urbanMSP

I've also found it interesting that CAC members can look past that. Creating that connection was the whole reason the study happened. The hybrid solves that problem for me.

Question: how many people are going to ride the streetcar if an aBRT that serves more places and is likely faster (assuming similar headways throughout the day) is also available on the corridor, at least to downtown? People wanting a single seat ride to Eat Street or folks who are traveling within W Broadway and happen upon a streetcar before the bus? This seems.. just odd. The hybrid seems to acknowledge that the bus really does give much better mobility bang for the buck, but we *really* want that streetcar to spur development, so why not just build them both.

The hybrid aBRT would likely only stop at Penn and Fremont acting as an express service through the northside. The streetcar would meanwhile have all the advantages of either mode, have longer station spacing than today's 14 and, yes, connect through to Nicollet. Adding aBRT on top of the streetcar service would be marginally more expensive. It's not quite a home run like Lake Street aBRT/Midtown streetcar, but I see the logic. Honestly I liked streetcar as the mode a lot more before Robbinsdale decided their streets weren't getting rebuilt again.

I just...really feel like this region has not produced much TOD, or at least enough for TOD to be the deciding factor for any transit decision.

Hiawatha Corridor was/is a slow starter because of Hiawatha Ave and adjacent suburban land use along with the industrial land and some of it still being active industrial etc etc.

Central Corridor was never gonna have the kind of whole cloth transformational TOD that I think is generally associated with the term, because University was already a transit corridor, so the train was an evolution of that rather than a paradigm transformation. Yes there will be growth, but I'm not sure I would classify it as "TOD." So yeah, we don't really have a control group to work against.

I just...really feel like this region has not produced much TOD, or at least enough for TOD to be the deciding factor for any transit decision.

I don't think it's surprising how little TOD the Blue Line produced south of downtown. Even setting aside the issue of Hiawatha Ave, all of the development sites were either aggressively awful (Franklin, for example, with every parcel nearby surrounded by stroads and in a "bad" area besides), surrounded by profitable (or protected) and completely ped-unfriendly land uses (Lake, 38th), or zoned to prevent development (at 46th, everything west of Hiawatha except the 46th St Station lot is R1A; at 38th, all but a couple contiguous houses at R4 are R1A or C1). Maybe we haven't had a lot of TOD because we haven't allowed it?

Any updates from the open house last night?

I know I am a little late to this discussion, but I was just looking at the latest study update. Does anyone know why they decided to jog over to 2nd St, instead of just staying on Washington until it meets Broadway. It seems really odd and inconvenient to add in that small detour.

The development potential for 2nd St north of 10th Ave N is much higher, in large part because it doesn't front onto a freeway. It also has better job proximity, such as it is.

Monday's Transportation Committee meeting has an update.

The LPA is the Streetcar. N Memorial Hospital to Nicollet Mall, 4.9 miles, 19 stations, 3900 daily rides, $239 million capital cost ($256 million including Nicollet Mall stations). Estimated generation of $480-640 million in real estate value. Suggestion to cut back to Penn/Broadway, saves $60 million, cuts 300 riders.

https://metrocouncil.org/Council-Meetin ... adway.aspx

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Seems like kind-of a silly project. Fails to connect N Mpls to Blue Line at Robbinsdale, expensive, attracts much fewer riders than Midtown at a similar cost. Maybe it has a shot of being funded under the county-controlled transit fund, but seems like a vanity project that does little to improve mobility for the residents.

If you set aside the whole question of whether streetcars are ever a better idea than buses, I think this seems like a great line. It takes advantage of the Nicollet Mall stations and adds a really strong connection to the North Loop and West Broadway. Certainly, it would make sense to extend it to Robbinsdale, but I'd assume that could be added if additional funding materializes.

And I don't think it needs to be better than the Midtown line -- they're both good projects that should be funded.

Robbinsdale, very early on, refused the streetcar on the grounds that it would require tearing up streets that had recently been rebuilt. Over time I think they'll soften that stance.

The CAC, or whatever it was called this time, was heavily attended by Northside constituents, and we wholeheartedly backed the streetcar option. Good to see they listened to us, but it's strange that this is the first I have heard about an LPA being selected.

With the C-Line and D-Line, the LRT connections and major transit arterials are taken care of. This is a development tool for West Broadway. It needs a push and it has the worst current local bus service. Now let's see if anybody will ever fund this and Nicollet-Central.

Even leaving aside the kinda nebulous development! advantages of a streetcar vs aBRT, picking an LPA that requires the current federal government to give money specifically to a sanctuary city seems like maybe not the best plan.

Even leaving aside the kinda nebulous development! advantages of a streetcar vs aBRT, picking an LPA that requires the current federal government to give money specifically to a sanctuary city seems like maybe not the best plan.

True, but by the time this lines up local funding and gets around to asking the feds for matching funds, we might very easily be under a different administration. As long as the current president doesn't completely dismantle the part of the federal government that funds these projects, it might work out just fine.

Would either option allow for a road diet, especially west of Emerson? I don't live there, but I bet a 4-3 conversion that dramatically widened the narrow sidewalks would do more to boost the neighborhood than a streetcar alone.