Green Line / Central Corridor construction thread (archive)

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mulad
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Re: Green Line (Central Corridor LRT)

Postby mulad » March 12th, 2014, 10:51 am

I wonder if they make maroon LEDs -- how would that show up on the destination boards for trains? Gold / yellow is easy to do with LEDs, but tends to be a pain to print out on maps/etc.

Anyway -- I wanted to mention that there will be a safety drill at the Stadium Village station across from TCF Bank Stadium next Tuesday. They'll be detouring campus buses around the area through the day: http://www1.umn.edu/news/news-releases/ ... 73903.html

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Re: Green Line (Central Corridor LRT)

Postby mulad » March 20th, 2014, 7:10 am

The white bar signals have started working along Cedar Street in downtown St. Paul. They still aren't functioning along 4th Street yet.

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Re: Green Line (Central Corridor LRT)

Postby MSPtoMKE » March 20th, 2014, 12:59 pm

Looks like new strip maps featuring the Green Line (and the Red Line) have begun to appear in LRVs on the Blue Line.

http://transitmaps.tumblr.com/post/8017 ... strip-2014

Cameron Booth gives it a rating of 3.5 stars, er, um, I mean 3.5 Underground Roundels out of 5. He is generally quite picky. I would have liked to see more information on connecting routes at each station.

Edit: It also occurs to me that this map is probably pretty hard to read if you are colorblind. You may not be able to discern that the Blue and Red Lines are different, for instance. Maybe the text that is cut off on the left has information about the endpoints of each line?
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Re: Green Line (Central Corridor LRT)

Postby Scott Wood » March 20th, 2014, 6:12 pm

Red versus blue isn't a problem for most color blind people (red versus green would have been bad). I agree that they should have made it more obvious, though, such as offsetting the lines vertically at the transfer point.

BTW, is this the first time we've seen the station-to-station travel times for the Green Line?

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Re: Green Line (Central Corridor LRT)

Postby mulad » March 20th, 2014, 7:20 pm

That's slightly different than the picture I've posted before of the projected travel times from 2012, but in each case, one minute was added to the time between one station pair, and removed from an adjacent station pair. The overall travel time remains the same, 41 minutes.

They could have used the same underlying travel-time estimates to make this map, but just started counting from the opposite end or something. The discrepancies could easily be accounted for with rounding errors. I think we still have to wait a while before we'll know if the estimates are valid.

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Re: Green Line (Central Corridor LRT)

Postby talindsay » March 20th, 2014, 8:59 pm

How many out of towners will get confused by fort Snelling and Snelling ave being directly above and below each other? Also I really don't like the way they included the red line because it implies both that 1) that line is served by the same type of vehicles (i.e., it's light rail) and 2) that it's somehow an extension or branch of the blue line.

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Worst Public Art - Congrats East Bank Station!

Postby eazydp » March 26th, 2014, 6:54 pm

I am of the opinion that the East Bank station art, designed by Nancy Blum, is arguably the worst public art in the Twin Cities. I work nearby, so I am certainly strongly biased, but I think it is AWFUL. I imagine the thought process going something like this. The most prominent station in our R1 Flagship University campus huh... How's about a Lorem ipsum style dump of trig functions. Oh, and some random pattern created by a 5 year old on spirograph. This person was paid many thousands of dollars for this design, just to go through the motions on effort. Seriously.

Image

http://www.metrocouncil.org/Transportat ... -Bank.aspx

The artist need to walk about two blocks around the area and see the "Wall of Discovery" on the scholars walk between the EE/CS and MechE buildings to find an example on the other end of the spectrum. The piece exhibits notes, sketches, patents of research done by the University faculty. It's so cool.

Image

http://www.scholarswalk.umn.edu/

Worst of all, she's not even from Minnesota. Sorry Nancy, I've looked up some of your other work. You are a fantastic artist. In fact, you designed the West Bank Station, and it's pretty cool. This was not your best work.

Agree? Disagree?
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Edit: Meant to post in anything goes, please move if that should have been the case.

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Re: Green Line (Central Corridor LRT)

Postby Silophant » March 26th, 2014, 7:36 pm

Yeah, my engineering buddies and I have been calling it 'trig vomit' since it went up. I totally agree that the Wall of Discovery would have been much better, even if it was a direct copy of a section of the wall, not anything new.
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Re: Green Line (Central Corridor LRT)

Postby Tcmetro » March 26th, 2014, 7:38 pm

My personal feeling about the East Bank artwork is that it's pretty cheesy. Math equations at a University? What a novel concept. Oh well.

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Re: Green Line (Central Corridor LRT)

Postby Nathan » March 26th, 2014, 8:18 pm

Well forgive people for trying. I'm sure the wing structure of the birds on the west bank station isn't perfect, and some people might have some issues with picasso's faces not being accurate too. it's art it's about aesthetic. it looks nice. it's durable.

my friend was a genetics major and all of her classmates refused to walk under the genetic structure arch in front of some building on campus because it was inaccurate... ok... sure. but it still looks cool.

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Re: Green Line (Central Corridor LRT)

Postby VAStationDude » March 28th, 2014, 11:20 am

The white bar signals have started working along Cedar Street in downtown St. Paul. They still aren't functioning along 4th Street yet.
Bar signals were activated in the Capitol area this morning. Not sure about 4th street.

I'm a little confused about the signal at 7th and Cedar. There is no left turn signal for southbound traffic. Does that mean the train will get its own phase? The bar signal there do not go vertical unlike every other signal along Cedar. Could be a little confusing for peds and drivers initially if the train has it's own phase.

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Re: Green Line (Central Corridor LRT)

Postby mulad » March 28th, 2014, 11:59 am

I think the train will eventually get its own phase there. Yeah, those signals along Cedar have been showing a steady horizontal bar (stop), as far as I can tell -- so my previous statement that the signals on Cedar were "functioning" is probably wrong -- they have power, but aren't getting the electrical signals needed for them to be working properly. Unless they have some sort of detection system and only activate when a train is nearby...

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Re: Green Line (Central Corridor LRT)

Postby FISHMANPET » March 28th, 2014, 12:06 pm

What do the train bar signals mean? Horizontal white bar is stop, vertical white bar is go? I'm trying to maximize my jaywalking efficiency while crossing Washington Ave on campus.

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Re: Green Line (Central Corridor LRT)

Postby Anondson » March 28th, 2014, 12:10 pm

The white bar signals have started working along Cedar Street in downtown St. Paul. They still aren't functioning along 4th Street yet.
Bar signals were activated in the Capitol area this morning. Not sure about 4th street.
Saw the bar signals at Raymond this morning.

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Re: Green Line (Central Corridor LRT)

Postby VAStationDude » March 28th, 2014, 12:14 pm

Next time I see a train in the vicinity of Cedar and 7th I'll observe what happens. The other bar signals are switching between vertical and horizontal in sync with the automobile signals.

The signal at 12th and Cedar has a dedicated phase for trains. Instead of cars and 94 buses backing up and blocking cedar, cars are queuing east of Cedar.

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Re: Green Line (Central Corridor LRT)

Postby HiawathaGuy » March 28th, 2014, 12:14 pm

What do the train bar signals mean? Horizontal white bar is stop, vertical white bar is go? I'm trying to maximize my jaywalking efficiency while crossing Washington Ave on campus.
Yes, very basic, but very efficient.

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Re: Green Line (Central Corridor LRT)

Postby mulad » March 28th, 2014, 12:40 pm

There's also a flashing vertical bar that's equivalent to a yellow traffic signal for cars.

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Re: Green Line (Central Corridor LRT)

Postby talindsay » March 28th, 2014, 2:33 pm

What do the train bar signals mean? Horizontal white bar is stop, vertical white bar is go? I'm trying to maximize my jaywalking efficiency while crossing Washington Ave on campus.
Ha! I hope the students are that wise!

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Re: Green Line (Central Corridor LRT)

Postby LRV Op Dude » March 28th, 2014, 3:17 pm

To help promote safely on the Green Line Metro Transit is having a Children's Green Line Poster Contest
Blog: Old-Twin Cities Transit New-Twin Cities Transit

You Tube: Old, New

AKA: Bus Driver Dude

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Re: Green Line (Central Corridor LRT)

Postby VAStationDude » March 28th, 2014, 6:26 pm

The light at cedar and 12th skipped the lrt cycle this afternoon. Maybe a train has to be present to articulate the lrt vertical bar signal? Per all kinds of green line presentations and faqs, the university lights have lrt priority. I assume the technology could prevent the lrt cycle in absence a train.


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