Blue Line LRT

[twinkess]

Stuff like this is why I keep coming back here. Thanks for the history lessons people!

[mattaudio]

Still, we've somehow ended up with a popular line which isn't heavily reliant on park-and-ride traffic (there are about 2,800 official spaces along the line, so the amount of daily ridership from people who drive is probably somewhere between 10 and 20 percent).

I bet a sizable percentage of those who park in the park and rides are taking buses rather than the Blue Line. My wife does this, and we know two other people in our neighborhood who do it as well. Basically it's easier for them to drive across S. Mpls to a P&R then get on a bus to Downtown St. Paul thereby avoiding some transfer penalty frustration.

Of course, this could be alleviated if we interlined the 46+74 and the 23+70 to provide one seat rides from South Mpls to Downtown St. Paul.

[woofner]

I agree that it makes more sense to prioritize the South Mpls to DT St Paul traffic over the crosstown St Paul traffic. However, it might be just as effective to reroute the 23 and the 46 to have a more streamlined connection to West 7th, say via Montreal, at least at rush hour. The 54 comes often enough that the transfer penalty should be minimal. The additional 23 service equates to about 8 service hours a day, max. So it would be an inexpensive change that would give a nice bump to the DT St Paul transit market, and make St Paul to South Mpls trips much easier, also.

[twincitizen]

Can we still rename the '23' to '38' in this scenario? Let's make that happen regardless.

[MNdible]

I know some of you have played around with tracking worksheds before. We talk an awful lot about servicing people living in South Minneapolis who work in downtown St. Paul. Is that because we just happen to have a few members on the board making this commute, or is this actually a significant market to be served?

Also, I'd assume for a large portion of south Minneapolis, the best option will still be to go into downtown Minneapolis and hop on a 94.

[mattaudio]

I don't have any numbers to prove it, but I constantly hear about other couples (not just my situation) where one of the two commutes from S. Mpls to DT St. Paul. And about half of my wife's co-workers also live in S. Mpls whether in Longfellow, Seward, Nokomis, etc areas. Of course this is purely anecdotal, but I suspect there is a trend.

The problem for this travelshed by transit is south of Lake St. North of Lake, it is probably timely to take a bus downtown and get on the 94 (although I contend it is not fair for users of the 94 or other urban express routes to pay the same fare as a suburban rider who stores their car at a multi-million dollar park and ride all day). For those near Lake St, the 53 is a good option. But south of that, transit travel times are a pain, and not just because of the transfer. Heck, transit travel times from S. Mpls to DT Mpls are awful, and that's without the transfer and the ride on the 94. Buses stop every block during rush hour and it can easily take 30+ minutes to get downtown on one of the local routes.

From my house, near Lake Nokomis, it is roughly an hour to St. Paul during rush hour via transit. It requires two routes and a transfer, no matter if the transfer is in DT Mpls (94), Lake St (53), 46th St Station or Highland Park (74), or St. Paul Ave (54). Not a good way to earn mode share, especially when parking in St. Paul is a breeze compared to Minneapolis.

[nate]

Anecdotally, the 53 (which I ride daily) is often full to standing-room only capacity. That's probably a more-popular route for South Minneapolis-St Paul than going all the way in to Minneapolis and riding the 94.

[woofner]

OnTheMap says that 5,844 Minneapolitans work in Downtown St Paul (including the Capitol area). The total rises to 13,145 if you include the quarter of St Paul west of Downtown and south of the BNSF tracks. Interestingly, about the same number live in that quarter of St Paul and work in Minneapolis (mostly in Downtown of course).

These are not big numbers of course, but seen as more likely candidates for transit mode share due to the built form. It's also probably the largest & densest location of employments for Minneapolitans outside of Downtown Minneapolis.

I agree with Matt's reasoning on why a trip from South Mpls to Downtown St Paul is typically faster through Highland Park rather than Downtown Mpls, and would add that I would also expect the 94 trip to be far less reliable (as much or more due to Uptown than to 94).

[mulad]

Yeah, the 94 doesn't have very good reliability at peak times. A new driver was training in on the 3 yesterday and mentioned that he'd often be 20 minutes behind schedule when he arrived in Minneapolis even if he got going in downtown St. Paul a couple of minutes early.

I'll agree with the anecdote that the 53 is often pretty packed.

It seems like a route going along 46th/Ford Parkway, then taking Cleveland up to Randolph, then I-35E to downtown St. Paul would be a good idea (it appears to have sufficient bus-only shoulders for that span). It could be extended through downtown then along I-94 east to Sun-Ray and 3M or something.

[MNdible]

Seem like you could interline a version of the West 7th aBRT with the tail end of the Snelling aBRT that extends over to the 46th St. LRT station.

[talindsay]

These are not big numbers of course, but seen as more likely candidates for transit mode share due to the built form. It's also probably the largest & densest location of employments for Minneapolitans outside of Downtown Minneapolis.

It depends on what counts as "employment" but assuming students are "employed" at their classes, I'd expect the U of MN campus is the largest and densest location of employment for Minneapolitans outside downtown Minneapolis. And for the sake of commuter transportation, students certainly count as commuters.

[FISHMANPET]

I believe that even if you don't count students we're the second largest employment concentration in the state, with something like 30 or 40 thousand employees.

[woofner]

Yes I forgot about the U. DT St Paul has more jobs total (about 60,000) but the U very well may have more Minneapolitan commuters, and certainly does if you count students. You can go to OnTheMap to figure out if that's true or not.

[LRV Op Dude]

No Pants Light Rail Ride 2014 this Sunday
Anyone going?

[RailBaronYarr]

Seem like you could interline a version of the West 7th aBRT with the tail end of the Snelling aBRT that extends over to the 46th St. LRT station.

I've thought a route like this would make a lot of sense. Alternately, the Midtown streetcar could interline with Blue Line and then cut over at 46th, cross the river into Highland Park and use the Ford Plan rails to head down to become/interline with a Riverview Corridor (while W 7th aBRT provides StP-MSP/MOA connection). One seat ride from W Lake to Downtown that would be quicker than the Green Line while hitting many other important Mpls-StP transp connections and destinations. Just an idea.

[Tcmetro]

Or simply run the Lake St Arterial BRT to I-94 into Downtown St. Paul.

I feel that the 74 accomplishes the 46th St. Stn to Downtown St. Paul market well. It has a decent frequency (15 peak, 20 off-peak, 30 evening and Sunday), and is programmed for future frequency improvements. Additionally, passenger volumes aren't particularly high and many stops don't have any boardings or alightings.

In other Blue Line news, I noticed that a lot of the signage has been changed around to remove references to the Hiawatha Line. The retrofits to the Siemens cars to close the gap between the floor and the doors has been implemented as well.

[David Greene]

Ugh. http://www.startribune.com/local/minnea ... 51811.html

[RailBaronYarr]

Very sad. Why is it that the sidewalks don't have gate arms as well?

[mulad]

Sidewalks often get blocked by the counterweight for the main gate arm, so independent arms shouldn't be necessary -- however, there are only gates on the "near" side of the tracks according to the direction of traffic flow. If you walk eastward on the north side of the street or westward on the south side, there wouldn't be a gate.

[MNdible]

No doubt this is sad, but pedestrian gate arms?

The alarm bells and flashing lights aren't enough?

At a certain point, don't we just need to trust that people have a baseline level of competence?