urbanMSP

Did anyone attend last evening's CAC meeting? I was on a plane so couldn't. Just curious of the discussions that took place.

I used to be quite a car guy and loved driving. Like most Americans I felt a sense of freedom having a driver's license and a car, until all the costs associated with car ownership plus grueling traffic everyday became too much. On top of that when I studied in Oslo, Noway in 2015 I felt more freedo...

The Riverview Corridor meeting slides for next week are up. They focus on the Arterial BRT option which would be similar to the 54 bus. It is modeled to have 8,000 riders per day in 2040 at a cost of $121 million and a 40 min travel time. Obviously this is much cheaper as it is mixed-traffic and wo...

Metro Transit March 16th, 2024 service changes: https://www.metrotransit.org/quarterly-service-changes-begin-saturday-march-16 83 - Extended to Rosedale and no longer stops at Roseville Target; uses Lexington instead of I-35E on south end of route. Considering the main reason the 83 was traveling d...

New Northstar Study has dropped. https://www.dot.state.mn.us/passengerra ... index.html

2036-2038 implementation is absolute BS


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

By that time it should be a full-fledged regional rail service on par with the likes of UTA's Frontrunner.

Thinking longer term with a network of regional and intercity trains, even if Target Field Station can somehow be expanded beyond what's proposed for NLX there's still the issue of the freight traffic on the existing rail corridor through there, and that rail corridor is squeezed in with new develop...

So, how did it work out with the city squandering the money of hard-working taxpayers trying to get "just a normal city" there? So you're already deeming it a failure because a grocery store closed? Let's wait and see what happens to the grocery store space, and the area in general before...

https://www.startribune.com/a-grocery-store-was-supposed-to-make-a-neighborhood-near-the-mall-of-america-it-closed-in-less-than-four-months/600343491/ Strib article. Seems Bloomington city management had a really niave and iddyllic vision of creating their idea of an urban utopia from scratch and a...

Keep in mind the $2 billion is in 2033 dollars, not today’s dollars.

Since we’re building LRT to the southwest and northwest suburbs, I don’t see why West 7th doesn’t deserve LRT.

Perhaps also roll out some PSAs showing the cleaning crews who have to clean up other people's messes on buses, trains, and stations. Like smoking, it confounds me that so many people just don't care about littering on our taxpayer funded vehicles and stations. I also wonder if having small trash bi...

I mean smoking on a train/bus probably should be a prosecutable offense but I think a busy and focused DA office should be spending their energy and attention elsewhere on far more serious offenses. Even if some is caught dead to rights for smoking a cigarette on a train (multiple witnesses, video ...

Is smoking on the train a non-prosecutable offense? It should be since it's a health and fire hazard. The latter probably isn't likely, but lighting a cigarette requires fire, and god forbid that tiny flame somehow turns into an inferno.

A reminder that the zoo monorail was not removed because it was inherently bad or poorly performing at its purported mobility function - they literally couldn't service the equipment because decades later, no companies remained in business to repair or replace things as they broke. The Hyperloop wo...

Both options assume mixed traffic operations north of Grand, and it sounds like the push is for less dedicated right of way, not more. I'm well aware of the mixed-traffic operations being proposed, and as I mentioned earlier in the thread Ramsey County planners seem to be leaning towards the option...

I recall that they are looking at using the smaller 80-foot long Siemens LRV and I would imagine that the stations would be designed for that. In my opinion, they should at least use the 90-foot version for interoperability. Agreed. It would be absolutely foolish not to use the same exact LRVs we u...

All the more reason to do 100% dedicated ROW then.

Train length is another issue... Will these stations only be built for 1-LRV trains? Hiawatha was built with some 2-LRV platforms but with a pathway to extend those platforms (happened within a few years). I recall that they are looking at using the smaller 80-foot long Siemens LRV and I would imag...

How about we just don't build a streetcar and build light rail Agreed, but if we can only choose one of the streetcar options then I'd say Option 1 because it has the best chance to be converted to 100% dedicated right-of-way later on. From the meeting last evening, it sounded like the main or only...

For those curious, during the CAC meeting yesterday it was said that the cost in 2033 dollars for the new Mall of America Station and Highway 5 Bridge would be approximately $100 million and $240 million, respectively. Maybe it was just me, but the presenters seemed to talk more highly of Streetcar ...

If you're bored and want to kill over an hour, check out this video from the cab of a locomotive going south on the Dan Patch Line from St. Louis Park to Savage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtgBttVstc0 In the beginning of the video you can kind of see where the Green Line's Louisiana Avenue Stat...