Green Line LRT

[mulad]

It looks like the Green Line may be bringing in more revenue per passenger than buses anyway. This F&C post had this tidbit:

In 2013, those buses averaged 23,725 weekday rides for daily revenue of $19,508. From July 2014 to January 2015, average weekday ridership on the Green Line was 39,040, generating estimated weekday revenue of $37,470.

That works out to an increase from $0.82 to $0.96 per trip, a 17% increase.

I was expecting the Green Line to become more transfer-heavy than the bus, particularly since the faster trip should let people shuttle back and forth on the route for errands more quickly. There may have been a lot of unfamiliar riders paying for every trip rather than using a transfer, but this also might be explained by a higher proportion of commuters using the train.

[cowboyjones]

There are no best practices that we're missing out on here. This is just the way it is. There are those that want public services to be punitive no matter what the cost, because, well, that's more complicated than I can put in a single sentence. Just like food stamps for filet mignon or lobster, or drug tests for welfare, or really any of the other asinine crap the punitive right comes up with, it's not based in anything more than screwing the poor.

What does that even mean? How is trying to ensure that people pay for what they use in any way a form of punishment? And how are any of those other points you raised intended to screw or punish the poor?

[FISHMANPET]

I have no doubt that somewhere at some time, someone has bought steak or lobster on food stamps. And that someone somewhere is on drugs and also using food stamps. And all the other things that the right say. And they say it as if it's some huge epidemic costing the tax payers billions. But there's no proof of that. It's a thinly veiled disguise of the idea that the poor should be lead wretched and miserable lives. They have no problem implementing punitive programs that cost far more to administer than they could ever possibly save in reduced "fraud." It's the same argument that says that poor people shouldn't have TVs or cell phones or even refrigerators (REFRIGERATORS!). It's a systemic attack on the poor borne from a belief that they are sub human trash that deserve even worse than the terrible situation in life they already find themselves in.

Right wing politics, in this regard, are less about ensuring efficiency of government programs or giving everyone an opportunity to succeed, and more about making sure that no matter how bad off the voter is, there's always some evil boogeyman that deserves worse.

[FISHMANPET]

Furthermore, specifically on the point of steak and lobster or whatever, WHO CARES? Food stamps are not given out such that you get X pounds of protein, you get Y dollars. So if someone does somehow do this regularly (and I'd love to see evidence of that but for the sake of argument I'll pretend it does) they're only hurting themselves. If all their money is spent on a relatively small number of calories, it only hurts them. It doesn't hurt the tax payer, because they're paying the same amount of dollars either way.

The right is supposed to be all about the government getting out of people's way and letting them make their own decisions to be successful. Yet somehow we want to micromanage people's shopping carts? That sounds like the mythical left wing nanny state that the right is always railing against. So it doesn't save money, it goes against a stated ideological goal, so all I'm left with is "FUCK THE POOR" as a motivation.

[mulad]

People lead stressful lives, and it gets worse when you don't have much money. Many programs to assist the poor have onerous restrictions on how money and other resources can be used, while also having hugely complicated application processes. Even when people apply, a lot of them may be denied because of issues that come up from background checks. There's also the basic problem of limited resources to many agencies, which forces them to limit the number of people they can help.

It's stress times stress plus stress and a half for the poor, which makes it extremely difficult for them to get the jobs or housing or education they need to get out of poverty. Limiting the amount of help people can get, what they can use it for, and just generally not trusting them to behave themselves just makes things worse.

When it comes to fare collection on transit, the whole infrastructure for getting money out of riders can be pretty expensive too. Some places have decided to go fare-free because of the trouble that causes. If you haven't ridden the UMN campus buses during a busy session, you might try -- the buses are far more efficient at getting people from place to place because the students aren't stuck in line waiting to pay.

When I looked at it a few years ago, the campus buses had a lower subsidy per rider than any other transit system in the Twin Cities even though the buses are free. Trying to collect fares on the campus buses would make them less popular and probably less cost-efficient.

[cowboyjones]

Whether or not those extra welfare restrictions on steak and lobster, will save the taxpayer money or not I do not know (I suspect, as you believe, that it won't). However, to think that has anything to do with some sort of conjecture that they are subhuman seems to me to be against every experience I've ever had with a Republicans, and I've been around Republicans far more than Democrats. I came from an area that was mostly conservative, and also mostly poor. Something like 70-80% of all of the elementary/high-school students in my county had some form of public assistance. I don't think they thought of themselves as subhuman. Even most of the Republicans that I know now, which are mostly middle-class, don't view the poor as subhuman. Those kinds of welfare policies are born, from what I can tell anyway, more out of misconceptions of why people are poor, than a hatred of them, or perhaps a reaction against what they view as socialistic, even if it does cost more. I've never once encountered someone who hates the poor, though perhaps a slight mistrust on behalf of some people, because, unfortunately, it is true that poverty is correlated with crime.

To remain at least partly on topic, would it be possible for the Minneapolis and/or St. Paul proper to pay an amount up front to allow some of the local routes to be free? I understand that there would be a free-rider problem for bus routes that go into the suburbs, but if it were to reduce the need for parking minimums, wouldn't it make it worth it?

[xandrex]

Is the lower subsidy because of the hidden "transportation fees" that students pay? A fare-less system would presumably be 100% subsidy (which is not necessarily a bad thing), so I can only imagine a lower subsidy at the U based on the hidden fees (combined with a limited system that has high ridership at very specific times).

[twincitizen]

Subsidy per rider. A heavily-used and efficient system, even if fare-free like the U shuttles (ignore the student transportation fees for a minute) can mathematically have a lower subsidy PER RIDER than a system that charges fares but isn't well used. Heck, just look at Northstar. Some fares are as high as $6 one-way, yet it carries one of the highest subsidy-per-rider in the entire system, whereas the U of M shuttles are among the lowest, despite not charging any fares.

[FISHMANPET]

I do believe this train is broken down.
Eastbound between East Bank and Stadium Village
https://imgur.com/d8v8Lco

Sent from my phone

[FISHMANPET]

Heard from a guy it hit a truck and the truck ran, so they're stopped to make sure everything is fine to pull into the station and let people off, and then presumably pull the train out of service.

Sent from my phone

[David Greene]

I do believe this train is broken down.
Eastbound between East Bank and Stadium Village
https://imgur.com/d8v8Lco

Sent from my phone

I drove right by that this afternoon. Didn't see any obvious damage.

[FISHMANPET]

After I knew what had happened and I saw a MetroTransit employee taking a picture of it, I could see a big scrape area at the front of the train, on the other side. So no pic of that.

[seanrichardryan]

Train Struck a pedestrian. And a Twitter flub my MT.

http://m.startribune.com/local/stpaul/3 ... ?section=/

[xandrex]

What are the chances that your (probably) automated tweet about safety will go out right after a train hits someone?

[Didier]

Just a general observation: I've noticed weekend trains seem to more regularly have three cars lately, even when there's not a Twins game. Is this a thing?

[twincitizen]

U of M seeks Green Line improvements: http://finance-commerce.com/2015/05/u-o ... rovements/

[seanrichardryan]

WHa?

The likely culprit? Rail access boxes, which allow engineers to reach the electrical system, were filling up with debris – sand, salt, dead animals – and creating an imbalance in the sensitive power system.
Cleaning out the electrical boxes helped and the EMI levels were acceptable, but the transit agency can’t spend every day making sure the boxes are debris-free, Krueger said.

Read more: http://finance-commerce.com/2015/05/u-o ... z3Zbnv34lI

[Mikey]

Damned albino squirrels sabotaging the Green Line!

As long as they let you pass your next test...

[MinnMonkey]

I don't know if it is related to the squirrels or the adjusting of the signal timing, but for the past several weeks, the Green Line has been very pokey through campus, often times stopping at multiple lights on Washington Avenue. Combined with occasional waits leaving Downtown East, eastbound trains are leaving the campus area regularly 5-8 minutes behind schedule. I only take the train to Raymond, so I don't know if it is making up time further down the line.

On another note, I have noticed that westbound trains are very consistently on schedule.

[ProspectPete]

I too have noticed the train getting hung up at intersections that it almost always used to get through without getting hung up.
Raymond, Malcolm, Bedford, and Berry specifically.