urbanMSP

Fresh pics of West Bank Station or Estación del Banco Oeste for Lancestar

lol I'm guessing Banco means bank!

Also I think it's slightly cruel to make the "West Bank Sign look like an actual mini bank store front! I'm sure a few poor souls will be tricked into thinking there is a Bank/ATM. Slightly amusing.

CCLRT is getting close to completion! I took a trip down University, and much of the work is almost done.

- Mackubin to Marion needs a final layer of pavement and a sidewalk
- Grotto to Mackubin needs the top layer of pavement
- Sidewalks and pavement still need to be installed from 29th to Emerald, curbs have already been poured
- Tracks being installed from 29th to Emerald, from Western to Marion, and on the Cedar St bridge
- Floating slab has been installed on Cedar St in St Paul and at the U of M
- Median work, caternary poles, and fencing are making there way down University also, I believe they are at Victoria now

The places where track HAS NOT been installed yet:
- S 19th to Washington Av Br west approach
- Washington Av Br east approach to Harvard St
- Malcolm Av intersection
- Emerald Av switch
- University from Marion to Robert
- Cedar from 11th St to 7th St.

Took a ride yesterday down the finished blocks on the east end of Washington. Who wants to bet that cars will use the mountable curb delineating the median LRT ROW to pass cyclists?

I'm with David Levinson, they should have just made the whole thing a transit mall.

Better than running them over.

Better than running them over.

Do you mean the cars running the cyclists over or the trains running the cars over?

So much for TOD at the Raymond ave station:
http://www.twincities.com/stpaul/ci_217 ... oject-move

Could it really be that hard to reorient the building to the corner?
Does it really matter in this industrial area?

Could it really be that hard to reorient the building to the corner?
Does it really matter in this industrial area?

Looking at the site, I'd say that no, it doesn't really matter.

So a while ago I asked about some green things on the Washington Ave Bridge. I'm pretty sure they're forms of some kind for pouring concrete, they're using them on the slab between the bridge and the west bank station, so I snapped a few pictures

Floating slab is being installed in the U of M transitway this week. (Tcmetro mentioned that this was in place last week, but I think he just meant the 'trenches' into which the floating slab is being seated.) The slabs themselves are ~20' long by ~4' wide by ~6" thick, with solid rubber pads spaced around the bottom and around the sides. The slabs appear to be connected to each other by elastic bands with rubber pads in between.

Slabs are fully installed in the south guideway (eastbound) and about halfway complete in the north guideway. Sorry I don't have any pics, but there are two slabs sitting out in the open at the (former) intersection of Washington & Union. I can't tell how the tracks will be installed on these slabs, because the rubber pads leave gaps around the edges of the slabs, so they can't simply pour concrete in there, but they can't leave gaps in the final guideway either (at least not big ones, since there are vehicular crossings, e.g. at Church St.).

Hmm. I guess I'll have to go see it with my own eyes to make much sense of it, but the green metal forms were being used to make aligned concrete pads of approximately the same dimensions -- they still have spaces in between them (not very big, though).

So a while ago I asked about some green things on the Washington Ave Bridge. I'm pretty sure they're forms of some kind for pouring concrete, they're using them on the slab between the bridge and the west bank station, so I snapped a few pictures

It (or one of them) was on east end of WAB Westbound Tuesday

I saw a truck carrying four of five of them today as well, right now they're laid out on the slap between the bridge and the west bank station, and also quite a bit of the space between the bridge and the floating slab trench in front of Coffman.

Looking more closely at the picture, I think that the purpose of this is to install the bright green plastic things (embeds) into the top of the concrete pour. It appears that they are suspended from above during the pour, and then they can be detached from the temporary framework once the concrete hardens.

Anyway, that's my theory.

I noticed they are installing catenary wire along University from about Raymond to Prior. I think what they were working on today was the cable that runs above the actual electrical contact wire, but then I am not super familiar with the technical aspects of exactly how it works... In any event, it seems a significant milestone.

Cool to hear. Yeah, that top wire is technically the catenary wire, at least according to this page:

http://www.railway-technical.com/etracp.shtml

That's a big milestone... man, I can't wait to start shooting all of the new angles along this route; I wonder when testing will be underway with enough frequency to go out and get some photos in different spots without having to wait for too long.

The weekly construction update for University Avenue segment in Saint Paul says that catenary will be going up from Raymond to Hamline over the next few weeks.

http://content.govdelivery.com/bulletin ... ETC-5798c6

The first physical segment appears to run from the Raymond intersection eastward to just west of Fairview station. The top catenary wire, bottom contact wire, and many dropper wires appeared to be there when I went by around lunchtime today, though everything is still in need of proper tensioning. Many dropper wires were hanging loose, and the bottom wire was temporarily being held up by pulleys rather than the lower arm of those assemblies that have been strapped onto the poles for a while now.

Yes, the catenary is the top wire and is called that because "catenary" is the geometric term for the curvature of a freely-suspended cable under gravity - the top wire hangs in that way, and the bottom wire is kept straight via drop wires of varying length that account for the catenary shape of the top wire. This allows a straight contact wire with relatively little tension and hence less potential for tension-related issues. I haven't bothered to look but I'm sure there are articles at Wikipedia and elsewhere that explain the actual science behind it.

EDIT: The makers of Mathematica have a great article explaining a catenary:
Catenary - Mathworld

You just had to bring math into this, didn't you?

Wasn't sure where to put this, but this thread seemed most appropriate. Good article about LRT serving as the "backbone" of a metro public transit system. Portland gets high marks. Dallas not so much. MSP would probably need both SW and Bottineau to get to where these cities are today. Check it out here:

http://www.nctr.usf.edu/wp-content/uplo ... ompson.pdf