Green Line LRT

[mullen]

any first hand accounts of ridership on first day of U classes?

[FISHMANPET]

I'm on a train going from Minneapolis into campus right now, and it doesn't seem extra crowded, but classes start in 18 minutes so this trip might be too late.

[FISHMANPET]

And while walking buy East Bank station, heard an announcement that a northbound blue line train for downtown Minneapolis was arriving in 2 minutes. C'mon!

[EOst]

Most of the seats in the eastbound Green were taken this morning at about 7:45 when I got off at East Bank, but it wasn't standing room only or anything. That said, though, 7:45 isn't exactly peak hours either.

[IllogicalJake]

And while walking buy East Bank station, heard an announcement that a northbound blue line train for downtown Minneapolis was arriving in 2 minutes. C'mon!

Hey, I've seen a train with Blue Line signage rolling down the East Bank area before. Drivers really don't seem to pay attention to what's on their signage.

[Silophant]

Riding from Nicollet to East Bank and back last night, they had audio announcements of the connecting bus routes at each (well, DTE and West Bank) station, like on the Blue Line. Not sure if those are new, or if I had just never noticed them before.

[FISHMANPET]

Immediately after the Blue train announcement there was an announcement that a westbound Green Line train for Downtown Minneapolis was arriving in 2 minutes, and 2 minutes later a westbound Green Line train arrived.

Also, I got off at Stadium village today, and in addition to that intersection being awful for pedestrians (the walk sign to cross University immediately turns into a countdown), there's no pedestrian signals on the south side of the platform when you get off. I found it refreshing, but it was strange in comparison to the absolute over signalization on the rest of the East Bank.

[PhilmerPhil]

Announcements are nice, but not as helpful as realtime displays. At this point, can we just assume we're stuck with "PLEASE CHECK SCHEDULES" until we build light rail lines that favor suburban commuters?

[LRV Op Dude]

I loved the crossing guard at Church St. He was stopping pedestrians.

[Mdcastle]

I guess delay lines would be trivial to implement, even if it had to be done in the shop. But again it's a matter of seeing it doesn't work, and then testing out solutions like virtually moving the sensors to try to improve it.

I didn't post on Streets about David's "fixed timing" plan because he might know more than me and I might get egg on my face, but the way I see it you'd have to change the timing plan every time a train took a bit longer than expected at a stop or something. Traffic controllers have many timing plans, but they're designed for night / AM rush / noon / PM rush / normal / weekend / holiday ,etc. and so on, so there are not unlimited timing plans. My PEEK 3000 controller has 50, which sounds like a lot until you realize it has to vary by which train is delayed in which station at which time and which day. (E/M controllers btw typically had 3). Also, fixed timing works well when you know there are cars and pedestrians on side streets that need to be serviced like downtown. That's not necessarily the case on University. Obviously it's not as big of issue with coordination as free running controllers, but a side street green, and especially side street walk, do take away from time that can be played with for the train and through traffic. Controllers can communicate over serial, fiber, etc telling what they're doing, but driving variable speed signs from that data would probably mean designing a system from scratch.

Right not everyone is pointing finger saying the engineers are dumb and they french fried when they should have pizza'd; I'm trying to point out how maddeningly complex this all is, given that we can't design a control system from the transistors on up do do exactly what we would like it to.

[Nick]

https://twitter.com/urbanmsp/status/506968281522372609

Sorry for the link, I'm tragically without Internet for a week due to a move. (If any Comcast techs want to hook me up, let me know)

[transportationist]

@mdcastle - I don't think you'd need an too many fixed time plans for Nick Musachio's Always Green. They key would be making sure the signals were clock timed, and only releasing the train from the station when there is a window of green lights for the next N traffic signals. Since the train speed can be controlled, the window is larger than if you assume the train speed is fixed or maximum. The clock timing for N-S movements could be long enough to ensure a pedestrian phase each time to simplify matters (though this might not be optimal).(Similarly for E-W movements).

That should be enough to ensure the train usually doesn't stop. It does not guaranteed maximum train speed, or minimum total time. More complex algorithms would be required. It should be better than current conditions though.

However not even starting on this until 1 week before opening (as per Coleman's letter) because they weren't on schedule is a red herring. All of this could be (and probably was) being engineered before hand, and even irregular trains can be paced to make green lights, or lights can turn green to accommodate trains, or some combination of the two.

The value of minimizing traffic delay but not train delay, which seems to be the St Paul Public Works starting point, is broken.

[twincitizen]

So, St. Paul Open Streets is happening on University Avenue from Marion to Lexington. How exactly does that work with regards to transit?

The event website seems to be intentionally lacking details. I assume that the train will run uninterrupted, as will traffic on major N-S cross streets. Minor N-S crossings will likely be closed off. What about Route 16 buses? Detoured? To where? Why not just cancel the service for the duration of the event and direct people to the train? The walk to a detoured Route 16 would almost certainly be further than the walk to the next LRT Station.

They held the event last year, but the train wasn't running yet, so they had full use of the tracks and everything. I'm genuinely curious how they plan to pull this off. You would think they would provide even the basic details of how transit service will be affected, but then again maybe not if everything besides Route 16 is status quo.

Also, I'd tentatively like to attend if anyone I know is interested. This is my old hood (Frogtown), where I lived from 2002-2005 and 2008-2011.

[mattaudio]

Speaking of shutting down streets in Frogtown:

http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/ta ... 88741.html

[FISHMANPET]

Campus police are really cracking down on people ignoring signals and it's filling me with all sorts of rage.

Who exactly is in control of these signals, and who can I put unrelenting pressure on until they're all ripped out?

[Anondson]

I hear hashtags are the thing.

[nate]

St Paul's experiment at giving trains priority at Chatsworth, Victoria, and Grotto seems to be working nicely. My train has not stopped at any of those lights in a week. Also, the ride is smoother -- the operators accelerate and decelerate less rapidly because they know they'll make the light.

[mulad]

Campus police are really cracking down on people ignoring signals and it's filling me with all sorts of rage.

Who exactly is in control of these signals, and who can I put unrelenting pressure on until they're all ripped out?

Pretty sure it's the city of Minneapolis / their public works department.

[MinnMonkey]

Does anyone know why the eastbound trains can go 50mph over the Washington Avenue bridge, where westbound trains are limited to 25mph?

The permanent speed limit sign before Coffman is covered in black plastic, and there is a construction cone with a 25mph sign on it. It is almost like they forgot to remove that when the line opened.

[nate]

I saw a pedestrian yesterday at Lexington Station nearly get run over by not one, but two trains. He darted in front of a westbound train that was pulling through the intersection which slammed on its brakes and honked its horn...then walked in front of an eastbound train, which slammed on its brakes and honked its horn. The rare two-fer.