urbanMSP

I was on a Green Line tonight where the strip maps had a maroon and UMN-branded indication of the Campus Zone. It looked pretty ugly. I should've gotten a picture, but it didn't occur to me until afterward.

Was it not the normal UofMn logo? The normal M?

The whole area behind the logos is maroon, then the station logos are yellow and have the M logo inside.

Did I hear somewhere that St Paul was giving more intersections priority in the month of October? I made Central to Lexington tonight in 11 minutes, only one short delay at Marion. Nice.

On my last couple of trips though Dale and University (in a car) I have noticed that the lights seem to be holding longer for the trains or changing over to vertical bar for the trains faster. Has anyone else noticed this?

West Bank to Hamline in 16 minutes just now. We'll see how long it takes to get on to Saint Paul central but right now it's a much quicker ride than a month ago.

Forgot to check when I got off at Central but on the way back it was exactly 35 minutes from StP Central to West Bank and I think that's about what it took going over. That's pretty good, certainly good enough for me to think that *if* this is now normal, they've got the issue pretty much in order. Both trips did stop at a couple intersections, but not many.

The university basically has given full signal priority. Crossing the tracks takes is impossible because the light stays red for long and green only very slightly. I'm glad.

Good. College students are perfectly capable of jaywalking safely and not delaying the train. Everyone wins.

The whole area behind the logos is maroon, then the station logos are yellow and have the M logo inside.

Took a picture of this on the train last night.

New U of M sign on Green Line by mundsen611, on Flickr

Identifying destinations is a good thing on transit maps.

I don't disagree with that, but I wish they would have just made it a background behind the station circles, and left the names alone, like the airport or downtown zones. I also wish they would have added the University Zone to the key in the lower left-hand corner. It's pretty common knowledge that the Block M is the UMN logo, but it wouldn't have hurt to spell it out explicitly.

yes too much maroon background there. simplicity is best. though i like the gesture emphasing university stations.

Not to mention, neither the maroon nor the yellow are very good colors next to the shade of green they've chosen. This really feels like something dictated from on high, rather than something the designer chose.

More ridership info:

http://www.startribune.com/local/blogs/278048221.html

[...] From Sept. 2-19, the East Bank Station had the highest weekday ridership with an average of 5,093 rides. The U's West Bank station had the fourth highest ridership on the lin ewith 2,445 rides. The stop at Stadium Village has 1,733 riders.

In comparison, the highest number of weekday boardings on the Blue Line during the same period was at Terminal 2-Humphrey with an average of 3,041.

Thought the Blue Line information was odd.

Terminal 2 is where many airport employees park for free or at a reduced rate and take the train to Terminal 1. I think Terminal 1 would have more riders however, as more travelers arrive at Terminal 1 and many airport workers park at Fort Snelling or 28th Ave for free and take the train to work.

Good to hear that the Green Line is doing well on ridership! I am quite surprised to see we are getting 38,000 riders/day. The 16/50 combo was doing a little over 20,000/day, and I was expecting 25-30,000 myself. In any case, I hope it's enough to get late night frequencies bumped up to 10-15 minutes instead of 20-30.

Wasn't there a bus bridge between moa and terminal 2 after a derailment?

That makes sense now.

Wasn't there a bus bridge between moa and terminal 2 after a derailment?

The derailment happened on Saturday Sept. 20th, in the afternoon and was repaired by Monday morning. A less than 48 hour situation (on a weekend) I doubt would have made Terminal 2 the highest in ridership, especially when it happened after their sampling from Sept. 2nd-19th.

I wish Metro Transit did a better job reporting (publicly) their monthly ridership. They used to do that several years ago.
It would be nice to see overall numbers for both lines - as has been mentioned by others on here.

24% of Vikings attendees used the Green Line. That seems low, but apparently it's high. http://www.startribune.com/local/blogs/278048221.html

Any chance they could run Blue Line/MOA specials out of Stadium Village after a game? They could just reverse directions between 11th Ave and the wye. Maybe they could start the run with an operator at each end, and then the extra op could detrain at Cedar Riverside to get back to the shop.