B Line Lake St Rapid Bus, Midtown Rail Transit

[grant1simons2]

Construction on Lake Street is officially underway. The 4-3 conversion is not going over well on Nextdoor.

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[Silophant]

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[daveybabymsp]

Construction on Lake Street is officially underway. The 4-3 conversion is not going over well on Nextdoor.

It boggles my mind that some people are against 4-3 conversions. The Lyndale one is such an improvement


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[Didier]

In fairness, the 1-lane sections are effectively in place now and they're noticeably more congested, so if you're predisposed to be against change it's easy to jump to the conclusion that the new road is worse.

Of course, the road is under construction so it's surely more congested than it will be when finished.

[Silophant]

Now that Broadway NE has been 4-3'd for a few years, the pain points are just wherever two lanes squeeze down into one. Traffic would flow markedly better if it didn't switch back to two lanes per direction for a block on either side of Central, then again from 35W to Stinson. I'm having trouble finding the finalized striping plan for Lake, hope that doesn't happen too many times.

[amiller92]

Construction on Lake Street is officially underway. The 4-3 conversion is not going over well on Nextdoor.

It boggles my mind that some people are against 4-3 conversions. The Lyndale one is such an improvement


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Dedicated turn lanes are good, actually.

[Bakken2016]

Construction on Lake Street is officially underway. The 4-3 conversion is not going over well on Nextdoor.

Nextdoor is a cesspool, nothing should be considered serious on there.

[kiliff75]

Nextdoor is a cluster, and unfortunately lake street is also a huge mess. Pretty crazy how much gridlock there suddenly is on there during rush hour...

[thespeedmccool]

Nextdoor is a cluster, and unfortunately lake street is also a huge mess. Pretty crazy how much gridlock there suddenly is on there during rush hour...

If I've learned one thing about transportation in my many years, the traffic will move sooner or later.

[Qhaberl]

Have they constructed the bus rapid transit stations yet? I know they built the one over at the midtown light rail station a while ago.


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[seanrichardryan]

Marshall Ave also has traffic at rush hour, mainly between 5-530pm where there are long backups WB at Cretin. I would never replace the medians & bike lanes for additional car capacity back to the old 4-lane configuration. It will adjust in time; drivers are notoriously bad with change, especially when orange cones are around.

[Bakken2016]

Have they constructed the bus rapid transit stations yet? I know they built the one over at the midtown light rail station a while ago.


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Major station construction has started on the east of Hiawatha to downtown St Paul

[Tcmetro]

Looks like the start date for the B Line is June 2025, according to the project's FAQ page.

https://www.metrotransit.org/b-line-FAQs

[COLSLAW5]

yes we should get the B, E and Gold line all launching in 2025. They had to push the opening due to delays on getting the additional road work completed in the area

[Didier]

The road construction (and 4 to 3-1 conversion) is all but complete now east of Hiawatha.

[COLSLAW5]

It will be interesting to see how the changes in uptown go next year too with the addition of bus lanes and a short bike lane addition too

[Bakken2016]

yes we should get the B, E and Gold line all launching in 2025. They had to push the opening due to delays on getting the additional road work completed in the area

Gold - March 2025
B - June 2025
E - Dec 2025

[DanPatchToget]

For those of you in the Blue Line Extension thread talking about connecting West Lake and Lake Street-Midtown, the latter was already built with a Midtown Rail connection in mind. My source being the Hiawatha Line design blueprints that I found while interning at Metro Transit a few years ago.

From looking at the West Lake Station design and having checked out the construction progress yesterday, it's not being built with a Midtown Rail connection in mind.

I covered this in a Streets.MN article almost exactly three years ago, and I concluded BRT was best (not to stir the pot). I wish the comments on the article were still visible as there was some... lively debate on streetcar vs LRT vs BRT vs trail including comments from someone on the Midtown Greenway Coalition, which strongly favors a single-track streetcar (not sure if they still have that view). https://streets.mn/2021/03/15/rail-vs-b ... -greenway/

[mattaudio]

The only studies I ever saw included a single-track stub terminal sandwiched up against the offramp from southbound Hiawatha to Lake Street, which precludes any sort of expansion or interlining (similar to the problem with the plans produced for West Lake). Long ago, I had produced a map likely linked on this site which took advantage of the existing Blue Line elevated structure to create a flying junction south of 26th St. This would allow Midtown LRT services to use the existing Lake St Blue Line station. Then, build a third pocket track between 32nd and 35th St to allow a Midtown service to switch directions, similar to how the pocket track south of Ft. Snelling Station was used when the Blue Line first opened and it was the terminus.

[BigIdeasGuy]

Probably belongs in the fantasy category but wouldn't it work to having Midtown Rail Line enter a tunnel right after Cedar travel under Pioneers & Soldiers Cemetery the Hi Lake Shopping Center have an underground stop below the Blue Line then day light and stop on east side of Minnehaha? You would probably need to close 27th and tear down the building on that corner to make it work but it's currently boarded up according to Google Street View. Trains could reverse out of the station and head back to West Lake Station.

Plus it would set very well for an extension on to East Lake & to Marshall if the demand was ever there. Of course the downside is no interlining.