urbanMSP

Given Metro Transit's extremely limited budget for this kind of thing, I don't blame them at all for waiting to receive these shelters with the larger A Line order.

Note that I am 1000% in agreement that the local bus service capital budget is shamefully low. I'm talking about what is, not what should be.

I get that it's a budget issue but I don't accept it as a valid excuse. I think the budget for suburban lines is inexcusably high given the paltry sum allocated to local routes. The pot should be bigger in general, but the distribution of what's currently there is also unacceptable. Can we at least use ridership as a way of divvying up funds?

I get that it's a budget issue but I don't accept it as a valid excuse. I think the budget for suburban lines is inexcusably high given the paltry sum allocated to local routes. The pot should be bigger in general, but the distribution of what's currently there is also unacceptable. Can we at least use ridership as a way of divvying up funds?

Does it affect your narrative at all that Metro Transit's operating budget for regular-route buses and light rail is nine times the operating budget of all the suburban transit providers combined?

Bet it doesn't.

I get that it's a budget issue but I don't accept it as a valid excuse. I think the budget for suburban lines is inexcusably high given the paltry sum allocated to local routes. The pot should be bigger in general, but the distribution of what's currently there is also unacceptable. Can we at least use ridership as a way of divvying up funds?

Does it affect your narrative at all that Metro Transit's operating budget for regular-route buses and light rail is nine times the operating budget of all the suburban transit providers combined?

Not that I am doubting you, but can you cite the source for that rather than just stating it as fact.

Page 114: http://www.dot.state.mn.us/transit/repo ... t-2015.pdf

"Regular Route Bus" does almost certainly include those suburban express buses operated by Metro Transit (and not the various opt-outs), but I don't think that drastically distorts the numbers. The opt-outs operate significantly more express routes than MT does, and their budgets are tiny.

Let's compare those to ridership numbers and fare box returns.

The suburban locals are all pretty terrible, but the opt out express buses operate at lower per rider subsidies than a lot of Metro Transit's local routes. Operating costs are mostly from paying drivers, driving a handful of full buses back and forth during rush hour isn't that expensive.

That doesn't factor in the $8 million dollar park and ride the suburban commuter parked at for free, but a lot of that stuff gets built with federal Monopoly money anyway.

So back to this project. I saw some of the supports for the new shelters in front of Mayo Clinic square. Couldn't see too well and didn't want to walk over because the Wolves game was just getting out. But they are white, and match well with MC2.

The suburban locals are all pretty terrible, but the opt out express buses operate at lower per rider subsidies than a lot of Metro Transit's local routes. Operating costs are mostly from paying drivers, driving a handful of full buses back and forth during rush hour isn't that expensive.

http://tcbmag.com/Industries/Transporta ... west-Metro

Doesn't this tell a slightly different story? The image/chart near the bottom says express routes operated by MVTA/Plymouth/SWT have subsidies per rider on the order of $3.50-$5.00 or so. "Urban Local" routes have per-rider subsidies around $2.30. Maple Grove Transit does an excellent job, and I'm at a loss to understand the disparity. I'd guess there's a wide range of subsidies on the MT urban locals, for sure. The top 10 routes probably operate with average subsidies around LRT amounts, with the bottom 15-20 perhaps well above the (likely much narrower band, subsidy-wise, of) suburban express routes.

Just boarded a 535 at 12th and 2nd. It, along most mvta and the Lakeville coaches I saw while waiting are very full with at least a couple standees.

My point being that employers crucial to downtown's health would have a more difficult time recruiting employees if the 250 people on suburban buses who passed me during my five minute wait had to drive or carpool through downtown streets clogged with former bus riders. Suburban express buses are beneficial to Minneapolis for a number of reasons. Of course urban bus service is very flawed but transit service to the burbs doesn't preclude improved service in Minneapolis.

but transit service to the burbs doesn't preclude improved service in Minneapolis.

Except when it does, such as the funneling of aBRT money to fund a park & ride along FutureSWLRT.

The shelter is growing!

https://i.imgur.com/4NC6VXF.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/05eDYHI.jpg

I hope there's going to be heat.

Oh boy you really got me there. Metrotransit's ridiculously slow process to get a simple abrt built combined with the lack of through routing a Chicago ave to north would pose to operations had more to do with that decision than favoring the burbs. I know you'll disagree but rail transit to Hopkins and beyond will further reinforce Minneapolis as the center of our region benefiting the city.

Transit in Minneapolis is dependent on support from suburban legislators in Saint Paul. There is no political coalition behind a transit system without suburban buses and trains. Property tax funded operations in lieu of state funding is an obviously hideous idea.

The suburban locals are all pretty terrible, but the opt out express buses operate at lower per rider subsidies than a lot of Metro Transit's local routes. Operating costs are mostly from paying drivers, driving a handful of full buses back and forth during rush hour isn't that expensive.

http://tcbmag.com/Industries/Transporta ... west-Metro

Doesn't this tell a slightly different story? The image/chart near the bottom says express routes operated by MVTA/Plymouth/SWT have subsidies per rider on the order of $3.50-$5.00 or so. "Urban Local" routes have per-rider subsidies around $2.30. Maple Grove Transit does an excellent job, and I'm at a loss to understand the disparity. I'd guess there's a wide range of subsidies on the MT urban locals, for sure. The top 10 routes probably operate with average subsidies around LRT amounts, with the bottom 15-20 perhaps well above the (likely much narrower band, subsidy-wise, of) suburban express routes.

Yeah I thought about that article after I'd posted that--the three categories aren't quite apples to apples, I remember getting a whole spreadsheet of each route and Weekday/Saturday/Sunday service with the farebox recovery ratio for each back in like 2010 or 2011. Maybe I'm remembering the outliers more than everything together (the least subsidized route in the system was a Maple Grove Transit express route) but the huge amount of riders on some of those most-ridden urban local routes make them all pretty good deals, but we still do run a lot of urban locals like, say, the 9 or the 46 or 87 or whatnot that run at pretty high subsidies. I would say they are important from a system standpoint, of course. Then there are a whole bunch of empty suburban locals that do worse than Northstar. *WARNING THIS IS ALL BASED OFF OF MEMORIES*

I want to get a current version of that spreadsheet again for something else but I've asked and I guess they are less happy about giving it out.

I hope there's going to be heat.

There almost certainly will be. It's a standard aBRT feature.

So is off-board fare payment.