urbanMSP

Just to pile on... "Exponentially" is well-understood for most people discussing rapidly increasing numbers as time (or, in this case, x-axis units) increase - it's a colloquial term. Nobody says "it increased polynomially" even if that's technically true. I don't think the diffe...

Nashville's mayor announcing a $5+ billion transit plan for the region: http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2017/10/17/nashville-mayor-megan-barry-unveils-ambitious-mass-transit-plan-for-music-city/759973001/ Plan includes a bunch of light rail, a 1.8 mile/3-station bus+LRT tunnel through downtown,...

Gotta say, it'd be really nice if the city could try to preserve some ped ROW in the middle of this block (and also the undeveloped one between Washington and 3rd St) to provide connectivity. It's too bad the 720/730 lofts have the parking structure raised up a bit preventing easy (or at least ADA) ...

Hey folks, go here and participate in this survey about the potential extension down into Lakeville https://www.orangelineextension.com/

...which drive different maintenance requirements, and could have different operations characteristics (max speed, braking capacity, etc that impact driver training), and might even drive infrastructure choices (e.g. optional tighter turning radii) that preempt having an LRV use the tracks. The $ sa...

Since there isn't a crosswalk at 30th, and there isn't a cross street approaching the S/W side of University anyway, it's not like one would have served that many people. As Didier mentions, the extra distance people will have to walk to get to the 30th corner entrance compared to having one on 29th...

This is bleeding into a zoning discussion, but yeah it's hard to ask a mayoral housing platform to focus on the very weeds-y (and ultimately, politically unpopular) details of zoning code reform more than NLP and Ray Dehn already have. I really appreciate NLP's prose in talking about the housing we ...

One thought on consist size (even though it's my preference to build/plan for 2-3 car LRVs): What if we took the European tram approach in planning for this line (or others!) where headways of single LRVs are more in the 3-5 minute range rather than 2-3 car trains every 10 minutes. 10 minutes basica...

So, I'm not sure if this is the best thread, or if the study was even shared yet, but.... http://www.minneapolismn.gov/www/groups/public/@cped/documents/webcontent/wcmsp-205222.pdf This is really cool, comprehensive, etc. I won't say much on it for now, but the findings of this study run counter to ...

^That was my thought as well. My brain is cluttered, so I don't remember which options they liked from this document in each W7th segment. To Silophant's point, there are two major cost buckets of future changes- extending the platforms for longer trains, and converting mixed traffic lanes to dedica...

While that may be true, the upside for this corner of downtown isn't really the same as the North Loop or Mill District. To be clear, I support this project, and it's not in a *bad* location per se - it's still only 2.5 downtown blocks from Nicollet Mall after all. But the Convention Center is lifel...

There's a fine line between fantasizing about different routings for an unfunded Midtown line (which, should also occur in that thread).. and a relatively germane discussion about the needs for this exact line if something like a Midtown extension were to happen. I think the LPA is drastically short...

Ok I mostly agree the GOP is using this report for political purposes when there isn't that big of a problem. That said, it is a *bit* odd that the Met Council uses different Metro Mobility growth rate assumptions for its internal finance report (8.95%) vs the federal one (5%). I believe the Council...

Wouldn't extending it to St Paul fix that issue? (I kid) But also, simply running the train out to Hopkins would get SLP and Hopkins on board, doubling the frequency of that rail line between West Lake and Hopkins. It would only cost a little more (1-2 train/sets and <$1m a year in ops) to do it. Gi...

... I'm not sure the fact that they rolled lighting and solar into a combined performance contract made the lighting component any cheaper than it would have been as a standalone project. Reality is that they could have done the lighting portion all by itself and the energy savings would have paid b...

I was under the impression that ramps are more typically $30k per space, so the ~$50k per space doesn't surprise me too much given the details of this project... The rental car center mentioned above is one part of the whole "Customer Service Building" that'd be part of this project - incl...

We could also rely on the New Starts model if the Ford Branch was my dream of Midtown-[Blue Line interline]-46th St-Ford Spur. That would be sufficiently expensive to qualify, but also much simpler than the rail options in crossing Hiawatha presented during the Riverview AA.

Funny, I'm not under the impression that what Uptown is lacking is a nightlife/cafe scene (though more of that is certainly welcome), but other uses like more office space. In a vacuum, this project is very nice - better than average design, some public-ish amenities, etc etc. But considering it's o...

Someone posted a picture of the slide from the TAC on the W 7th facebook group (which I am a member of for some god awful reason) that Alternative 4b - Modern Streetcar on W 7th via Hwy 5 is the draft LPA. Says it likely qualifies for New Starts funding, is the strongest of the corridor alternatives...

So, this entire project came in just shy of $2m on the capital budget request. I agree that there should be a Midtown Greenway-style connection to Dinkytown from that trail, but the budget isn't there for that here. Nor does this project make a retrofit like that in the future more costly/challenging.