Green Line LRT

[holmstar]

This seems to be quickly turning into a green line complaints thread.

We are all transit advocates here and many of us have been attending planning meetings since 2006 - you will find my name in the official project comments for as far back as there were comments. We are the line's advocates. these are things they need to address for the line to reach its potential, and they are fixable things that we would have hoped would work on day one, but it looks like they need to do some tweaking. Maybe that constitutes complaining but I think it's good to enumerate the issues.

I do hope metro transit had somebody following this thread and other public input channels.

The criticism is certainly valid, and I would imagine that they are indeed still monitoring and working on it. The information we're collecting here is mostly anecdotal, though, and people don't typically talk about the times when things went fine. I'd be curious to know what the over-all on time statistics are. Not sure if that information is being collected. Do any of our insiders at MT have any info?

Also, I was pretty impressed with the opening weekend ridership. Does metro transit publish their daily ridership details anywhere on an ongoing regular basis? I'd be interested to know how the weekdays went.

[Viktor Vaughn]

At this point I don't know if full signal pre-emption is necessary or not, but it might be worthwhile to actually get the signal prioritization working correctly before we determine it to be a failure..

I completely agree that we can't evaluate the signal situation as planned until they get it working, but it's not to early to recognize a trade-off was made to make the train wait at at least some red lights. I DO NOT think the Green Line is a failure whatsoever.

It's like saying that universal healthcare is a bad idea because the MNsure website didn't work correctly. Or something.

It's interesting you brought up health reform because that's the analogy I was thinking about while typing my earlier post. As a supporter of universal health care (jaded as I was about the process and final law), I absolutely did not think that the website troubles made health reform a failure. So, I continued to argue in favor health reform, even while accepting criticism of the maddening enrollment process as completely valid. The botched health care rollout gave ammunition to critics, heartburn to supporters, and unnecessarily frustrated customers. The same will be true of the Green Line if they are unable to resolve these issues soon.

To stretch the analogy further, both rollouts proved just how utterly complicated these endeavors are, and despite a fortune in government expenditure and extensive testing, the kinks need to be worked out through real-world trial and error.

You're right that somebody should hear about this every day until it's fixed, but I think it would be more effective if everyone contacted the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul and Hennepin and Ramsey counties - particularly St. Paul and Ramsey County. These are the agencies that own the signals along University avenue and have the final say with respect to signal timing and priority/preemption.

I doubt we need to convince anyone at Metro Transit that this is a problem that needs fixing, I don't think we can say the same for the various public works / traffic departments at St. Paul and Ramsey County.

While I think MT does need to hear about it regularly, I totally agree we should also direct our complaints as you advise.

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Really, I was responding that detailing Green Line experiences is a good use of this thread, even if it mostly comes across as negative. I do think it's too early to make judgments about the reliability and travel time issues. But for some riders, one bad experience could keep them off the train for a long time, so I hope they get it worked out soon.

[MNdible]

At this point I don't know if full signal pre-emption is necessary or not, but it might be worthwhile to actually get the signal prioritization working correctly before we determine it to be a failure.

I completely agree that we can't evaluate the signal situation as planned until they get it working, but it's not to early to recognize a trade-off was made to make the train wait at at least some red lights. I DO NOT think the Green Line is a failure whatsoever.

Just to be clear, I was saying that we shouldn't judge signal prioritization to be a failure until it's working properly. I don't think anybody on this board is suggesting that the Green Line is a failure.

[mulad]

Going by the number of crossings involved, the segment between East Bank and Stadium Village is the most difficult to get right, and my experience has generally been good there (I had a couple of bad runs on opening day and maybe Monday or Tuesday last week when they were actively working on signals, but otherwise things have been fine -- I also saw a train get stopped at Washington & Ontario over this past weekend, but that was because a fire truck had just gone by).

I don't know how they're doing things, but in my mind, the line can mostly be broken down into station-by-station segments. The section between Fairview and Capitol/Rice gets a bit complicated because far-side platforms create overlapping segments, but there are five station-to-station pairs from Snelling to Western which are almost identical. There would be a lot of bang for the buck from getting that right, since getting set of lights working correctly almost automatically gets you the other four.

The stretches in downtown Saint Paul from 10th to Central and Central to Union Depot still need a lot of work -- those are probably the highest concentrations of intersections, and people can get very antsy waiting for the train to reach a station and open the doors. (It's probably been equally bad in downtown Minneapolis, but stations are spaced more closely over there so people can escape more easily if they feel the train is going too slow.)

It seems like there's been a bit of tweaking on the stretches between Westgate and Raymond and again from Raymond to Fairview, but in each case they seemed to just shove the problem further down the line. For a few rides in a row, the train would always stop at the University & Franklin intersection, but my most recent trip got stopped at Raymond instead. For a while, trains always seemed to get stopped at Vandalia or Cleveland, but now they seem to always stop at Prior. It's hard to discern any real patterns, though. I'd have to write down a log to really keep track.

[MinnMonkey]

The biggest issue I have right now is the inconsistency of the timings. On my way home tonight, the train I usually take was 5 minutes early, and I missed it by 30 seconds. The next train was 7 minutes late, so I needed to wait 22 minutes for a train during rush hour.

You would think if they are working on the signals they would at least have consistent delays and not have the trains bunching up.

Like everyone else here, I don't at all think the line is a failure, but I am worried that things like this could scare off first time riders.

[Tcmetro]

The problem is some trains aren't getting delayed at all or have minimal delays whereas others have significant delays. The easiest (and most expensive) way to solve the problem is to just run more trains.

[seanrichardryan]

Perhaps they should just bunch them together like the people-mover in Tomorrowland.

[Minneapolisite]

Well, today I could have went from the Raymond Station to Westgate by bike, but wanted to ride the train: a good ten minutes late before I saw it approach. Once again, this certainly makes you think twice about stopping somewhere before your final destination. In this case, after reaching Westgate by LRT the Dunn Bros was closing at 6PM anyway (?). It would be nice if businesses would re-evaluate their hours for the new LRT line: that's the only coffee shop I know of for a good distance in any direction: actually that's about the only thing there: no bars nearby and Egg & I is about the only restaurant and closes early in the afternoon. Oh well, just rode my bike to Dinkytown and spent my money in Mpls instead.

[mattaudio]

Clearly you should have gone to the dubliner.

[mulad]

Looks like they've settled on these messages for destination boards: "Green Line" / "Minneapolis" for westbounds and "Green Line" / "St Paul" for eastbounds.

[EOst]

That makes sense; I was surprised by how many people didn't realize that the colored square meant something.

[Suburban Outcast]

Same here, someone I know posted a Facebook status a few days ago about how they accidentally took a Blue Line train when they meant to get on the Green.

They at least know the difference now.

[Ottergoose]

"Green Line" / "Minneapolis" for westbounds and "Green Line" / "St Paul" for eastbounds.

I think that's an excellent solution. How'd they label the southern/western(?) terminus of the Blue Line Trains?

[MinnMonkey]

That makes sense; I was surprised by how many people didn't realize that the colored square meant something.

I have heard more that a few people comment that the Green Line trains should not be painted blue.

[at40man]

Perhaps they should just bunch them together like the people-mover in Tomorrowland.

Attention all humans, robots, and intergalactic beings! Please keep your arms, legs, and other appendages away from the door.... Now approaching Space Mountain!

[VAStationDude]

Same here, someone I know posted a Facebook status a few days ago about how they accidentally took a Blue Line train when they meant to get on the Green.

They at least know the difference now.

A group of women from outstate Minnesota were on my 54 yesterday because they took the Green Line to Saint Paul rather than the Blue Line to MOA. I was mildly amused by their obvious discomfort.

[HiawathaGuy]

"Green Line" / "Minneapolis" for westbounds and "Green Line" / "St Paul" for eastbounds.

I think that's an excellent solution. How'd they label the southern/western(?) terminus of the Blue Line Trains?

The Bombardier trains I saw on my commute this morning (with updated LED panels) said "Blue Line" / "Minneapolis" for northbound trains and "Blue Line" / "Mall Of America" for southbound trains.

[Snelbian]

So, totally unrelated to timing or signage or signals, one of the smaller touches I've been really appreciating is the presence of recycling receptacles (at least at Snelling, I haven't looked around the other stations much). Something that should really be in commercial corridors more generally, but it's a nice start.

Rode from Snelling to DTE to MOA yesterday (which I won't do again since the 84 cuts a half hour off the time, but I hadn't gone west on the Green line yet and my toddler loves trains). In the middle of the afternoon the trains were pleasantly busy. Signal priority was less than ideal between Fairview and Stadium Village, but better than I feared it would be. And there seem to be a LOT of people getting off at Snelling in rush hour, which is very promising for planned and future development here, I think.

[mullen]

the drivers have been announcing what line it is and it's destination also. but yea, a lot of people seem bewidered we have two actual rail lines now.

when are the overhead signs at rail stations going to be operational? i'm seeing to "check schedules".

[mattaudio]

To that end, couldn't they improve accessibility for the visually impaired by announcing train arrival at stations with multiple services? I've heard that in other cities. "This is a Green Line train to St. Paul Union Depot"