A Line - Arterial Rapid Bus

[mulad]

I do think the change issue is a relatively major detriment, though. I would get if it was severely limited, but offering no option for change is a large negative. Granted, it's not something being lost, but if there's a machine it'd be nice for someone to be able to put a couple bucks in and not lose a quarter (or 75 cents during rush hour!) just because they don't have exact change. In my experience, a lot of people still prefer using cash for small transactions (over a credit/debit card) and offering such a strong disincentive to cash seems odd. Maybe that extra mechanism cost too much as well, and maybe it's still worth it, but it's a surprising exclusion.

Yeah, if change turns out to be a problem, it's probably simplest to just add a bill changer next to them. They seem to be relatively inexpensive (though who knows about anything rated for outdoor operation...)

[Silophant]

Hopefully there's at least some signage indicating that the big coin return slot is a ruse. I didn't see anything like that in the video.

[mulad]

Well, it'd still work for any coins/objects rejected by the sorting mechanism.

[RailBaronYarr]

This is maybe a broader question, but the parking meter pay podiums all over town provide change, right? I don't know how many there are in Minneapolis, and certainly they're more clustered than aBRT stops (2 every half mile or so along a corridor), but presumably they need to be kept stocked and/or collected, right? Is there any way to contract out management of that collection to the parking firm who manages the meters (or the city, if that's who does it)? And, why/how are they able to afford installing/maintaining so many of them for what I'd guess would be a similar amount of cash exchanged per day per podium as a transit reader?

[xandrex]

Unless I've been doing it wrong, I don't think believe the parking meters in the city provide change. Of course, change still needs to be collected, so that maybe doesn't change the calculus of the argument.

[RailBaronYarr]

Hmmm, maybe I'm confusing change with the ability to spit back out what you put in if you cancel. My bad. As you say though, I'm still curious about the comparison between the two systems' operations/financials.

[David Greene]

This isn't a big deal for me now, since I have mine linked to a credit card and it refills automatically

You don't have a Metro Pass from Cray?

[mulad]

I am not as much of a cheapskate as I should be, I guess. The company doesn't/didn't subsidize the card beyond the standard discount, so I'd only save $15-20/month. I kind of consider it an extra donation to Metro Transit to reduce their government subsidy ever so slightly.

[Mcgizz]

The A Line is now called out on the Blue line train when entering 46th Street Station. It is announced before all the others. It caught me off guard.

[jebr]

They've updated the ticket machines with some stickers that advise of the fact that refunds will not be provided.





They do also warn to pay before boarding.



Finally, for about a day earlier this week they had real-time updates on the monitor. They updated it to a countdown now instead (which I'm sure will go real-time at 10 AM tomorrow.)



Finally, I was able to check what fares are available to be purchased from TVMs. Single-ride, child/senior/disability, 6 hour, express bus, and 24 hour fare products are available. There were not Northstar ticket options like on the LRT platforms, although it's possible they just aren't programmed in yet (or were programmed to not show up at that time; about 5:40 PM.)

It'll be interesting to see how everything goes once it launches!

[Silophant]

I bet Northstar tickets won't ever show up at these TVMs. I'm guessing that MT just uses identical programming for every TVM of a given type, so all of the LRT-style (Type 1?) TVMs have the same ticket options, from Big Lake to Apple Valley.

The test will be to see if the A-Line TVMs get a Downtown Zone ticket option once the C-Line opens and some aBRT style TVMs get installed downtown.

[Qhaberl]

Was the first public rider to board the A line at snelling and university station. It vary fast. Most stops, without wheelchairs, took between 20 and 30 seconds. It was great


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[intercomnut]

A Line Thoughts

My impressions of the A-Line from today:

The Good

The buses are nice. They have a nice upholstery, the front half of the bus feels very roomy, and the extra-wide back door space is great.

Also, with fewer stops, the station announcements always fired off well before you got to your stop.

Also, I always thought the stops on Ford Pkwy looked too close together, but when you're riding the route, they feel very far apart (in a good way).

On the stops where the bus stops on the travel lane, the lack of side-to-side movement improved the ride quality significantly.

I think the best part was not having to deal with watching the bus approach from a distance and then have to pull over 2 or 3 times before it gets to you.

The Bad

The announcements sometimes fired a little too far ahead of the stop. You might forget which stop you're arriving at. And they insist on putting "Station" on the end of all the stops.

I was listening to some of the supervisors chat. Like Aaron said in his Streets.mn post, they scheduled this route very aggressively, apparently before they'd even started testing the route. And then it sounds like the trainers' test runs were going much slower and than the schedule called for, but the planners ignored them. Apparently they had to pull one run today because it was 18 minutes behind.

In an amusing error, the operator for the run I took initially forgot to open the back doors.

When you get to the northern stations like Larpenteur and County Road B, the signals can cause what feels like a pretty long delay.

One more thing I noticed is that Ford and Fairview Station isn't a bump-out. Instead, the bus has to pull out of traffic across the bike lane and into the parking lane to get to the stop. This is frustrating since that part of Ford was completely reconstructed. Couldn't they have made that a floating bus stop? Or at least bumped out into the parking lane?

[mulad]

It was hard for me to tell if the line was any faster than normal. I didn't have a previous run to measure against, and timings on opening day are certain to be a bit off anyway. The bus seemed to catch up to traffic more often than I remember with the 84, so it felt kind of slow -- but you have to balance that with the fact that bumpouts at most stations eliminate the wait time for buses pulling out into the travel lane.

I'm sure one of the biggest travel-time improvements comes from shortening the route a bit up at Rosedale, with the buses making an immediate left out of the transit center rather than going past the Big Bowl entrance to the mall. That's fine for speeding things up, but I've always felt more comfortable waiting by the mall entrance. The transit center doesn't have any outdoor seating, and the indoor seating area feels like an interrogation room.

Then again, it looks like most or all of the benches at other stops are out in the open next to shelters, broadly exposed to the elements. The shelters themselves have hand-holds, but apparently no seats (though I didn't look at all of the stops, so there might be a few covered benches somewhere).

Like with the Green Line, I'm suspicious that the signal timing hasn't been fully implemented/tested/tweaked yet. It would be a bit of wasted effort to go through a lot of tuning with empty buses only to have that get screwed up anyway when real people start using it. We'll have to check back in a couple months to see if it's gotten better.

I agree that the buses feel a bit more spacious. Thy have the wider rear door and the lack of a fare machine and Go-To reader up front, and a couple more seats face the aisle, which frees up a bit of standing room. At most stops, people seemed to prefer using the wide rear door for boarding, but there were a few times when everyone who was waiting got on through the front door.

I noticed that the buses don't have pull cords for requesting a stop -- instead there are vertical touch-sensitive strips in the gaps between windows and a couple more pushbuttons on hand-holds along the aisle. The flip-up seats for wheelchairs/strollers/etc. are a bit different -- looks like most of the seats can be flipped up one at a time rather than flipping up in benches of 2 or 3.

These buses have sealed windows without any ability to open them, so let's hope the air conditioning works properly and that they have good odor filtration. I was on a 94 bus with sealed windows a few weeks back that smelled fishy inside, which seemed like a bad thing. The sealed windows theoretically help reduce noise within the bus, since there are fewer parts to rattle around, though the larger number of folding seats caused increased rattling sounds on at least one of the trips I took.

Were the operators tying down wheelchairs like they normally do on other buses? Early on in the A Line planning, there was some interest in a bus design that didn't need any straps to hold them in place, but I'm not aware whether that feature ended up in these buses or not.

Anyway, for the most part it's an improvement. I think most of the downsides we've mentioned are still things that aren't any worse than what we had before -- perhaps just missed opportunities.

[VAStationDude]

There were a couple instances of the bus I was on missing a light (St Clair was one, iirc) by a second or two. Partial priority might not be in place for the lights my bus was stuck behind but if it is in place it certainly isn't active.

For giggles I purchased a ticket. The machine takes probably a good ten seconds just to come out of hibernation. From there it was pretty slow cycling through each step. My experience with similar parking meter machine in Portland was similarly glacial. The tickets are pretty nifty looking and have huge type face.

https://imgur.com/yvX13Ju

The biggest improvement for me will be being able to count on ten minute frequencies seven days a week with a good span of service down Snelling and Ford Parkway across to Minneapolis. I always seemed to find myself praying I'd make a clean transfer to the 74 after getting on a 84h.

[jebr]

Taking it today, it does feel better and the air conditioner seems to be working fine. I think most of the delays right now are due to people checking it out and not being sure how it works. I did have one ride about 2 pm that was on time throughout.

One funny anecdote: the dignitaries getting off at the Roseville celebration forgot to get off the ceremonial first bus, so it had to loop around and make a second appearance.

I don't think the signage was great for the free rides until Monday. It seemed rather confusing since there was no permanent signage for it, and one of the banner ads even stressed making sure to pay your fare. I've been tapping my card this afternoon; since I have a pass it really doesn't matter.

All that said, I'm happy for losing the loop around Rosedale (I transfer most days at Rosedale and gaining that couple minutes will be nice.) It will also be nice to not have to worry about which branch of the 84 I'm getting on.

[intercomnut]

Were the operators tying down wheelchairs like they normally do on other buses? Early on in the A Line planning, there was some interest in a bus design that didn't need any straps to hold them in place, but I'm not aware whether that feature ended up in these buses or not.

I think I saw a picture on twitter with a wheelchair strapped in like usual.

They were in discussions to change to a model where the person would face backwards and use only a 3-point belt. They unfortunately weren't able to get approval in time to order the new configuration for the A-line buses. I know they were discussing retrofitting the buses to have the configuration, while also providing the option for the face-forward method, so I'm not sure what happened.

I don't think the signage was great for the free rides until Monday. It seemed rather confusing since there was no permanent signage for it, and one of the banner ads even stressed making sure to pay your fare. I've been tapping my card this afternoon; since I have a pass it really doesn't matter.

Agreed. I'm surprised they didn't pull out the covers they use for the bus fareboxes and put them on the Go-To readers. Although that probably would take a lot of staff time.

Anyway, for the most part it's an improvement. I think most of the downsides we've mentioned are still things that aren't any worse than what we had before -- perhaps just missed opportunities.

Agreed. In spite of the downsides, I had a great experience today and am looking forward to the C-Line coming through my neck of the woods.

[DanPatchToget]

I was on the first full length trip between 46th Street Station and Rosedale. Overall I like it and it seems to have a good travel time. I don't travel on Snelling often, but I'll definitely use it to get to Grand Avenue, the State Fair, Rosedale, and a short-cut way between the Blue Line and Green Line.

Now lets implement this system all over the metro and quickly. It costs very little and, besides the obvious anti-transit folks, people like it and think it's an economical way to improve our urban bus system.

[Minnehahaha]

My trips along Snelling tend to be relatively short, so I won't see much in the way of improvement in travel times but I still think I will find plenty to like about the A Line. Not just the frequency and infrastructure improvements, but little things like the the wider bus doors (just came home from Whole Foods lugging groceries and a pizza and the advantage was apparent in that moment.) Seeing that the "T" logo at the top of the pylons starts flashing before the bus arrives is a nice touch!

[jebr]

There's been staff at the major A Line stops today helping people get used to it. I would think they could throw a cover into their informational kit.