C Line - Penn Avenue North Rapid Bus

Roads - Rails - Sidewalks - Bikeways
Uptown46
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Re: "C Line" Penn Avenue Arterial Bus

Postby Uptown46 » September 9th, 2014, 5:56 pm

Here's the presentation on SWLRT agreement with Minneapolis. See page 19 for the proposed improvements around Van White Station.

http://minneapolismn.gov/www/groups/pub ... 129848.pdf

grant1simons2
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Re: "C Line" Penn Avenue Arterial Bus

Postby grant1simons2 » September 9th, 2014, 6:01 pm

Oh that bridge! That doesn't surprise me at all, I'm sure they'll add a protected lane on the bridge as the improvements to the Van White bridge, how old is that bridge anyways? Looks like the ped bridges in Brooklyn Park or the one near the U campus over 35W. Unsafe concrete/re bar quick builds

David Greene
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Re: "C Line" Penn Avenue Arterial Bus

Postby David Greene » September 9th, 2014, 8:15 pm

Even after the opening of the SWLRT, the primary movement for Penn Ave transit customers is Downtown Minneapolis.
One of the problems with the way Metro Transit decides on bus routes is using past performance to predict the future rather than looking at where people actually want to go if they could get there. Both SWLRT and Met Council planning documents acknowledge a huge increase in jobs and development in the southwest suburbs. Ridership on the C line may still tilt toward downtown in the future but it may not and probably will not be as dominant as it is now. People primarily ride downtown today because that's the only place they can go! One of the reasons we're building SWLRT is to open up new transit routes for people.
Matters will become complicated once the Bottineau LRT extension opens. It would be operationally wise to end service at Olson Hwy, but it seems too close to Downtown Minneapolis, and riders may quit transit if they have to make too many transfers.
Why would we build BRT stations on Olson when an LRT is going to be there by 2020? It's completely idiotic to spend money on those stations and exactly duplicate LRT service.

I like mulad's plan if we really can't go to Penn station.

Tcmetro
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Re: "C Line" Penn Avenue Arterial Bus

Postby Tcmetro » September 9th, 2014, 8:23 pm

Downtown will remain dominant. Not everyone on the northside is trying to go to the SW Suburbs. They also need to go to the southside, Edina, St. Paul, Roseville, etc. Downtown is the largest transit hub in the region, so most people will want to go there to make those connections.

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Re: "C Line" Penn Avenue Arterial Bus

Postby twincitizen » September 9th, 2014, 8:29 pm

Why would we build BRT stations on Olson when an LRT is going to be there by 2020? It's completely idiotic to spend money on those stations and exactly duplicate LRT service.
You're kidding right? You have no idea when, IF EVER, Bottineau will begin service. 2020 is not being realistic, and the project office has already acknowledged as such. There is no official timeline yet (to my knowledge), but I truly think even 2022 is being optimistic. Keep in mind that is just 3 years after Southwest opens, and that is if everything goes right in the planning process AND we get more transit money.

The C Line would be RUNNING in late 2016. For whatever these little bus stations cost (nothing compared to LRT), I don't really give a rip if we later decide to disassemble a couple of them and move them to Glenwood. This project is about the here and now. Let's get it done and serve people in this corridor today (ok, late 2016).

And Tcmetro is right on about Downtown remaining the dominant destination. David, I really think you're just in too deep on this Southwest-Northside thing. I respect you (as a person, as a poster, etc.), but you are truly losing credibility when you make such absurd statements regarding potential interest in transferring to SWLRT ever competing with downtown as a destination for northsiders in the Penn corridor. Look up the 2030 ridership projections for Penn. Now double them. Quadruple them. Still just a drop in the bucket compared to downtown.

EOst
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Re: "C Line" Penn Avenue Arterial Bus

Postby EOst » September 9th, 2014, 8:34 pm

Why would we build BRT stations on Olson when an LRT is going to be there by 2020? It's completely idiotic to spend money on those stations and exactly duplicate LRT service.
In fairness, it doesn't exactly duplicate it; it has more frequent stops on Olson, and takes riders to 8th Street rather than 5th. I don't know if that's enough reason to justify the overlapping service, but it's a bit hyperbolic to say that it's "exactly duplicated."

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Re: "C Line" Penn Avenue Arterial Bus

Postby David Greene » September 9th, 2014, 10:11 pm

The C Line would be RUNNING in late 2016. For whatever these little bus stations cost (nothing compared to LRT), I don't really give a rip if we later decide to disassemble a couple of them and move them to Glenwood. This project is about the here and now. Let's get it done and serve people in this corridor today (ok, late 2016).

And Tcmetro is right on about Downtown remaining the dominant destination.
These are good points. It does depend on what "dominant" means. I'm not anticipating that the ridership at Penn station would be even 1/4 of the downtown ridership. What's the fraction ridership heading southwest that would justify a connection to Penn in your mind? 1/10? 1/8? 1/2? I can't believe the negative impact to downtown riders is all that bad considering there's a freeway right there. If the negative isn't too bad, it makes complete sense to me to leverage the LRT investment more if we can get N new riders on SWLRT, with N being the important "less dominance" quantity. :).

What about mulad's idea of going up Hennepin? Do we know where the final destinations are? For transfers, Hennepin might be a better alternative than an E-W street.

I do fear there will be no stomach for re-routing this line from Olson to Glenwood once Bottineau is open.

And Bottineau will open. When depends on a lot of political factors but even if all federal funding dries up, I should think someone would be interested in building the line to Penn without federal help as advocated in the Bottineau thread.

Tcmetro
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Re: "C Line" Penn Avenue Arterial Bus

Postby Tcmetro » October 12th, 2014, 8:09 am

Agenda item for Monday's Transportation Committee meeting to shift $1.8 million from the W 7th BRT project to the Penn Ave BRT project:

http://www.metrocouncil.org/Council-Mee ... bined.aspx

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Re: "C Line" Penn Avenue Arterial Bus

Postby alleycat » February 13th, 2015, 4:09 pm

Here's what I wrote over on the Streetcar Thread. Basically C-Line will likely move to 2017. I'll have more info after the next PIC meeting. Could we add Penn Avenue Community Works to this thread since it's all encompassing for the corridor? It would be odd to discuss the other aspects separately.
Apparently the TAB didn't approve all (or any I believe) of the funds for the The C-Line. It now isn't happening until 2017 hopefully. I'm on the Penn Ave Community Works PIC and they were pushing us to determine the long term road layout by last month. We had the vote last month and it went to the the steering committee. Everything was ready for this to proceed to engineering until the TAB pulled the rug from under the funding.
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Re: "C Line" Penn Avenue aBRT & Community Works Project

Postby PhilmerPhil » February 13th, 2015, 5:28 pm


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Re: "C Line" Penn Avenue aBRT & Community Works Project

Postby MNdible » February 13th, 2015, 5:41 pm

I haven't been following this, and don't know much beyond what was in the blog post, but this seems like a really easy decision to push the bikes onto Queen or Oliver. If you're going to provide good transit service, it's absolutely critical to have really good pedestrian facilities. And from the description, it sure sounds like providing bike lanes here means that everything is going to be subpar.

Complete Streets shouldn't mean that every single street has to provide facilities for every kind of user, especially in a ROW constrained existing condition. It's not going to hurt bikers to be 300' over, and it will make life better for everybody else.

alleycat
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Re: "C Line" Penn Avenue aBRT & Community Works Project

Postby alleycat » February 13th, 2015, 6:23 pm

I've had a very hard time persuading other bike advocates on the PIC that the Queen bike boulevard is ideal. It does have its drawbacks, mainly that Queen doesn't go through at Penn. Some weird maneuvering would have to happen around Broadway and McNair to get through to Queen once again. That's why the hybrid option was introduced.

Here are some docs about the alternatives.
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id= ... sp=sharing
Scottie B. Tuska
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acs
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Re: "C Line" Penn Avenue aBRT & Community Works Project

Postby acs » March 19th, 2015, 1:03 pm

Delayed until 2017 officially. Same issues may delay the A line until early 2016.

http://www.startribune.com/local/blogs/296914031.html

twincitizen
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Re: "C Line" Penn Avenue aBRT & Community Works Project

Postby twincitizen » March 19th, 2015, 1:24 pm

Your second sentence is not correct. The A Line is fully funded. It was always been projected to open Q4 2015, it just sounds like the aBRT manager was padding the opening date by saying late 2014 or early 2015. They haven't set a date yet because it relies on some pretty massive MNDOT projects finishing on time this summer, then a short testing period, etc.

The C Line delay is because the TAB pulled the rededicated B Line (West 7th) funding. It sounds like that was always a possibility and staff was perhaps being overly optimistic that no one on TAB would object to it. All in all, the C Line was originally scheduled for 2017 anyways, it only moved up when the B-Line was put on hold. This isn't doom and gloom by any means, but it definitely speaks to needing dedicated aBRT funding. CTIB should be funding this stuff...but they won't

intercomnut
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"C Line" (Penn Ave aBRT)

Postby intercomnut » October 4th, 2015, 5:51 pm

Figured there should be a thread for this project by now. Check out the project website here. If you don't know what aBRT is, check out this site here.

Here's the latest update on the A and C lines. Something I'm confused about: they're mentioning a Phase II alignment, which will be either on Olson or Glenwood. So, does anyone know if they're going to fully construct enhanced shelters on Penn in the near term? Seems like a waste of money if they decide to move it to Glenwood later...

EOst
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Re: "C Line" (Penn Ave aBRT)

Postby EOst » October 4th, 2015, 6:02 pm

Why would the choice between Olson/Glenwood matter to enhanced shelters on Penn? It'll be on Penn either way.

The line will run on Olson initially, but will duplicate service once Bottineau is running. That could be a long wait. If they do change the alignment at some point in the future, they'll be able to reuse the shelters themselves, so the only waste would be the money spent on curb improvements.

intercomnut
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Re: "C Line" (Penn Ave aBRT)

Postby intercomnut » October 4th, 2015, 6:08 pm

Why would the choice between Olson/Glenwood matter to enhanced shelters on Penn? It'll be on Penn either way.
That was a typo. Meant to say Olson.
The line will run on Olson initially, but will duplicate service once Bottineau is running. That could be a long wait.
Ooooh, that makes sense. Thank you!

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Re: "C Line" (Penn Ave aBRT)

Postby Silophant » October 4th, 2015, 6:46 pm

I get that they're currently considered part of the 7th St. Transit Advantage project, but it seems strange that there's no mention that two of the C Line stations are mostly complete.
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grant1simons2
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Re: "C Line" (Penn Ave aBRT)

Postby grant1simons2 » November 6th, 2015, 9:31 pm

http://www.metrotransit.org/c-line-station-plan

Station plans released today! Comment if possible.

http://www.metrotransit.org/c-line-meetings

Also new set of meetings coming up

intercomnut
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Re: "C Line" (Penn Ave aBRT)

Postby intercomnut » November 7th, 2015, 9:33 am

Well that's disappointing:
The City of Minneapolis plans to reconstruct 8th Street from Hennepin Avenue to Chicago Avenue in 2019-2020.32 Because 8th Street is slated for major construction in the next few years, these permanent stations will not be built as part of the C Line project in 2017. Temporary station improvements will be deployed when the C Line opens. C Line buses will move to detour routes throughout 8th Street reconstruction activities.
But it makes sense, I guess. On the other hand, they're building a cycletrack at the Olson/7th intersection, so that's exciting!

And it looks like they're not going to be doing hardly any construction on Olson due to BLRT. All they say is that additional equipment will be installed to support operations. I would guess they have to, at minimum, have TVMs and Go-To readers installed and hopefully a pylon.


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