urbanMSP

That gives me an idea for how to fix transfering now: is there anything stopping them from building an underground walkway from the current station to the inside of Union Station, similar to transfer corridors in Chicago or any city with an actual metro? Make it like the entrance to the skyway system that runs along underneath the Saint Paul library, and make it go directly to the platform that Rush/Riverview uses.

It's a pretty straight shot as things are today and it would be difficult to make it any shorter: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid= ... sp=sharing

I don't think it's the distance, it's the perceived obstacles and possible confusion to someone who isn't a daily rider. But then again, I wouldn't be pushing for LRT to go into SPUD at all.

An underground walkway would have to go pretty deep to avoid Kellogg. And you'd also have conflicts with the parking garage underneath the main part of Union Depot.

No matter what connection method is attempted, you would still incur the "mode-transfer penalty" if you keep the Green Line as-is and have the Gateway/Rush Lines on the SPUD concourse. Only way to eliminate that penalty would be to have all of those lines interline, or (if Gateway and/or Rush become BRT instead) have they both in very close proximity.

Not going to call this Kenilworth 2.0 quite yet, but I'll be darned if it doesn't sound similar.

http://www.startribune.com/st-paul-neig ... 323541151/

Stupid.

Swede Hollow routing would completely miss Metro State. Run it across the new Kellogg Blvd bridge, then "north" along Mounds Blvd (see Froggie's map above)

A few insights from what I've heard some very influential people say.

>They're very determined in getting this built
>This was going to be LRT from the beginning.
>They'd like to (and think they can) do this for between $400-500M (largely due to the already-owned ROW), easing the acquisition of funding/making this easier to build
>Running through Swede Hollow is an easy and cheap option, whose only major downside is the potential political backlash
>Related to the previous note, Swede Hollow apparently houses a sizeable homless population, and is "underutilized".
>If the ROW turns out to be too narrow in certain areas (on paper, there are no areas that are too narrow, but that's only on paper. There are a few areas they're concerned may end up being too narrow when they actually do the engineering), then they'll [have to] take houses.
>They want the process of community engagement leading up to this to be much better than whatever happened with the central corridor.

I really don't like throwing people I know under a bus (even though I didn't name them), so these^ are stated perhaps a bit mildly, just an fyi.

It's good to hear that the powers that be have successfully managed to avoid learning any lessons whatsoever from the western LRT debacles.

1) Skirts the edge of a densely populated, transit-using community in favor of a park > Check.
2) Proposed to run through a park with a fiercely dedicated group of users that don't want transit > Check.
3) Runs to a far-flung endpoint that doesn't warrant rail transit and will generate few reverse riders > Check. (Forest Lake???? You cannot be serious!)
4) Assurances that the park alignment will be cheap and easy, despite pinch points that are known in advance > Check.

I'd say we're right on target with this one.

5) Train runs to White Bear Lake not Forest Lake, a city that was once connected by streetcar

The Strib article says that WBL or Forest Lake are being considered as endpoints.

Forest Lake is considered for the BRT line possibly. The Strib kind of had some choppy reporting on this one.

Swede Hollow routing would completely miss Metro State.

While there are plenty of reasons to oppose the Swede Hollow routing (and I'm not sold on it myself), saying it would *completely* miss Metro State is preposterous, at least without station locations specified.

A station at Swede Hollow & E 7th would be about 1/5 of a mile from Maria Ave & E 7th. Personally, I would gladly walk 1/5 of a mile (and for most Metro State destinations it would be less than that) plus some stairs/elevator for grade separated rapid transit.

A bigger critique is that this is studying a 25+ mile corridor to Forest Lake with a "pick one" methodology. We had the same problem with Gateway, which was originally studying Hudson and even Eau Claire as endpoints.

While it's completely valid to study transit to Forest Lake or Hudson, let's not forget that what serves Payne or Arcade or 3M or Metro State is not the same as what serves people currently driving from Forest Lake or Hudson to jobs in downtown Minneapolis or St. Paul.

We really need to have a dual track approach that understands the needs of local transit in these regionally significant corridors.

It's unfortunate that the B-1 segment is preferred over the K-1 segment, for the sole reason that it's easier to take parkland than privately held vacant land. The K-1 segment seems superior to B-1 from just about any other angle (other than perhaps being an additional 150 feet or so from Metro State).

Speaking of my critique of the "one solution" approach to this type of planning, could we get something like LRT or ABRT to Maplewood/694 (or maybe WBL)... and then have any express buses from that part of the world to Minneapolis (such as the 270, 288, etc) hit up the terminus of this regional transit spine to connect people to St. Paul? This would allow for increased frequencies on express service tails, since they would serve both the Mpls and St. Paul commute travelsheds, and would fit well with the needs of walk-up transit users closer to the core.

For my part, I originally suggested the Rush Line follow the Swede Hollow corridor because it was an already-existing right-of-way, which presumably would cut costs. When I went in for a deeper look last year, I became unconvinced that the topography would allow for an easy connection between the Swede Hollow corridor and SPUD. This is when I revised my own idea for the Rush Line to follow a Kellogg Bridge/Mounds Blvd/East 7th alignment.

Re: the SPUD conversation from earlier. What if the construction of a Rush/Riverview service was used to reroute the Green Line to the back of the SPUD?

A professional rendering of the area in question:
https://i.imgur.com/jJrwwkR.jpg

The Riverview and Central corridors converge on Central station from 5th St and Cedar St, respectively. They then turn right onto the unlabelled Minnesota St, and continue on to the SPUD concourse via one of several potential routes. Afterwards, the Rush/Riverview service would depart the concourse towards whatever path is chosen for its Rush portion (E 7th, Kellogg, Bruce Vento, Payne, etc).

A state-of-the-art "snippet tool" rendering showing potential routes between the SPUD concourse and Central station:


My two preferred ideas, in order of preference:
Blue Route: Turns right, and descends directly onto Sibley St from the SPUD concourse. Because Sibley St is upwardly sloped, the distance required to bring LRT to grade is less than it would be elsewhere. This also minimizes the amount of elevated track required. Alternatively, the elevation could be maintained (along the same route), with the track brought to grade on one of the other block lengths between SPUD and Central station.

Red Route: Continues straight off the SPUD concourse, roughly parallel to Kellogg Blvd and elevated above w/e various railroads/roads/parking lots/etc. It merges at-grade onto Robert St, then turns right on to Kellogg Blvd, continuing to Central station.

The Pink route is one I thought of before the other two, and requires only 1 turn compared to the other two, which both require 3. It also interferes the least with road operations, and requires the most elevated track. Going over Kellogg park is probably a big no-no, and I'm not sure if it could realistically be brought to grade before Central station. The previous two sentences are why this is behind the other two, and more of an after-though.

Something related: Where could I find information regarding standards/tolerances of elevated light rail? As an example, I can find engineering information about horizontal/vertical radii of curvature for light rail (helpful for looking at routes), but I haven't been able to find what the height of elevated light rail tracks off the ground can/should/must be (minimums, averages, recommended heights, etc).

Edit: first picture was cut off, so I replaced it with a link

This idea of putting light rail in the back of Union Depot is pretty worthless. It's just a politician's photo op. The station on 4th street is much more usable than the big station which only features a connection to buses that can also be made at Central station and which is obviously harder to access from the neighborhood. Union Depot, while really nice, has proven to be a *really* expensive station for a once a day Amtrak service.

Also America likes to think it's a special snowflake and can't learn any transit lessons from the rest of the world, but basically everywhere the local transit stops outside the station and the commuter/regional/national trains are inside the station.