urbanMSP

Metro Transit is working on improving the 63 similar to the recent improvements on the 2, basically meaning frequency, stop spacing, and TSP. Don't get me wrong, I think aBRT is great, but the station investments are overkill for most routes, and lower ridership routes probably don't need the duplicate local and aBRT services.

Metro Transit is working on improving the 63 similar to the recent improvements on the 2, basically meaning frequency, stop spacing, and TSP. Don't get me wrong, I think aBRT is great, but the station investments are overkill for most routes, and lower ridership routes probably don't need the duplicate local and aBRT services.

I'm all for upgrading routes in this way, but isn't off-board fare payment is where the major time savings are? Streamlining the #2 bus cut the run time by just 6.5%, but upgrading the 84 to the A-Line was projected to increase travel times by up to 20%.

Plus, the 63's current ridership is similar to the 84 before it was upgraded. MSP shouldn't be conservative with aBRT upgrades, it's the most cost-effective investment the region can make for transit. It should be the end goal for just about every route with 3-4k weekday riders or better, and ultimately be Metro Transit's default service.

To those skilled in back of the napkin math, I'm curious how aBRT costs add up. I know they're dramatically cheaper than LRT, but still it's hard to figure out how these still cost so much.

Like, what does a bus cost? I have no idea, but let's say $500K (which seems really high?). And let's say a the B line needs 20 of them, so that's $10 million.

Then we have the stations, which are basically a glorified phone booth. That can't cost more than $50K a pop, right? And even that seems high, considering you can buy an entire house for like $150K. So anyway, let's say there are 20 stations, that's another $1 million.

Where is all of the rest of the money going? Or am I dramatically underestimating the costs/number of buses needed etc?

Here is a quote about the C Line:

The Met Council awarded a $3.8 million contract in 2016 to HDR Engineering to oversee design and engineering of the C Line. Rogers-based Thomas and Sons is heading up construction. Of the $37 million project budget, construction accounts for about $13 million and the rest is for buses and equipment, Combs Walding said.

https://finance-commerce.com/2018/03/co ... s-service/

To those skilled in back of the napkin math, I'm curious how aBRT costs add up. I know they're dramatically cheaper than LRT, but still it's hard to figure out how these still cost so much.

Like, what does a bus cost? I have no idea, but let's say $500K (which seems really high?). And let's say a the B line needs 20 of them, so that's $10 million.

Then we have the stations, which are basically a glorified phone booth. That can't cost more than $50K a pop, right? And even that seems high, considering you can buy an entire house for like $150K. So anyway, let's say there are 20 stations, that's another $1 million.

Where is all of the rest of the money going? Or am I dramatically underestimating the costs/number of buses needed etc?

I'm feeling lazy so here's an old post of mine.

According to the A Line extension study documents (https://www.metrotransit.org/Data/Sites ... uation.pdf), 22 new ABRT stations (11 stops, 2 directions) would cost $8.8M, which is $400k per individual station platform. It also says that there could be "up to $200,000 of savings per
BRT-ready pre-constructed station platform."

Are the savings for planning ahead for aBRT really significant enough to cut station costs in half, and thus total project costs by 25%?

Cool, thanks for the info. That's incredible that a station could cost $400,000. Where is all the money going? It's basically four poles, a few slabs of glass and a computer, right?

Cool, thanks for the info. That's incredible that a station could cost $400,000. Where is all the money going? It's basically four poles, a few slabs of glass and a computer, right?

I've never looked too closely at how they're constructed, though you've gotta tear the area up to put in utilities and concrete, all of which costs decent money. The cost of smaller projects doesn't necessarily scale downwards like we'd think thanks to the fixed costs involved in getting construction crews out there.

"Four poles, a few slabs of glass" is a good description of most of our regular bus shelters.

Also raising the sidewalk and curb for easier boarding.

Also raising the sidewalk and curb for easier boarding.

And especially, making sure everything drains properly once you've done so. Moving sewer drains is ludicrously expensive.

Gas, Electric, and internet connectivity too!

What are they using gas for?

The heaters, unless those are electric powered.

Edit: reviewed, and the bus/rail heaters are most likely electric.

To those skilled in back of the napkin math, I'm curious how aBRT costs add up. I know they're dramatically cheaper than LRT, but still it's hard to figure out how these still cost so much.

Like, what does a bus cost? I have no idea, but let's say $500K (which seems really high?). And let's say a the B line needs 20 of them, so that's $10 million.

Then we have the stations, which are basically a glorified phone booth. That can't cost more than $50K a pop, right? And even that seems high, considering you can buy an entire house for like $150K. So anyway, let's say there are 20 stations, that's another $1 million.

Where is all of the rest of the money going? Or am I dramatically underestimating the costs/number of buses needed etc?

Agreed, online you can find a perfectly NICE city bus for under 15,000 bucks no doubt we could get this B line up and running for about 200,000 bucks. OR better yet just 72,000 if everybody turns in 2 recyclable soda cans when boarding during the first 7 years! ...sorry couldn't resist.

Big cost of this is the road construction part, on the C line Minneapolis and Hennepin county wanted all of Penn street reconstructed at the same time (including street lights and stoplights). A lot of the streets in Minneapolis have old street car rails underneath which are difficult and costly to remove. On top of that there is much more communications and signaling integration, for the stoplights and such, than just the screens at the stops. There is a fiber optics cable bored the entire length of the line to accommodate for this. Also as you spread out construction over a long distance it will increase costs as well. And yes buses especially the electric ones they plan on using for all aBRT in the future can cost into the $750,000 range.

But if you look along hwy 55 for the C line they are just using basic bus shelters as this part of the line is supposed to be temporary until the light rail is there.

I call BS on fiber optics. There is absolutely no reason the system needs the bandwidth fiber supplies. If they're taking the opportunity to lay fiber for other services, that's one thing, but aBRT is *not* driving the laying of fiber. Whoever said that is either terribly misinformed or has some agenda one can only guess at.

I put on my tinfoil hat for a moment and the idea occurred to me that a dedicated fiber optic cable like that would be useful for doing Chinese style street corner facial recognition. You really couldn't run that over wireless. After about 30 seconds of wearing the tinfoil hat my head started to really hurt so I took it off.

I think they really just threw it into the project because the added incremental cost when you've already got the street torn up is just about nil, so why not?

I call BS on fiber optics. There is absolutely no reason the system needs the bandwidth fiber supplies. If they're taking the opportunity to lay fiber for other services, that's one thing, but aBRT is *not* driving the laying of fiber. Whoever said that is either terribly misinformed or has some agenda one can only guess at.

I think you underestimate the amount of data that Hennepin county Minneapolis and Metro Transit might need. All shelters are equipped with information screens and several high definition cameras. On top of that the city and county have their own cameras at a lot of the intersections. Also since this is controlling the signal priority for the buses and the general timing for the stoplights I would say that these can easily require the bandwidth and speed of fiber.

I'm not sure whether the bandwidth needs require fiber, necessarily (probably not, you can get a lot of data down copper), but trenching/boring are the vast majority of the costs for running comms to a new site, so there's no particular reason not to go with fiber and not worry about interference.

Sounds like a great excuse to work with US Internet's fiber deployment and get them into areas that need it such as Phillips or Northside.

B Line meeting presentation posted: https://www.metrotransit.org/Data/Sites ... educed.pdf

Interesting is the mention of having more stops (compared to the A, C, D lines) on the B and E lines and eliminating the local bus service underneath.