Riverview Corridor Streetcar

Roads - Rails - Sidewalks - Bikeways
bubzki2
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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby bubzki2 » July 5th, 2017, 3:29 pm

PP: A $1.2 billion streetcar line in St. Paul? A vote approaches

"Engineers have all but dropped a possible light-rail line from plans to connect St. Paul's Union Depot to the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and the Mall of America, but a modernized version of the classic streetcar remains a strong possibility."

http://www.twincities.com/2017/07/04/st ... -voted-on/

mamundsen
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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby mamundsen » August 8th, 2017, 6:32 am

Kinda related to this....

Cooper's Foods in Sibley Plaza is closing Oct 24. The property owners say that the old redevelopment plan is not back on the table but they will look for options.

http://www.twincities.com/2017/08/07/hi ... -the-blow/

I have to imagine this is the second most developable site along the potential line. Will be an interesting decade in lower Highland Park.

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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby DanPatchToget » September 1st, 2017, 8:26 am

Did anyone go to the "Reimagine the Railway" meetings? Depending on the chosen alignment for Riverview it would be great to have an express DMU service on the Ford Spur between the Ford Site and SPUD. There are existing segments of welded rail so I wonder if upgrades would be minor to have DMUs operating.

Here's the website about the Ford Spur Study-https://www.stpaul.gov/departments/plan ... udying-new

Tcmetro
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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby Tcmetro » September 18th, 2017, 4:30 pm

Supposedly the TAC will be coming forth with a recommendation for the LPA at their meeting on the 28th.

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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby Vagueperson » September 18th, 2017, 9:32 pm

My prediction is streetcar over Highway 5 (supplemental bridge construction) based upon the presentation we heard at the Transportation Committee. It was funny to hear they would be voting to reduce the options to 6 and then voting for an LPA two weeks later.

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Tiller
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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby Tiller » September 28th, 2017, 12:32 pm

Supposedly the TAC will be coming forth with a recommendation for the LPA at their meeting on the 28th.
Did anyone make it to the TAC meeting/know what the proposed LPA is? I was going to attend but slept through my alarm.

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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby RailBaronYarr » September 28th, 2017, 1:07 pm

Someone posted a picture of the slide from the TAC on the W 7th facebook group (which I am a member of for some god awful reason) that Alternative 4b - Modern Streetcar on W 7th via Hwy 5 is the draft LPA. Says it likely qualifies for New Starts funding, is the strongest of the corridor alternatives for New Starts, and meets purpose/need.

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Tiller
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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby Tiller » September 28th, 2017, 3:55 pm

Does that mean streetcar along the length of W 7th instead of using the hybrid/CP Rail option? That seems like a bad idea.

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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby Bakken2016 » September 28th, 2017, 7:18 pm

Does that mean streetcar along the length of W 7th instead of using the hybrid/CP Rail option? That seems like a bad idea.
I don't think they could justify the cost difference with only saving a minute between using W 7th or the CP Spur. I am just glad that it isn't serving the ford site, since that would have been a huge letdown to the current route 54 riders.

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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby Vagueperson » September 28th, 2017, 10:45 pm

No surprise with this LPA, in my opinion. Ford site is definitely a location for strong transit, but it was a large detour from the stated purpose of this line. I am also sort of glad that it is streetcar in that we can bring the St. Paul streetcar plan back to life. Time to look at E7th, Payne, and Rice streets for improved transit / economic development.

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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby kellonathan » September 29th, 2017, 12:20 am

Hmm... Shouldn't CP Spur alignment be cheaper tho? I was guessing it to be a hybrid alignment, for sure, but I guess I was wrong.
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Tiller
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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby Tiller » September 29th, 2017, 12:35 am

As a regular user of the 54 I'm going to be super disappointed if this just winds up being the 54 bus on rails along west 7th. The 54 is one of our better bus routes, to be fair, but we can do better. If we used the hybrid/CP Rail option the vast majority of the route would've been dedicated ROW and easier to upgrade in the future. If it's just a streetcar then future capacity problems are gonna be hard to fix.

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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby alexschief » September 29th, 2017, 7:55 am

I know I've written plenty about this, but it still blows my mind that even at the STUDY phase, we can't muster the political will to take even a single lane of traffic away from cars on West 7th. Could that parking not be moved into a ramp somewhere? It's absolutely wild. Car travel and car storage come over everything.

That said the CP rail line is simply too far south. Our transit lines and stations have been most successful when they run directly through neighborhoods. Putting this route on the periphery of the neighborhood would, I think, dramatically diminish the likelihood that people north of West 7th would ride it.

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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby kellonathan » September 29th, 2017, 12:22 pm

It's probably just my personal perception, but I don't feel the proposed stop locations at CP Spur is that much far from W 7th St, maybe except at Otto, or at Montreal---and considering the future developments near Davern St, Victoria Park and Schmidt Brewing, I believe the center of gravity is shifting closer to the river.

And add traffic from the future Ford Site development on top of the future traffic level on W 7th. I feel like putting a streetcar in mixed traffic on W 7th St deeply compromises its transit service reliability, and thus very shortsighted.
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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby SkyScraperKid » September 29th, 2017, 7:52 pm

I know I've written plenty about this, but it still blows my mind that even at the STUDY phase, we can't muster the political will to take even a single lane of traffic away from cars on West 7th. Could that parking not be moved into a ramp somewhere? It's absolutely wild. Car travel and car storage come over everything.

That said the CP rail line is simply too far south. Our transit lines and stations have been most successful when they run directly through neighborhoods. Putting this route on the periphery of the neighborhood would, I think, dramatically diminish the likelihood that people north of West 7th would ride it.
Let them build a streetcar line... then in 10+ years when car traffic is slowing the trains down to much THEN they can see about removing car traffic from the streetcar line. I think it's more of a phase in. Sure would be nice if it was a built out but progress is still progress. Remember when the blue line was only built for a 2 car LRT train? Everything is always upgradeable.

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Tiller
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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby Tiller » September 29th, 2017, 9:39 pm

That said the CP rail line is simply too far south. Our transit lines and stations have been most successful when they run directly through neighborhoods. Putting this route on the periphery of the neighborhood would, I think, dramatically diminish the likelihood that people north of West 7th would ride it.
Well, in the southern portions of the route, the CP Rail Spur is more centrally located than West 7th, and the northern portions could also be well-served by an improved route 74. Using the CP Rail Spur also means a freeway cap over part of 35E Image

Image
Let them build a streetcar line... then in 10+ years when car traffic is slowing the trains down to much THEN they can see about removing car traffic from the streetcar line. I think it's more of a phase in. Sure would be nice if it was a built out but progress is still progress. Remember when the blue line was only built for a 2 car LRT train? Everything is always upgradeable.
The blue line was mostly built along a freeway, so there was plenty of space to expand the stations. If they plan on this only having single streetcar vehicles, then the station locations they choose could be in areas with no room for expansion without knocking things down. The Green Line, as another example, is limited to 3-car trains because anything more would block intersections such that our signaling system for cars AND transit would no longer work (quite literally grid-locking everything).

It also really depends on where they place the tracks in the street. It'd be a billion-dollar mistake to discover mixed-traffic streetcars don't work because of traffic (from the Ford Site, as an example), and then need to tear up the tracks after 10-20 years to move them.

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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby EOst » September 30th, 2017, 1:44 pm

Traffic from the Ford Site is not going to reduce West 7th to a crawl.

alexschief
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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby alexschief » October 1st, 2017, 7:12 am

I know I've written plenty about this, but it still blows my mind that even at the STUDY phase, we can't muster the political will to take even a single lane of traffic away from cars on West 7th. Could that parking not be moved into a ramp somewhere? It's absolutely wild. Car travel and car storage come over everything.

That said the CP rail line is simply too far south. Our transit lines and stations have been most successful when they run directly through neighborhoods. Putting this route on the periphery of the neighborhood would, I think, dramatically diminish the likelihood that people north of West 7th would ride it.
Let them build a streetcar line... then in 10+ years when car traffic is slowing the trains down to much THEN they can see about removing car traffic from the streetcar line. I think it's more of a phase in. Sure would be nice if it was a built out but progress is still progress. Remember when the blue line was only built for a 2 car LRT train? Everything is always upgradeable.
That is my hope as well.

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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby minneboom » October 2nd, 2017, 10:39 pm

There seems to be a lot of talk within the TAC and PAC about the "Y" option, which would serve both the Ford site, 46th Street Station, and the airport. If possible, this seems like the best route to put forward.

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Tiller
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Re: Riverview Corridor (Alternatives Analysis)

Postby Tiller » October 3rd, 2017, 11:47 am

In one of the PAC meeting minutes the project team was insistent that you can't apply for federal funding with a "Y" alignment because you have to advance a single route/mode combination. What's the minimum and/or recommended cost threshold to apply for New Starts funding?

46th St to Sibley Plaza on its own would probably cost $350M, though I'm not sure if that's enough to apply for New Starts separately. It's probably weaker relative to its cost, too, which is why the TAC didn't recommend it. Thus even if it's large enough on its own for New Starts funding it probably wouldn't score high enough (medium) to qualify.


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