urbanMSP

If only the Met Council had some capital money laying around it could use to fill the gap. Not the whole gap, but maybe about $6 million?

No idea where the could've found that amount of money though.

CTIB votes to provide $30 million for Orange Line.

"The agreement reached last month allowed CTIB to contribute up to $37.5 million, but didn’t lock the board into providing the full amount, said CTIB chair Peter McLaughlin, a Hennepin County commissioner."

http://finance-commerce.com/2016/09/tra ... ing-again/

I caught the 535 at 46th Street & 35W Station today. I noticed two things:

• 1. The curbs seem to be lower than the standard 3 inch city curb.
  
  2. The roadway is tilted down from the platform, meaning the bus is actually tilted up and away from the platform when it pulls up.

That's going to make boarding for the elderly and people with disabilities real fun on the Orange Line!

Yeah, it's been a long time since I've tried the 46th Street station, but I noticed the same thing when I took the 535 from there the first time. I think I tried it again a second time and it didn't seem so bad -- certain buses may ride up a bit more than others. I wonder how difficult it would be to raise the platform height. Probably not the simplest thing in the world due to the floor height of the lobby areas for the stairwells/elevators.

I think there may be drainage concerns at the 46th St Station, that may lead to the slope of the roadways. A higher platform would be nice, and would make boarding faster. Hopefully they consider that with the Orange Line project.

As part of the project I've been working on, the county was investigating if they could redo some of the curb configuration on the bridge deck (they were trying to add bike lanes). Not sure if that could solve some transit platform concerns too.

Metro Transit is looking to reshuffle Orange Line funding to ensure the ramp from Hwy 65 to 12th Street and the Lake Street station can be constructed. Given the lack of state funding, they want to delay acquiring ROW for the project and put it instead towards helping fund those two parts of the project so that MNDOT can start construction on time.

https://www.co.dakota.mn.us/Government/ ... df#page=85

Seems reasonable. The southern stations can be delayed for a couple years if absolutely necessary, but if MNDOT goes ahead and starts rebuilding the Lake St. are without the Orange Line improvements, that's game over for another couple decades.

Detailed design for the 12th Street Transit Ramp will go before TPW for municipal consent.

New renderings of the stations. Also it looks like they may have decided to go with the "bent" alignment for the Knox Ave underpass.

Also, there's mention of the downtown stations being "Fare Free." I'm gonna follow up with Christina Morrison to see what exactly that means.

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

Confirmed: Orange Line will be free in downtown.

https://twitter.com/stinamo/status/792452878027911168
https://twitter.com/stinamo/status/792453280261607424

That alignment for Knox Ave is sure close to the EB 494 -> SB 35W ramp. I hope it leaves enough room for the coming-any-year-now turbine-style interchange there. Or maybe that rebuild will eat up the Lucky's parcel and make this little loop-around moot. I haven't dug up and looked at those drawings for a few years.

Confirmed: Orange Line will be free in downtown.

https://twitter.com/stinamo/status/792452878027911168
https://twitter.com/stinamo/status/792453280261607424

Cool! I wonder if that's in addition to the Nicollet Mall free ride service, or just replacing it, since it's easier to promote that a specific, differently-branded service is free between these points than to have it be the NB 10 and the SB 18 like we currently have.

Also, if one Metro line is free in downtown, it would seem reasonable to have the trains be as well. I can't imagine MT is making much off those 50 cent fares.

Confirmed: Orange Line will be free in downtown.

https://twitter.com/stinamo/status/792452878027911168
https://twitter.com/stinamo/status/792453280261607424

Cool! I wonder if that's in addition to the Nicollet Mall free ride service, or just replacing it, since it's easier to promote that a specific, differently-branded service is free between these points than to have it be the NB 10 and the SB 18 like we currently have.

Also, if one Metro line is free in downtown, it would seem reasonable to have the trains be as well. I can't imagine MT is making much off those 50 cent fares.

I'd imagine they're gonna keep free rides on Nicollet Mall given the importance the City places on that corridor.

Along with the LRT lines, I hope the C Line could also be made free in downtown to provide E-W circulation for the southern part of downtown.

True. I guess if we ever get around to a Nicollet Streetcar/aBRT, it'll be a no-brainer to make the downtown portion free.

True. I guess if we ever get around to a Nicollet Streetcar/aBRT, it'll be a no-brainer to make the downtown portion free.

Agreed. Like you said above, it would be so much easier for customers (especially tourists) to take advantage of a single free service instead of the 18 and 10.

Doesn't this turn at the Knox underpass mean the buses will have to make two turns via American Boulevard, to jog from Knox Ave to the frontage road alignment? And that's in addition to the two sweeping S curves to return to Knox for the underpass. That will significantly diminish ride quality, especially given there are already other turns on this stretch to/from 35W ramps at 76th and at 82nd. This is going to feel like your average gut-wrench bus for that half mile.

Doesn't leave much room for my dream of making Fourth a legitimate street again with a new bridge over 94 :/

This is more than a month out of date, but here's some concepts being looked at for the walls and sidewalk surfaces at Lake Street Station:

https://www.metrotransit.org/Data/Sites ... rkshop.pdf