Riverview Corridor Streetcar

Roads - Rails - Sidewalks - Bikeways
mattaudio
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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby mattaudio » September 8th, 2016, 12:22 pm

I can't recall the names now (I think the overarching concept is "stressing" or "pre-stressing") but there are definitely techniques to allow CWR to deal with expansion and contraction. Now, I'm not sure how that relates to specific joints on the superstructure to which it is attached. Worst case, they could put some jointed rail on the bridge, right?

mulad
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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby mulad » September 8th, 2016, 2:22 pm

I think there's a bridge expansion joint near the West Bank end of the Washington Avenue Bridge -- here's Google Street View of the spot. I'm not sure what (if anything) is done with the tracks at that point.

Wikipedia has a couple examples of "breather switches" where rails can meet at a shallow angle and slip past each other to allow for expansion, similar to how the points of a regular switch fit together: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breather_switch

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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby mulad » October 3rd, 2016, 12:11 pm

I got an email update saying there will be a community meeting for the Riverview project early next month at Sholom Home:

Thursday, November 3
5-7 p.m., with presentation at 5:30 p.m.
Sholom Home
740 Kay Ave
Saint Paul, MN 55108

The Pioneer Press also had an article today on Riverview:

http://www.twincities.com/2016/10/03/st ... t-transit/

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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby DanB » October 10th, 2016, 10:32 am

The PAC agenda for October 13 is up which includes recommendations on the mode, river crossings, trunk alignments, and Ford site.

http://riverviewcorridor.com/wp-content ... ressed.pdf (Part 1)
http://riverviewcorridor.com/wp-content ... ressed.pdf (Part 2)

One statement of interest in part 1 is that interlining with the blue line through Bloomington may result in the loss of signal preemption.

In summary:

Modes:
Bus and Rail advance. DMU is eliminated.

Trunk:
CP Rail, W. 7th (dedicated lane and shared use), and W. 7th/CP hybrid advance. Elevated or tunnel along W. 7th eliminated (referring to entire length only not smaller sections).

Ford Site:
CP Rail Spur and St. Paul Ave advance, Montreal Ave eliminated.

River Crossings advancing:
TH5 existing (bus only)
TH5 new (rail only) includes 14' bicycle lane and 14' pedestrian lane
TH5 replacement/retrofit (bus and rail)
Ford Parkway (Mixed traffic, bus and rail)
Montreal Ave extension (advancing for cost/benefit comparison purposes, bike and pedestrian lanes included)

Silophant
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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby Silophant » October 10th, 2016, 11:37 am

The Blue Line has signal preemption in Bloomington now? Where? Certainly not at the 494 interchange.
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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby seanrichardryan » October 10th, 2016, 11:41 am

Waited about 6 minutes to go left from Killebrew to 24th the other night. The train leaving the 28th Ave station (which you can see from that intersection) kept the signal arms down and lights red. It moves at a snails pace on that short bit of track. Seemed... excessive.
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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby DanB » November 7th, 2016, 9:52 am

PAC Agenda for Nov. 10th is up.

http://riverviewcorridor.com/wp-content ... -Part1.pdf (Presentation)
http://riverviewcorridor.com/wp-content ... -Part2.pdf (Downtown route maps and cross sections)
http://riverviewcorridor.com/wp-content ... -Part3.pdf (Blue line tie-ins and mall of america route maps)

In Summary:

Downtown routes reduced to 5th 6th street pair interlining with green before Central Station with bus continuing on 5th and 6th until Broadway. The elimination of Shepherd Rd. and CP rail routes into downtown seems to eliminate a Union Depot station on the concourse. If Ford site route is chosen Hiawatha crossing would be grade separated (tunnels according to layouts) and occur at 45th, 46th, or 50th street. For the end of the line in Bloomington they appear to be considering terminating LRT both at the MOA station and across the street by the intersection of 24th Ave. S and E 82nd St (see part 3). Though I think with the MOA station plans including room for a 2nd platform the 82nd st station will be discarded. Service plans and run times at next meeting.

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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby Silophant » November 7th, 2016, 10:27 am

A grade-separated Hiawatha crossing at 45th to interline would require rebuilding 46th St Station to be grade-separated as well, right? Or would there be enough room to get back up to grade?
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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby RailBaronYarr » November 7th, 2016, 11:00 am

From the graphic, it looks like 46th St would be underground. Aside from aesthetics, is there a reason a flyover with a new station wouldn't be technically-feasible and preferred to a tunnel? But if that's the case, they'd be fools to not make that tie-in a full wye to allow operational flexibility (:deadhorse: Midtown Line continuing on to Ford Site/beyond). Also, it's good to see things at this stage be discussed from a technical perspective, but wouldn't it be nice to have some cost ranges for each section to chew on? Even if they're rough, they help frame the value of doing something.

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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby DanB » November 7th, 2016, 11:09 am

Looking at the documents again the crossing of Hiawatha would occur at 44th or 45th street to serve 46th street station. Or 46th street to serve 50th street station. Not what I had before. If they used 44th street they might not need to modify the station. I understand the desire to serve 46th street station but am not sure if it is worth the extra track and addition of 2 turns.

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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby twincitizen » November 7th, 2016, 11:29 am

After reading through that presentation, my take is that they have finally eliminated most of the obviously unworkable options. After 18 months of study. No wonder this alternatives analysis is over budget and taking longer than expected. I mean, I'm glad they're being exhaustive with the options, but many of these (now discarded) sub-alternatives should have been eliminated a year ago!

There are still SO MANY hard decisions yet to make, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that they haven't actually made a single substantive decision yet. Again, 18 months into the AA, literally nothing important has been decided.

At some point they have to shit or get off the pot regarding the river crossing. Regardless of which option is chosen, in the end it will mean that perhaps nearly $1MM will have been spend studying all of the various sub-alts for the other (non-chosen) river crossing. In retrospect, Ramsey and Hennepin Counties probably should have launched a separate river crossing study before the Alternatives Analysis. The AA could have started at the point we are today with the remaining options.

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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby DanB » December 5th, 2016, 3:27 pm

The presentation for the December PAC meeting is posted which finally gives us some run times (page 71).

http://riverviewcorridor.com/wp-content ... 8-2016.pdf

No Build Route 54: 32-44 min to MOA (from Union Depot) , 23-33 to MSP (from Union Depot)
Arterial BRT: 30 to 42 min to MOA, 21 to 31 to MSP

W. 7th Dedicated BRT: 40:04 to MOA, 30:03 to MSP
W. 7th Dedicated LRT: 43:43 to MOA, 31:12 to MSP

Hybrid W. 7th/CP spur BRT: 40:09 to MOA, 30:09 to MSP
Hybrid W. 7th/CP spur LRT: 43:23 to MOA, 30:53 to MSP

Dedicated W. 7th/CP spur to Ford site BRT: 59:31 to MOA, 49:00 to MSP
Dedicated W. 7th/CP spur to Ford site LRT: 54:28 to MOA, 41:58 to MSP

What is striking to me is that the average times for Arterial BRT and Route 54 beat every other case often quite easily and Arterial BRT even at the high end of its range is at most two minutes slower. Still might be worth while doing LRT from a systems, ridership, development standpoint but the Dedicated and Hybrid BRT options seem pointless to me unless you really want to hit the Ford site which could probably be done cheaper.

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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby mulad » December 5th, 2016, 3:53 pm

Is there any more information on what time of day they were attempting to model? Speaking as a regular route 54 rider, there's quite a lot of variation through the day, though it probably doesn't vary as wildly as some other bus routes elsewhere in the Twin Cities. One thing to take into consideration is that the route 54 drivers exceed the speed limit on the road pretty often. I've occasionally clocked them going 40-45 mph in a 30 zone.

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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby Tcmetro » December 5th, 2016, 5:42 pm

Part of it is that the portion from MOA to 35E is high speed. IIRC, speed limits are mostly 40-55 mph, with just a few stops. From 35E to Kellogg, there are only four stops, and traffic is very light. Downtown already has bus lanes, and traffic is light there outside of rush hour. The big problem with LRT is that from Sibley Plaza to MOA, the train alignment is slower.

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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby RailBaronYarr » December 7th, 2016, 2:00 pm

So I (finally) went through the presentation.

Even with the potential for train alignments to add distance and require slower speeds on curves, the modeling seems... off. The Dedicated BRT/LRT rail running on W 7th/Hwy 5 follows the same path the No-Build/aBRT would (dedicated BRT follows the same high speed sections west/south of the river as the current 54 does). Yet the Dedicated BRT is 40 minutes vs No Build/aBRT in the low-30s. Am I missing something - fewer stops and (maybe this is where my assumption is faulty..) dedicated ROW - even if it doesn't get you much due to light traffic and existing bus lanes downtown - adds ~8 minutes to the trip time? It feels funky.

That said, even if there was some mistake or odd model assumption that brought down all the BRT/LRT travel times to whatever they'd be, I doubt the travel time savings would be very much. I'll jump on my hobby horse to say that a bigger investment would only be worth it if this project strung together a few additional nodes not currently served by the 54 or planned aBRT - like the Ford Site (and possible ability to cheaply tack on other services onto Riverview's infra, like a Midtown line as I've enumerated in the past). Even at the expense of end-to-end travel time which, if we're being serious, works better as an express bus, not unlike the 94 bus serving DT-DT trips better than the Green Line (and for those who really want to ride a train, the model in front of us says it would add 11 minutes from DTSP to MSP vs the same CP routing by train).

I'd love nothing more than to do that, or to complete the rail triangle with the more direct route via Hwy5. But building aBRT on this corridor with great stations, pre-payment, etc feels like a major win in the Costs vs Benefits fight. Especially if these travel time models are accurate - I can just hear the complaining now: "we're going to spend [$XXXM] for a [bus or light rail] that's slower than the current local bus by [10-20] minutes!?!?"

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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby twincitizen » January 25th, 2017, 2:37 pm

Most Promising Alternatives Booklet: http://riverviewcorridor.com/wp-content ... .-2017.pdf

No new information here, but it is really cool to see every possible combination that still remains on the table. Kudos to whoever put this together.

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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby Tiller » January 25th, 2017, 2:43 pm

The potential new shared Ft Snelling station and the new approach to the MoA (both for rail) are nice because they have the least-dumb geometry. Looks like the rest of the alternatives for entering the South Loop all weave around the existing interchange just north of the current Ft Snelling station.

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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby Silophant » January 25th, 2017, 3:21 pm

Yeah, what exactly is going on with that weird loop for (only southbound?) trains for the "reuse current Ft. Snelling Station" options? If you can split the northbound track off towards Hwy 5 in a sane manner, why can't the southbound track come with?

Also, neither of the LRT South Loop options show the Bloomington Central Station. Are they actually admitting that it's totally redundant, now that American Boulevard exists, and should go away and shave a couple minutes off each round trip?
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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby mister.shoes » January 25th, 2017, 4:48 pm

That packet is great. My votes:

Rail
Alignment #4 or #10
7th/Smith pair or Smith Mall
Under 55 at Bloomington Ave w/ a new station (not sure what "Shared with Blue" implies. Do they move the existing tracks to swing east of that MNDOT building?)
82nd Street!
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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby twincitizen » January 26th, 2017, 8:53 am

Mostly same. We should all send in comments noting said preferences.

I want to know more about that potential new shared Ft. Snelling Station, as it would seem to require removing the current one and re-routing the Blue Line tracks a bit. Looks pretty feasible though, as the only thing in the way are parking lots. Looks like the new station would be just as close to the existing south P&R lot, but would put the north lot out of reasonable walking distance for daily commuters at >.5 mile (still could keep it for big event overflow, etc.) Which is considered the "primary" lot for commuters today? Or are they equally favored? I'd worry that MT would insist on keeping the existing station and having the Blue Line stop at both, which would be bad. If that were the case, I'd just as soon have them build a new separate platform for Riverview and have them be a short, well-marked walking distance apart. A shared station would obviously be ideal, but don't do something overly dumb/expensive to force it.

And yes, I want to know more about 82nd Street. I'd heard a rumor that some engineering folks at MT wanted to revisit that whole thing, rather than going forward with the currently planned MOA Station redesign, which keeps the same painfully slow LRT approach that we have today. Glad to hear it's an option, but I won't get my hopes up too much, as it would be pretty shocking to see them go back to the drawing board on the shovel-ready MOA Station rebuild, which has been designed for quite a while now. If someone at the project is going to push 82nd, they need to make a decision ASAP to delay the MOA Station rebuild.

As for Smith/7th pair or Smith transit mall, I think the hospital is (rightfully) going to wield a lot of influence over that decision. I don't know enough to have a preference either way. The Smith transit mall is likely cheaper, as you don't have to build separate stations on both streets, and you don't have to rebuild that section 7th as part of the project. An actual "transit mall" is not feasible, as every block has access to large parking garages/lots. At best it would function like 5th St in Minneapolis. Lots of emergency vehicles, lots of out-of-towners trying to get in those parking garages. Can't imagine there won't be a vehicle lane in each direction, signed "local/emergency traffic only". Maybe they could build it somewhat similar to the Wash Ave mall at the U, so emergency vehicles can drive on the tracks and not get stuck behind cars accessing the parking garages.

I'm impressed that they settled on a single downtown option for rail - 5th/6th pair to the existing Central Station & 4th St tracks. Sharp turn at Cedar & 6th for westbound trains though (and crosses over the EB Green Line track). Hope they can make it work, because this was the obvious choice all along, and doesn't require any new construction east of Cedar.


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