change to allow a complete rework of the alignment. This project has already had one do-over.

A W. Broadway streetcar or other very high level transit service should be priority #1 for Metro Transit and the city. It should happen before any improvements to the Midtown corridor.

[glencoco10]

New route proposed for Bottineau LRT

It looks like they're planning to skip N. Minneapolis and go deeper in Brooklyn Park instead of west towards Maple Grove. I think it would be a mistake to skip N. Minneapolis, but I'm sure the suburbanites wouldn't want to go through that area.

I completely agree with you. Skipping north Minneapolis is a horrible idea because the people who need it are the ones in the densest parts of the city. To my knowledge, light rail is supposed to be a service to the whole metropolitan area, but with a priority of serving the inner city first. The only hope right now is if Minneapolis actually proceeds with the streetcars, especially the one that will go to Robbinsdale from downtown. At this point, its the only hope for N Minneapolis having any form of rail transit.

[Tcmetro]

Personally, I think that putting LRT along Broadway and Lyndale would be perfectly acceptable. Sure, lanes would have to be taken, but that shouldn't be too much of an issue along Broadway and definitely not a problem on Lyndale.

Agreed. To me this is the alignment that makes the most sense, I drive the length of Broadway pretty regularly and while there are a few tricky spots, for the most part it should work really well.

When I asked the engineers about it, they cited travel time as the problem. Federal rules strike again.

I'm not willing to knock down houses when residents are divided 50/50 on the alignment, so what we have seems to be the best we can do under the circumstances. It's probably too late for a federal rules change to allow a complete rework of the alignment. This project has already had one do-over.

A W. Broadway streetcar or other very high level transit service should be priority #1 for Metro Transit and the city. It should happen before any improvements to the Midtown corridor.

The Penn/Oliver option was also a good idea, and IIRC, wouldn't involve the takings of housing.

As for the W Broadway v.s. Midtown argument, that is a completely horrible way to plan a transit system. We can't pit neighborhoods against each other. Otherwise we get dysfunction like in Toronto where nothing happens, and the system falls into a state of disrepair. And it's not like there aren't poor folks on the south side, have you heard of Phillips?

[David Greene]

The Penn/Oliver option was also a good idea, and IIRC, wouldn't involve the takings of housing.

As for the W Broadway v.s. Midtown argument, that is a completely horrible way to plan a transit system. We can't pit neighborhoods against each other. Otherwise we get dysfunction like in Toronto where nothing happens, and the system falls into a state of disrepair. And it's not like there aren't poor folks on the south side, have you heard of Phillips?

Penn/Oliver cost quite a bit more and created traffic problems in the neighborhood. A line all the way down Broadway would serve a lot more people.

Pretty much moot now either way.

My use of "any improvements" was perhaps too strong. The point I was trying to make is that at present North is seriously starved for transit. Lake St. is relatively well-off transit-wise.

We really do have to consider past wrongs and actively work to undo them. Prioritizing transit in North is one way to do that.

[UptownSport]

The point I was trying to make is that at present North is seriously starved for transit.

I was shocked at what these people have to go thru to get to town-
Wait like cattle on sidewalk, jam into a bus (like cattle), try to get out with 20 people standing in front of either door-
I don't believe most of these people can afford to drive ...

Simply unacceptable. Density, in itself, would warrant a premium, high capacity system.

Whether Lake, etc. is better or worse is what is moot- They need improvements as well.

[Tcmetro]

Despite the fact that the buses are packed in North, the powers-that-be have decided to not put LRT in North. Hmmmm...

Adding a streetcar to W Broadway isn't going to improve congestion or add capacity. You can get the same results from adding articulated buses to the 14 and doubling the frequency to every 10 minutes.

To say Lake St is well off transit-wise compared to north is a fallacy. If anything they are quite equal. You have the Lyndale (22) bus running every 20 minutes, the Fremont (5) bus every 7 minutes, the Penn (19) bus every 10 minutes, the Washington-Broadway (14) bus every 20 minutes, the Plymouth (7) bus every 30 minutes, and the Lowry (32) bus every 30 minutes. And there is an all day express from Osseo Rd, 44th Av, Fremont, and Dowling (721/724) every 30 minutes. Of course there is work to be done to improve the bus system (city-wide), but to say North Mpls. has a crappy bus system compared to South Mpls. is simply not true.

Honestly, North Mpls was screwed out of transit when the county decided to route the light rail along a six-lane highway and a park, instead of an area where people actually live. If you claim to be so worried about the mobility of the people of North Minneapolis, why do you insist that placing LRT out of the reach of the people is such a wonderful idea?

[lordmoke]

From what I have come to understand (If this is incorrect, someone please set me straight) the residents of North were extremely opposed to a routing through the area. There are two reasons for this. One- it would demolish a number of homes along Penn and permanently disrupt a major corridor. And two- with the LRT would come gentrification, causing home prices to rise and forcing the less well-off residents out of the neighborhood.

[RailBaronYarr]

Because it demolishes houses, costs a little more money, and is "hard" for the engineers. And that darn LRT running through the neighborhood would have been so noisy and caused so much congestion (just like the arguments made against the Uptown routing for SW). I'd make up the difference in cost by not extending out to 3 farm parcels, and point out that the point of the LRT is to help improve mobility options/frequency/capacity and that IF the street remains congested (or becomes moreso) there's a 6-lane highway quite nearby. It also may just encourage people to make alternate mode choices as well.

[RailBaronYarr]

From what I have come to understand (If this is incorrect, someone please set me straight) the residents of North were extremely opposed to a routing through the area. There are two reasons for this. One- it would demolish a number of homes along Penn and permanently disrupt a major corridor. And two- with the LRT would come gentrification, causing home prices to rise and forcing the less well-off residents out of the neighborhood.

Rising home prices would only come if the area isn't re-zoned to accommodate more housing. We have convinced ourselves as a society that everyone can have a 2,000+ sqft home (unless you're young, that's when you live in a "small" 1k sqft apartment) and somehow have effective transit as well. The tradeoff to greater mobility options is reducing the distances between yourself and other destinations - this can only happen if housing and commercial uses become smaller and/or build vertically to allow transit.

[David Greene]

Honestly, North Mpls was screwed out of transit when the county decided to route the light rail along a six-lane highway and a park, instead of an area where people actually live. If you claim to be so worried about the mobility of the people of North Minneapolis, why do you insist that placing LRT out of the reach of the people is such a wonderful idea?

This is going to turn into another SW LRT alignment flame-fest, I can see that now. I don't want to get into that again.

I have already stated my opinions on the subject. The short summary is, I would have preferred an alignment all the way down Broadway. That wasn't going to happen and what we have is I believe the best option given what residents of the area stated as their preferences. I'm not speaking for the people that actually live there, they are and this is what they decided.

I think a streetcar is appropriate along W. Broadway to help with the economic development of the area. I came to that conclusion after talking to residents and being present at community discussions. If it were just about fast transit, I agree that aBRT is probably enough. But I think in the case of North it has to be something more.

[UptownSport]

This is going to turn into another SW LRT alignment flame-fest, I can see that now. I don't want to get into that again.

Then you do ...

People need to question what their gov't is doing, ad nasuem, and have the right- Duty- to do so.
How many people got killed in Vietnam? 58,000 from the US- Then the Vietnamese? Aussies? S Koreans?
McNamara later said it was all for BS.

The people can only react to what their gov't tells them;

I for one am not comfortable tearing down hundreds of houses without a clear community mandate.

At some point it's decided the line isn't going thru north, then the lying machine tells then their house will be torn down ...
Then it's repeated like truth, without question.
Wonder why they'd be against it ...

[alleycat]

From what I have come to understand (If this is incorrect, someone please set me straight) the residents of North were extremely opposed to a routing through the area. There are two reasons for this. One- it would demolish a number of homes along Penn and permanently disrupt a major corridor. And two- with the LRT would come gentrification, causing home prices to rise and forcing the less well-off residents out of the neighborhood.

This gets repeated over and over. You can count me as someone who actually lives within two blocks of Penn/Broadway. I know numerous people who supported some form of Penn/Broadway alignment. The Jordan neighborhood board supported the Penn/Broadway alignment, but we wouldn't have been in the crosshairs of demolitions.

What I see was consensus around not knocking down the homes on Penn. That didn't mean that they didn't support the Penn alignment. Many people supported the Penn/Oliver alternative and it seemed like that was going to be Minneapolis's choice. Somehow that was ruled out and the Penn only routing with demos became the only option.

Secondly, It was said often that if the Penn/Broadway alignment was built, it would rule out the potential for Broadway or Lowry streetcars. I believe that persuaded quite a few people to back the Wirth alignment. I experienced many of this from a close distance. I unfortunately did not go the NTN meetings and I regret it to this day. Some creative thinking at that time may have saved an alignment that would've served a large swath of North.

Oh and can we stop overgeneralizing North as a place for the poor. If you actually looked at demographics you'd see that the income levels in many of the neighborhoods, apart from Near North and Hawthorne, are on par with peer neighborhoods in NE. Also the demographic makeup is something like 40% black, 30% white and 20% asian with a small, but growing Hispanice population. It was true that the Penn alignment would have served a good deal of the poorest Northsiders, but it was miles away from Hawthorne.

Alas, the alignment is what is it is...unless someone has a creative idea of how to change the Met Council, Hennepin County and all of the municipalities minds. I'll take a LRT stop in a park over none at all.

[UptownSport]

And that's what they're hoping ....

[tabletop]

As it appears to me, construction of regional fixed guided transitways in MN are only palatable if done along the pereiphery of our built up areas through well established right-of-ways, Hiawatha, SW, Bottineau the exception ofcourse being Central. But looking back, Central faced a lot of hard history through the neighborhood's it's routed through in St. Paul, lessons from that (I would think) were in the minds of the political leaders and planners associated with Bottineau in choosing a routing other than one that would send a huge infrastructure project smack in the middle of the community (Broadway/Penn).

North Minneapoilis is huge, there isn't going to be one magic be all solve all infrastructure project that will link everyone to everything in the region. I believe it could've been done better in respect to the routing but I also think the Theo-Wirth routing will be great in creating regional connectivism as a whole that will strengthen the Northside. If our culture continues to embrace ideals of new urbanism, there will be plenty of opportunities in the future to expand on the transit system we're currently establishing. Future projects will make even more sense to build in the larger scope when connected to the regional backbone of the Blue and Green lines.

The next step is figuring out a financing mechanism so we can build more than one line at a time to dissolve this competitive nature surrounding importance of one place to another. Lets do Midtown in conjunction with a northiside street car and Bottineau along side South West. That's a disscussion should be louder and forefront in our push to build our transit system. The faster we do it the better!

[UptownSport]

Strib Article:

The proposed Bottineau Transitway could mean jobs and improved access to and from suburbs, officials say.

http://www.startribune.com/local/north/209230361.html

[UptownSport]

Letter published in Strib;
reposted here as it's certainly germain:

Star had a transit letter:

LIGHT RAIL

Dense areas need transit the most

I’m shocked that both proposed light-rail lines take pains to avoid the metro’s densest areas. The Southwest proposal bypasses south Minneapolis, jetting past Uptown on a bicycle trail. The Northwest proposal goes straight west to serve a golf course in the middle of a vast park, avoiding north Minneapolis. Buses to these areas are overloaded. Why are we spending hundreds upon hundreds of millions to build rail bypassing most of our citizens?

THEODORE HARMON, Minneapolis

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/lett ... 48761.html

[LRV Op Dude]

[Tcmetro]

At the last happy hour, kellonathan and I discussed the possibility of extending the Bottineau line up to Anoka. It's a bit of a stretch because it's running through suburban Champlain, but there is plenty of ROW. The biggest problem would be the crossing of the Mississippi, but honestly I think it's an idea with merit.

[talindsay]

That's a long way to run probably-empty trains on a 10-minute frequency. I can see that Anoka would generate more riders, but given how much more track it would require, I can't imagine it would make sense. St. Louis ran their trains too far on the east side (in hopes of developing an east-side airport by the military base) and now they waste a lot of operational funds running empty trains every ten minutes for ten miles past the last major source of riders. In their case they may be getting military money to offset part of that cost, but in ours it would just be financial burden.