urbanMSP

Egads! That article states that people involved in a crash that kills someone no longer need to file a report on it? I didn't know that was a law but why repeal it? I must be missing something. And why are we expanding US14? That looks exceptionally expensive for little gain. Only 57.5M for BRT out of 7B? Can't we do better? (I'm guessing not)

The aBRT money has to be spent by 2025, according to the bill language, so I'm optimistic that the F Line could be sooner than 2027. Unless there's a reconstruction of Central coming up up that they have to coordinate with (like Hennepin reconstruction delaying the E Line), I don't think there's any reason why it would have to wait until after the Rush Line as long as it's funded.

Arterial BRT update presentation for Mon. 6/28 Transportation Committee meeting:

https://metrocouncil.org/Council-Meetin ... pdate.aspx

Arterial BRT update presentation for Mon. 6/28 Transportation Committee meeting:

https://metrocouncil.org/Council-Meetin ... pdate.aspx

Love the infill station at Osseo and 47th for the C and D Lines, it was a mistake to exclude it in the first place.

Arterial BRT update presentation for Mon. 6/28 Transportation Committee meeting:

https://metrocouncil.org/Council-Meetin ... pdate.aspx

Love the infill station at Osseo and 47th for the C and D Lines, it was a mistake to exclude it in the first place.

That's exciting to see also. Yearly implemention after 2024 of aBRT routes is amazing with the F Line opening planned for 2026.

Also I noticed that the portland and 77th street station is tentative pending I-494 MNDot Project. I sense another Highway BRT. Does anyone have any details on that?

Arterial BRT update presentation for Mon. 6/28 Transportation Committee meeting:

https://metrocouncil.org/Council-Meetin ... pdate.aspx

Love the infill station at Osseo and 47th for the C and D Lines, it was a mistake to exclude it in the first place.

That's exciting to see also. Yearly implemention after 2024 of aBRT routes is amazing with the F Line opening planned for 2026.

Also I noticed that the portland and 77th street station is tentative pending I-494 MNDot Project. I sense another Highway BRT. Does anyone have any details on that?

It’s because the Highway reconstruction is going to dramatically change the intersection there, so Metro Transit is waiting to build a full station/ it might have to move.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Love the infill station at Osseo and 47th for the C and D Lines, it was a mistake to exclude it in the first place.

That's exciting to see also. Yearly implemention after 2024 of aBRT routes is amazing with the F Line opening planned for 2026.

Also I noticed that the portland and 77th street station is tentative pending I-494 MNDot Project. I sense another Highway BRT. Does anyone have any details on that?

It’s because the Highway reconstruction is going to dramatically change the intersection there, so Metro Transit is waiting to build a full station/ it might have to move.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.

Is it going to be one of those massive and over-engineered intersections like what they did at Penn and Lyndale across 494?

Is it going to be one of those massive and over-engineered intersections like what they did at Penn and Lyndale across 494?

Final Engineering is currently happening, so I think we shall no once that is complete.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Here's the open house link which shows a number of different options at this point:

https://www.494openhouse.com/changestoaccess

Is it going to be one of those massive and over-engineered intersections like what they did at Penn and Lyndale across 494?

Keep in mind those interchanges are designed that way to accommodate the replacement of the 35w/494 interchange, mainly to have room for the fly overs.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

Is it going to be one of those massive and over-engineered intersections like what they did at Penn and Lyndale across 494?

Keep in mind those interchanges are designed that way to accommodate the replacement of the 35w/494 interchange, mainly to have room for the fly overs.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

Also the portland ave exit will replace the nicollet ave exit and the 12th ave exit

The 494 website also mentions that reconstruction of the Pleasant Ave rail bridge over 494 is a future project. It looks like there's a single user of this rail line north of 494, the aggregate plant at 61st. I assumed that LeJeune steel was still taking rail deliveries, but the aerials make it look like that spur hasn't been used in ages. Anyway, seems like maybe it's time to start a conversation about acquiring this chunk of rail for better uses. I mean, for the cost of a new rail bridge...

(Sorry, this is pretty off topic for this thread. Move if necessary.)

Arterial BRT update presentation for Mon. 6/28 Transportation Committee meeting:

https://metrocouncil.org/Council-Meetin ... pdate.aspx

Wait a second.. the B line is going to connect to SEVEN METRO color lines (green counted twice , could even be 3 but pushing it...) and 4 planned aBRT line! 5 once you count Nicollet.

Seriously, 10 years from now won’t this line need light rail to keep up or is the projected capacity well with potential growth possibles?

Maybe just a midtown greenway streetcar line would be enough but isn’t this corridor likely to expand 10x faster than the green line central corridor from downtown to downtown?

Or am I missing something? Lake street is going to be the most transit accessible neighborhood on top of the most biking accessible neighborhood. Amazing.

Plagiarizing a tweet of mine: Right now, MSP's METRO system isn't a cohesive network. Mostly you use one line and that's it. But in the next three years, that will change dramatically. METRO will go from 4 direct transfers (leaving aside some of the de-facto, but not direct transfers possible in downtown Minneapolis) to 14, and the B Line will account for 6 of them. These expansions will not just add miles to the METRO network, but they will significantly reshape the way that people can use the network by making in-network transfers far more available and useful.



Add the now-funded (or mostly funded) E, F, and Gold Lines, and you get to 23 possible transfers between METRO services alone (again, with a lot of partial transfers in downtown Minneapolis).

I don't know, color me skeptical but I have a hard time imagining that the B line will be fast enough and high enough capacity to operate as the spine that it theoretically could be. Riding from Uptown to your circled "5" currently is painfully slow and I'm not confident that A Line style upgrades will make the "4" to "5" ride more efficient than riding into downtown and transferring at the "3". Riding from "4" to "7" seems like a real slog, and no station upgrades are likely to solve that problem. These are really just upgraded bus stops and nicer buses, but the issue with the 21 is speed. The biggest potential speed gains will come from offboard payment, but given how often these buses are sitting in traffic I'm skeptical. This isn't a subway.

I don't know, color me skeptical but I have a hard time imagining that the B line will be fast enough and high enough capacity to operate as the spine that it theoretically could be. Riding from Uptown to your circled "5" currently is painfully slow and I'm not confident that A Line style upgrades will make the "4" to "5" ride more efficient than riding into downtown and transferring at the "3". Riding from "4" to "7" seems like a real slog, and no station upgrades are likely to solve that problem. These are really just upgraded bus stops and nicer buses, but the issue with the 21 is speed. The biggest potential speed gains will come from offboard payment, but given how often these buses are sitting in traffic I'm skeptical. This isn't a subway.

They do plan on implementing bus only lanes along lake st, that should definitely help!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

They do plan on implementing bus only lanes along lake st, that should definitely help!

Yeah, that's true. I suppose that, in combination with some eventually-rolled-out signal-holding will help a bit. And of course it will have fewer stops than the 21 too. I hope I'm wrong, perhaps twenty years of riding the 21 and 53 has just made me jaded.

Metro Transit's experience has shown time-savings of ~20% from aBRT upgrades. Stop consolidation, all-door boarding, and fare prepayment are hugely important, because dwell time is such a major source of delay. Another huge B Line advantage (and D Line improvement) will be ignoring the Midtown Transit Center, which is an infuriating waste of time for 21 riders and something of a relic of an earlier period of transit thinking.

Now you might say that all of this is good, but Lake Street is more congested than the Snelling or Penn corridors where aBRT service already operates. But that's why Metro Transit plans to install bus lanes in that segment of Lake Street, and they should make a significant difference at peak hours. So I really don't think there's any reason to doubt that the B Line will make a significant major and enable a lot more transfers within the METRO system than before.

Is it going to be one of those massive and over-engineered intersections like what they did at Penn and Lyndale across 494?

Do we have another thread somewhere for the 494 project? Anyway, they've got videos up on MNdot's project website that show the current designs for all of the Phase 1 work in some detail. The layout for Portland is shown as being a Tight Diamond, not a Single Point like Lyndale and Penn. Lots of other interesting details in the videos.

Also, this project appears to have received a $60m federal grant yesterday.