urbanMSP

I believe they announced their opposition to a new bridge here last year.

well... I just started a group called "Friends of train transit" and I/we oppose not building a new bridge & not giving trails their own lane so....

well... I just started a group called "Friends of train transit" and I/we oppose not building a new bridge & not giving trails their own lane so....

I think you're being sarcastic, but it would be nice if we had more coordinated and vocal transit lobbying. The FMR have been very effective at conservation and research, but also lobbying, grassroots organizing, and advocacy.

well... I just started a group called "Friends of train transit" and I/we oppose not building a new bridge & not giving trails their own lane so....

I think you're being sarcastic, but it would be nice if we had more coordinated and vocal transit lobbying. The FMR have been very effective at conservation and research, but also lobbying, grassroots organizing, and advocacy.

Yea I was, but yea it would be nice if we were more organized but that will never happen! ...I mean we all know why haha.

If we can call things like the A Line and the C Line "rapid transit" with only limited rapid transit features (only limited stops, off-board ticketing, and some signal priority) can we start calling this a "rapid streetcar"?

If we can call things like the A Line and the C Line "rapid transit" with only limited rapid transit features (only limited stops, off-board ticketing, and some signal priority) can we start calling this a "rapid streetcar"?

I did contact them, and if they go with a streetcar vehicle it will be apart of the METRO system and assigned a color.

http://www.startribune.com/public-weigh ... 456524713/

There was a public engagement event last night, more than 100 people, sounds like more support than not.

I did contact them, and if they go with a streetcar vehicle it will be apart of the METRO system and assigned a color.

I think that's right for this line but would not be appropriate for the as-conceived Nicollet streetcar. That should probably get a letter designation.

I did contact them, and if they go with a streetcar vehicle it will be apart of the METRO system and assigned a color.

I think that's right for this line but would not be appropriate for the as-conceived Nicollet streetcar. That should probably get a letter designation.

I see it two ways though.

1) Riverview is basically LRT, minus a small portion that is shared right of way. So I can see why it is being considered for the METRO system. It also is rail and are other intracity rail lines are denoted by a color.

2) Nicollet Streetcar could go to either naming convention though. There will be people who say well it is a rail line in Twin Cities Metro, it should be a color, and vice versa for a letter designation.

For consistency, I think I would prefer all rail lines to have a color designation.

For me, stop spacing matters more for METRO lines than shared ROW or anything else. The Nicollet-Central line would look very different from the other LRT/BRT or Riverview on the system map.

I'd say we should circumvent the issue by building Nicollet/Central as aBRT. If it is a streetcar, though, I agree that colors are the way to go for rail lines, even if the streetcar operates more like aBRT than LRT or hBRT.

I'd say we should circumvent the issue by building Nicollet/Central as aBRT. If it is a streetcar, though, I agree that colors are the way to go for rail lines, even if the streetcar operates more like aBRT than LRT or hBRT.

I have talked to the Manager of aBRT at Metro Transit, and they aren't ruling out aBRT on Nicollet Ave even if the city of Minneapolis builds streetcar. I think that is mainly due to needing to serve past Lake St she said.

I'd say we should circumvent the issue by building Nicollet/Central as aBRT. If it is a streetcar, though, I agree that colors are the way to go for rail lines, even if the streetcar operates more like aBRT than LRT or hBRT.

Except we've already explicitly decoupled colors from mode. We've already said just because something is on rubber tires doesn't mean it shouldn't get a color. The converse is that just because something is on rail doesn't mean it should get a color.

I agree with EOst, stop spacing, capacity and frequency/availability are way more important than mode. It makes more sense to me that colors=limited stop, high capacity, high availability.

I think we'll probably see something of a hybrid. I do think that Riverview will be part of Metro and Nicollet/Central won't, because of the stop spacing/capacity/frequency tests. But I could see a situation where Nicollet/Central and the aBRT lines get "promoted" and start showing up more prominently on the Metro map, perhaps with color coding (ooh, how about pastels!) but keeping their letter names.

Sorta like this map, but more abstract, in the manner of a transit map instead of a geographic map, and minus the higher-frequency traditional buses.

The real nasty trick is figuring out where the Greenway streetcar, which has lots of stops but a dedicated transitway, fits in to all this.

If true streetcar like the Nic/Central Line ever becomes reality I'd like to see it be designated with S and a number. So for Nic/Central it would route S1, then the next route would be S2, etc.

Metro (including Riverview and Greenway)-color
Regular buses-number
Arterial rapid bus-letter
Streetcar-S#

Midtown rail should absoluely get a color. It connects two METRO rail lines and it makes a lot of sense to extend it along SWLRT for some distance and possibly also along the Blue Line.

Lake St. aBRT would be, well, aBRT.

Well, basically we have:

Nicollet - frequent stops, mixed-traffic ROW
Midtown - frequent stops, dedicated ROW
Riverview - infrequent stops, partially mixed-traffic ROW
Existing LRT - infrequent stops, dedicated ROW

Each of the three projects differs in some way (other than just vehicles and station configuration) from what we already have. Riverview is the most similar in terms of, like, the destinations it connects, while Midtown will be the most rapid, but serves more local destinations than those on the existing maps.

All these projects and their modes largely make sense given their context, but the subtle inconsistencies mean Metro Transit will have a hell of a time explaining them as part of a coherent system.

This is kind of getting really off topic... but my two cents is that anything that is greater than Hi- Frequency should be part of the METRO system and have a color. I think the A, B, C lines should be colors and on the metro map. It sounds dumb, but think of the rail bias that exists. If they were to say that all of these lines make up the METRO I think the general public will be more and more open to using the Riverview, Rush, East Metro (Gold) lines. Similar to what was posted above. We have a GREAT system that could be even better utilized if people realized how good it is and didn't just see it as Blue and Green lines, then buses (yuck!).

One significant problem with including A/B/C etc. as METRO lines is station spacing on the map. Either you have to place stops/labels really, really close together (and Hiawatha stops very far apart), which doesn't look good, or you have to make yourself comfortable with a Midtown/Lake St line that looks like an S.

This is kind of getting really off topic... but my two cents is that anything that is greater than Hi- Frequency should be part of the METRO system and have a color.

As long as we can also demote any line that isn't high-frequency out of the METRO system (*cough*red line*cough*)