urbanMSP

ummmm bostons light rail is the single ashmont line......2 stops? San fran is just muni not bart etc etc

Another side swipe of a left turner on University. Channel 11 had comment from the automobile driver. Epic.

Let's not forget that it's actually illegal to pull out into the intersection unless you can make it ALL the way across immediately. No hanging out in the intersection waiting to make a turn...

Re: the "accident" with the LRV tonight. Ok, this is the system we have, and we must learn to live with it.
There just seems to be so much potential chaos and mayhem just waiting to happen. And when mayhem (or Mary Jo in this case) strikes.... It shuts down the line.
How many mary joes are out there, just one left turn away from ruining your commute?
Worse yet during the mlb all star game or the Super Bowl.
I offer no solutions except for more public education or astronomical traffic ticket fines if you cause a LRT line to be shut down like this. I'm just frustrated by how vulnerable the line seems to be to incompetent - inattentive drivers. We are all aware that they are numerous and strike randomly like the Allstate Mayhem guy.

ummmm bostons light rail is the single ashmont line......2 stops? San fran is just muni not bart etc etc

The wikipedia article states what lines are included in the ridership figures. For Boston, it is the Green Line (originally built as a streetcar tunnel), and the Ashmont Line. For San Francisco it is Muni Metro and the F Market Line. They still have enough ridership to make them the highest ridership systems in the US.

The driver said that she was trying to make a left turn when the train side-swiped her. She admitted to pulling too far out, but she said that some kind of barrier might be necessary.

"If you go to the left hand side of your lane you're going to get hit by the light rail is what it amounts to," said Mary Jo Iverson.

How did this happen? Was she turning against the red arrow? I thought all left turns were signaled with dedicated arrow phases and turns are not allowed on green ball.

The driver said that she was trying to make a left turn when the train side-swiped her. She admitted to pulling too far out, but she said that some kind of barrier might be necessary.

"If you go to the left hand side of your lane you're going to get hit by the light rail is what it amounts to," said Mary Jo Iverson.

How did this happen? Was she turning against the red arrow? I thought all left turns were signaled with dedicated arrow phases and turns are not allowed on green ball.

I see this all the time at Franklin and University. People are stopped at the red light, but pulled so far forward they have one tire on the tracks.

I don't see any info in the KARE article about where she was turning from/to. I believe the signals for cars turning left from University are all 3-element heads with arrows, meaning that you can only turn on green/yellow. Drivers have been very bad about following others through on red arrows. I'm surprised that Saint Paul and Metro Transit police haven't been more aggressive about warning/ticketing drivers who do that. (However, many intersections only get green/yellow for about 10 seconds total, which is pretty short.)

North-south traffic is different. At Snelling, they have the 5-element heads for left turns, so you can make the turn when there's a green ball. When I've been watching Snelling, I think they've activated the arrow for northbound traffic, but not for southbound -- initially green ball+arrow for northbound traffic, then green ball in both directions. It didn't seem like there was a green arrow for southbound traffic.

well we have a streetcar/tram service masking as light rail. you're right, we have what we have and have to learn to live with it.

People will get used to it, and I'm going to guess a lot of the people who use the corridor are regular users. But of course we'll always have visitors from the sticks who get confused about urban roads.

Car hits train gets disproportionately more stories than car hits bus or car hits truck even if the car driver was doing the same thing in all circumstances.

These incidents don't put the Green Line's design in a bad light. The cost (financial and aesthetic) of engineering the thing to reduce the risk of this way lower is not worth it.

Car hits train gets disproportionately more stories than car hits bus or car hits truck even if the car driver was doing the same thing in all circumstances.

Definitely. It's going to take drivers some time to get used to the new route. It's still very, very new to this city.

Metro Transit and Saint Paul Public Works responded to my questions about signal priority, and I posted it here:

https://streets.mn/2014/07/07/green-line ... iority-qa/

St Paul and Minneapolis use different controller vendors and software. Might explain some of the disparities that have been reported between the two cities on the line.

Oh, and mulad, thanks for your efforts in this. You should have gotten paid to do it.

Metro Transit and Saint Paul Public Works responded to my questions about signal priority, and I posted it here:

https://streets.mn/2014/07/07/green-line ... iority-qa/

" A: The traffic signal timing plans are developed to create “green bands” to facilitate movement of all vehicles in both directions on University Avenue. Adjustments are being made to provide good progression for cars at 30 mph and for trains at their posted speeds."

Looks like your 30mph green wave assumption was right. It's concerning that "posted speed" is the LRT benchmark and not average speed (per segment of course).

I assume that means between stations. Wouldn't you want LRVs to hit a green wave between stations at their posted speeds?

I assume that means between stations. Wouldn't you want LRVs to hit a green wave between stations at their posted speeds?

Sure. It's not clear to me that that's what they're doing. We can't really know given the lack of detail.

"exiled_antipodean wrote:
Car hits train gets disproportionately more stories than car hits bus or car hits truck even if the car driver was doing the same thing in all circumstances."


Yes agreed. Busses don't get the press when they have collisions with autos. But I guess the Achilles heel is that on the green line all subsequent trains are halted or delayed until the accident is cleared / investigated / etc. I'm not being a hater. I use it daily. I'm just pointing out what I see as a potential weakness.

Another side swipe of a left turner on University. Channel 11 had comment from the automobile driver. Epic.

Let's not forget that it's actually illegal to pull out into the intersection unless you can make it ALL the way across immediately. No hanging out in the intersection waiting to make a turn...

Are you talking about when making a left turn at a green light without a green arrow? If so, I'm seriously hoping you're incorrect about that, because if it weren't for that "rule" people at some intersections would literally never be able to turn left, ever! Unless the rules are different when a train is approaching.

Another side swipe of a left turner on University. Channel 11 had comment from the automobile driver. Epic.

Let's not forget that it's actually illegal to pull out into the intersection unless you can make it ALL the way across immediately. No hanging out in the intersection waiting to make a turn...

Are you talking about when making a left turn at a green light without a green arrow? If so, I'm seriously hoping you're incorrect about that, because if it weren't for that "rule" people at some intersections would literally never be able to turn left, ever!

That's correct. If you have a green arrow, you're good to go. If you just have a green light, you must wait until you know you can make it all the way across. It is illegal to pull out into the intersection and wait. The law changed a few years ago.

Can you cite the law? Often the only way to make a left turn on a green ball is to pull into the intersection and wait. But aren't all the intersections with light rail protected mode only anyway?

St Paul and Minneapolis use different controller vendors and software. Might explain some of the disparities that have been reported between the two cities on the line.

Oh, and mulad, thanks for your efforts in this. You should have gotten paid to do it.

Sounds like Minneapolis is doing it's own thing in yet another way using 170/2070 series controllers and St. Paul is using NEMA controllers (like the rest of the state). 170/2070 are cheaper to set up and you can use any software program you want or even write your own, while NEMA you're limited to what it comes with, but it's more "plug and play".