Public Transit News / Current Events (MN only)

[intercomnut]

Question on an unrelated, but somewhat related topic. Is the C- line still delayed by one year?


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I haven't heard anything indicating it isn't.

[Silophant]

I haven't heard otherwise. Even if MT comes out of a special session with more funding somehow, I think the delay is to coordinate with road work in Brooklyn Center much as because of funding.

[HiawathaGuy]

I suppose that makes sense for the theoretical future where we have a couple dozen of them on every major corridor, though I don't think it would make it too busy to put an "A" on the line somewhere.

Maps on the LRT vehicles now call out the A line, along with showing that they are shared stations/transfer points.

[EOst]

Man, there are a lot of things wrong with that map:

1) Irregular station spacing. Why are Robert St & 10th St scrunched together? It's not like the map was running out of space. Why the extra-large gap between West Bank and US Bank Stadium? Why the super-long gaps on the Red Line?

2) Why bother showing that curve on the Red Line, anyway? It isn't a useful navigational aid, and it doesn't even really reflect the geography. Same with the curve on the A Line just west of 46th, which is just gratuitous.

3) Station names are awkwardly placed for no reason. Union Depot, the Airport stops, and everything in DT Mpls sits on top of the river. Target Field's label is just floating there, as is Rosedale, which is placed an arbitrary distance from the end of the line and, for no apparent reason, set in less-readable Gill Sans Regular instead of Semi-Bold.

4) What possible use do those dots on the A Line serve? "Only 11 dots between Snelling Ave and 46th St!" So what? Best-case scenario, they tell you how many stops you have left when the bus turns from Snelling to Ford (or vice-versa), and then only with difficulty. Instead they just make the line less defined.

5) Forcing Hiawatha to fit an octolinear grid introduces huge distortion and makes a couple neighborhoods (incl. Minnehaha Park) disappear.

6) That becomes a particular problem when Lake aBRT comes along, because this map leaves zero room for it to turn north at Snelling/Marshall.

7) The Hennepin Ave station name just looks ridiculous. That isn't the designer's fault, but there are much better ways it could have been handled.

etc. etc.

[talindsay]

Gosh, sometimes I sit around wondering what pleasant improvements to our local experience I can rage against, and I can't come up with any. Good thing we have people who can.

Really, it's a pretty great map and should be really useful to people who aren't used to our system. Could it be better? Sure. But it could also be a whole lot worse. If multiple ABRT lines get built they may have trouble adapting the map to include them, and this map will get radically more difficult if all the LRT lines get built as well, but for the five or six years until it need to be fully revamped anyway, this version is a nice improvement.

[Silophant]

Totally agree.

Also, seems like it's about time to dump the "Warehouse District" portion of the station name. I have never once heard anyone (Besides the LRT announcements themselves) call it anything besides "Hennepin Avenue".

[EOst]

Gosh, sometimes I sit around wondering what pleasant improvements to our local experience I can rage against, and I can't come up with any. Good thing we have people who can.

Really, it's a pretty great map and should be really useful to people who aren't used to our system. Could it be better? Sure. But it could also be a whole lot worse. If multiple ABRT lines get built they may have trouble adapting the map to include them, and this map will get radically more difficult if all the LRT lines get built as well, but for the five or six years until it need to be fully revamped anyway, this version is a nice improvement.

You're right that it is absolutely not a horrible map, and that it's much better than not having a map at all.

But it's still an awkward map with a lot of sloppy problems. It is emphatically not "a pretty great map." It's full of unnecessary complications which distract from the map's readability and use. Some design elements are objectively useless. The map pretends to geographic accuracy (the random curves and so on) but then so radically distorts both cities that it's virtually useless for geographic navigation. Stop spacing is neither consistent nor accurate with respect to each other.

These problems could be fixed *so easily*. Straighten out a couple lines, work on the stop spacing for *a few minutes*, give the labels a bit more contrast, and you'd have a massively improved diagram that didn't pretend to be a map. But they haven't, and they didn't, and they deserve criticism for failing to do so.

[EOst]

More or less regular stop spacing, straight lines, and a recognizable Hiawatha.

[HiawathaGuy]

That map looks really good. Perhaps someone should reach out to Metro Transit and offer advice?

[MNdible]

Nice. However, I think that the A line's rendering on the original map is better.

[mattaudio]

Personally I like transit maps where the only angled lines are at 45 degrees.

I think they could adjust the current map to have Cedar-Riverside and Franklin on the same 45 degree plane as downtown (flip the labels), but then have a 90 degree drop down to Lake Street station where the 45 degree would resume. This would line up with reality better than the existing map, especially since the viaduct from Lake to Franklin is where the line physically switches across Hiawatha.

Regarding the A-line, I like the eost map how it has A in a bubble. But when we don't have many ABRTs on the map yet, I hope people don't get confused thinking the A label is a particular location or stop, since it's a bubble right on the line.

[Silophant]

Yeah, the Rapid lines on this map are going to require rethinking once we get more, especially since C and D will share a corridor through downtown.

[EOst]

Nice. However, I think that the A line's rendering on the original map is better.

Yeah, it looks like it's crossing where Grand should be, not Ford. Bugs me too.

The basic problem is that Central stops (~)every half mile, and Hiawatha stops every mile. You can space the stops on the map to reflect that, but then you get veeerrry wide gaps between the labels, which looks awkward next to Central's tight spacing. Right now they're spaced about 25% farther apart, and it's already noticeable. You can make it a little bit better by increasing the distance between Cedar-Riverside and Franklin, but that just gives you problems down the road (post-SWLRT) by making it much harder for Lake/Midtown to align with West Lake station.

The alternative is to flatten out the bend in the river, so that it turns SE just after the A Line (basically what the official map does). That solves the problem of the A Line, but then there isn't enough room for most versions of Riverview. It also makes the river/Saint Paul less recognizable, though that's a lesser concern. (I switched to this in the version below, if you want to see the difference.)

So, pick your poison, really.

Personally I like transit maps where the only angled lines are at 45 degrees.

I think they could adjust the current map to have Cedar-Riverside and Franklin on the same 45 degree plane as downtown (flip the labels), but then have a 90 degree drop down to Lake Street station where the 45 degree would resume. This would line up with reality better than the existing map, especially since the viaduct from Lake to Franklin is where the line physically switches across Hiawatha.

That would significantly worsen the A Line problem, though, or you'd need to opt for wider spacing.

I like the 22.5 degree angle for Hiawatha because it interacts really nicely with the river, which falls pretty naturally into 45 degree angles., so you get a recognizable Longfellow basically for free. But I can understand it not being to everyone's taste.

Yeah, the Rapid lines on this map are going to require rethinking once we get more, especially since C and D will share a corridor through downtown.

I'm not sure it's a huge problem:

[SkyScraperKid]

More or less regular stop spacing, straight lines, and a recognizable Hiawatha.

man, there are a few things wrong with this map.

1) the A in the A line shouldn't be place overlapping the river. As that makes it a bit visually unbalanced.
2) Fairview Ave Station should not have it's text going through the A line marking as it makes it too hard to read.
3) The blue and green lines need to fully end at the left side of the Target Field station NOT at the beginning.
4) The labeling for the Metro lines needs to be bolded, remember people need to be able to actually see the labeling!
5) The Rivers should be labeled, as well as the cities so people know where they are going. Such as Bloomington, Midtown, Midway. MSP Airport ect ect.
6) Northstar line should be added into the system map as well.
7) Finally you absolutely need to have a key labeling things such as shared stations and explaining what A means on the map!

I do like some of your edits, just wished you took the time to finish it 100%. Thanks for sharing it's not completely awful, and I hope you get to finish it in your free time!

[masstrlk67]

6) Northstar line should be added into the system map as well.

Please no. Unless it's like a little transfer icon or something. There are so many bus routes more useful and user-friendly than the five-trips-per-day Northstar. And I hate that when it is on maps as a line, it creates the impression that we've invested in rail transit in Northeast Minneapolis.

[LRV Op Dude]

Metro Transit named APTA 2016 System of the Year

[acs]

Congratulations!

[Qhaberl]

Do we get any prize? If they're short on ideas, I would recommend $150 million for the Southwest line. That would be a wonderful prize.


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[min-chi-cbus]

Do we get any prize? If they're short on ideas, I would recommend $150 million for the Southwest line. That would be a wonderful prize.


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Haha...take THAT right-wing Conservatives!

[intercomnut]

I just saw that Metro Transit has posted for a full-time Associate Communications Specialist, who will "Review and track all real-time system detours and disruptions in order to maintain accurate information posting on various social media sites, metrotransit.org and other media sources as determined."

I'm hoping that means we'll start to get real-time notifications of service disruptions that affect routes other than METRO services.