Green Line Extension - Southwest LRT

[angrysuburbanite]

I hope having SWLRT's deep stretch into the suburbs will give more people actual firsthand experience with riding the trains. I think part of why public opinion on LRT is basically in the trash is because, frankly, a very small portion of metro area residents actually live near it and can reasonably use it.

If you look at Seattle, their projects have been behind schedule and over budget and also received similar press scrutiny, but they serve so many people that the tangible experience of riding it somewhat outweighs the general malaise of the construction process itself. Obviously, Seattle is in a *much* different position than Minneapolis now. But I think we might see the tides of public opinion turn when LRT becomes less of this enigma of mysterious costs and unused infrastructure and more of a thing residents can actually use to get places. Pair that with a renovated Blue Line and another extension just around the corner, I think there could be a renewal of energy and momentum around light rail.

That's the optimist in me. The pessimist in me actually agrees much more with you.

If BLE gets cancelled or put on ice due to the current funding dispute, I think the Twin Cities will have truly lost the plot when it comes to building out a multimodal transportation system for future generations. It would result in a weird, lopsided, clearly unfinished network and would be a much larger embarrassment for our region than I think the county and Met Council might realize.

It's really sad. When I was a kid it was always so fun to take the Blue Line to downtown events (or even just for an afternoon excursion). It felt normal, easy, and accessible. This would have been the mid-2010s so ridership was booming and it wasn't suffering from poor public opinion then, fresh off of the Central Corridor's opening.

Now when I ride the train it just feels deflating knowing that we fumbled so bad in continuing that momentum. There are signs of this dysfunction all over the system still. And if I mention I took the train, most people act like I just came back from a war or something. Ridership still exists, of course, but it just doesn't have the same allure as it once did, even for a nerd like myself.

I don't think that the Met Council or Metro Transit are solely to blame, they were dealt a very bad hand of cards in the 2020s. But I do think the fact that the improvements they've been making recently (or in the near future) are doing very little to stop crumbling ridership and poor public perception is a big problem. We've been in the "things are improving now, hopefully more people start riding" phase for like 3 years and the system has basically the same if not lower ridership than immediately after COVID-19 restrictions were lifted. There are 14 miles of LRT being opened in less than a year and another 13 miles that is basically ready to build, yet it seems like (at least to me as a suburban resident) very few people even care at all.

I hope that my optimist self is correct, but it's really hard to ignore the pessimist. Reality will probably end up falling somewhere in between.

[Icn]

I always appreciate your posts. Seattle has for many decades had an easy to navigate transit system (user-friendly signage at all stops, etc) and a robust public transit culture. Even as the freeways remained overwhelmed by ever more cars, public transit was not negatively perceived, as far as I know as a former Seattle resident. It was a very different sensibility than in the Twin Cities before rail existed in either metro area (save for the monorail in Seattle which was almost exclusively for tourists). This difference is not unrelated to the general awareness of and appreciation for pedestrians in Seattle versus the Twin Cities during those same years. Overall, just a less car-centric culture in Seattle. And as someone who walks along Glenwood Ave in the Harrison neighborhood nearly every day, it’s very hard to tell whether today’s motorists know pedestrians exist in 2026. It doesn’t help the transit user experience when crosswalks only exist at intersections with stoplights.

All of which makes the work of Metro Transit that much more difficult when the transit experience deteriorates so significantly around the pandemic times. I work with people who would never ride a bus to do anything, unless it were a party bus. It’s a class and ego thing. And yes they live in the SW suburbs.

In order to create a cultural change, the trains need to be useful for many different types of trips, which is why the hub and spoke model of the train system is a detriment to culture change. Build a green line that loops over from Eden Prairie to (an extended) E Line, Mall of America and the airport, and somehow extend it from there to downtown St Paul, and suddenly the perception of public transit will start to change, at least for that segment of the south and sw suburbs.

[Korh]

If its not going to be open in time for the state fair next year, some's gonna get the grilling of a lifetime (imagine the amount of people who would take it if they made rides free to the fair, even if they had to transfer at Snelling or at some other station)

As for news about swlrt post launch, I honestly think it might just be no news unless something shocking happens.
How much news/articles has there been for the orange or gold lines in the past 6 months? Because I remember there where serval people who viewed the orange's weak initial ridership as proof that it'll have less ridership then the red line and there was a few article trying to twists the gold lines numbers as a complete failure. I also suspect that metro is just gonna bury the ridership inside the original green lines ridership so yes you can figure out just the SWLRT ridership, you'll just have to go through it station by station in the annual reports

[Wezle]

On the worried about low ridership stations in Minneapolis, there was a glimmer of hope coming from a presentation on feedback received by the city for the 2050 plan. They specifically mentioned "Updating built form and corridors to match new transit
investments" as one of the priorities from residents.

https://lims.minneapolismn.gov/Download ... s-2050.pdf

[Tom H.]

angrysuburbanite's point is interesting - I think the western suburbs are sort of the "center of gravity" when it comes to the Twin Cities suburbs, and maybe especially the SW suburbs. If gas prices are still hovering near $5 next spring/summer, and the SW suburb "normies" are able to utilize SWLRT in a positive and useful way out of the gate, it may go a long way to building some positive vibes for Metro Transit and light rail in general. (I know, I know, "copium".)

[minntransplant]

On the worried about low ridership stations in Minneapolis, there was a glimmer of hope coming from a presentation on feedback received by the city for the 2050 plan. They specifically mentioned "Updating built form and corridors to match new transit
investments" as one of the priorities from residents.

https://lims.minneapolismn.gov/Download ... s-2050.pdf

I sure hope so! There's no reason - for example - to limit buildings to 6 stories along Hennepin through uptown, and then only 4 stories south of 31st. All these main corridors need to be upzoned, as well as all the "second" streets.

[BikesOnFilm]

If you look at Seattle, their projects have been behind schedule and over budget and also received similar press scrutiny, but they serve so many people that the tangible experience of riding it somewhat outweighs the general malaise of the construction process itself. Obviously, Seattle is in a *much* different position than Minneapolis now. But I think we might see the tides of public opinion turn when LRT becomes less of this enigma of mysterious costs and unused infrastructure and more of a thing residents can actually use to get places. Pair that with a renovated Blue Line and another extension just around the corner, I think there could be a renewal of energy and momentum around light rail.

I don't think that the Met Council or Metro Transit are solely to blame, they were dealt a very bad hand of cards in the 2020s. But I do think the fact that the improvements they've been making recently (or in the near future) are doing very little to stop crumbling ridership and poor public perception is a big problem. We've been in the "things are improving now, hopefully more people start riding" phase for like 3 years and the system has basically the same if not lower ridership than immediately after COVID-19 restrictions were lifted.

Having just been in Portland and Seattle, it was a bit eye opening in a way I didn't expect. There is street activity, retail, and transit ridership... alongside incredibly bad and visible homelessness crises.

It turns out that the livability issues we are told are holding back Metro Transit don't stop people from riding trains or patronizing downtown businesses in those cities. So I have to believe the reason we're not seeing the same results here is one of two things:

• Door Number One - Our citizenry is made up of skittish Midwesterners who have self-traumatized themselves into thinking we live in Gotham City when people in cities with much more acute problems just go about their business.

• Door Number Two - It's the skyways, stupid. Our feckless administration and the business community that thinks Wayzata should get to vote in Minneapolis council elections believe that dinner parties on Nicollet Mall are the answer while it really is let me buy fast food at 7pm on a weekday or at noon on a Saturday. If there's no reason to be downtown if you don't have a $50-$100 event ticket or a white collar email job, nobody goes there, by car, bus, or train.

Neither of those answers are really reassuring because neither of them are as simple to fix as "Build X new transit line" or "Increase police funding to Y a year." They're cultural problems that can only be fixed with time.

Case in point - when I first started going to hang out in Minneapolis in the 2010s, family members in their 40s-50s in my life still viewed the city through the 1990s Murderapolis lens and thought I was in danger. Essentially, we've got another crop of MSP residents who feel that way, and the only way past it is for them to get brave enough to challenge their prior assumptions (lol) or wait for the next generation who doesn't have the same feelings.

[DanPatchToget]

My opening date guess is December 2027. They'll probably announce an earlier start date, but I'm just mentally preparing for issues to arise that push it back.

As for ridership, I think it won't be great, but not terrible either. Worst case scenario Metro Transit considers cutting the frequency of Green Line trains between Target Field and Eden Prairie, but I don't think it'll get that bad.

Regarding perception, it'll be mixed, I think leaning slightly more towards the negative side. I think there would have to be some major generational changes from top to bottom (country-wide to locally) for things to truly shift in the favor of light rail and public transit in general. Unfortunately I don't see that happening anytime soon.

[Mdcastle]

It seems you're trying to make three unrelated points behind "door number two". Something about Wayzata voting in Minneapolis and something about the skyways and something about suburbanites not being interested in going downtown.
I'll agree with you on the last one, I get downtown about once a year for the "Doors Open" event. Other that there's simply nothing there that interests me. I don't work there (and specifically avoided looking for jobs downtown so I wouldn't have deal with going there), can go out for dinner in the suburbs without having to ride a train downtown or figure out how to park and then have to pay to bring my car downtown. To the degree I shop in person the Bloomington Target and Mall of America are easy to drive to and have free parking. Of the 50 or so people in the suburbs there's just one couple that I know regularly go downtown just because they like it and not because they work there or are going to a Vikings game.

[Korh]

You know what I wonder, if people on the swlrt want to get to the airport, at what point on the line will it be faster to go west and get a transfer at Southwest station then to go east and transfer to the blue line, and fast to either need to be to appeal more than driving/rideshare

[StandishGuy]

back in the late 1990s I used to work in Loring Park and had a client who had an office on Royalston- I think it was a light industrial company. Anyways, I was shocked how close and relatively easy it was to walk from my office to that location. I would cross Hawthorne at 12th St. near the Loring Post Office and then cross over I394 to Royalston. The infrastructure was totally built for moving cars with poor sidewalk connections. However, with some improvement, this would be a great connection from the dense Loring Park neighborhood to the Royalston LRT Station. I've never heard anyone mention it, so perhaps it isn't on the City or Metro Transits' radar?

[twincitizen]

June 12!

[Bakken2016]

June 12!

That was my guess!


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[angrysuburbanite]

I'm placing my bets on June 12th, 2027

OMG

[Bakken2016]

https://www.metrotransit.org/green-line/

New landing site for the Green Line Extension. The artwork circles for each station are very cute. I hope they become pins to collect on opening day.

[COLSLAW5]

I am still most interested in how they are going to handle the maps on the trains above the doors now.

[Bakken2016]

I am still most interested in how they are going to handle the maps on the trains above the doors now.

That’s part of my job, I will be working with a graphic designer soon on that.


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[Nick]

I was in Seattle this weekend and remarked on the train that their map layout is probably how we'll do it, since it's similarly a long single line with a somewhat shorter one partially interlined and sticking out the side. Not super geographically accurate but makes sense for keeping track of stops. Don't seem to be able to find an example on the computer.

[MNdible]

I was in Seattle this weekend...

RAH

[Nick]

That's right.