Public Transit News / Current Events (MN only)

[mplsjaromir]

The land that held the car lots will quickly become a higher and better use than storing automobiles. Retail auto sales constantly evolve. The SW corner of Lake and Hennepin was a Dodge dealership in the 1960s, Loring Park was known for having many car dealerships. The ways if doing business change, lamenting the loss a certain type of job is not worth it.

Most of my family are farmers, I'd ask their opinion for it over a army/prison/state agency worker who lives in Minneapolis.

[UptownSport]

Most of my family are farmers, I'd ask their opinion for it over a army/prison/state agency worker who lives in Minneapolis.

Whoaaaa ...

First, absolutely unacceptable to demean US soldiers to make your point.

Second, these correctional officers literally risk (and give) their lives to keep you safe- They deserve deep respect, too

Third, no need to resort to personal attack- It adds nothing

You've shown you can make your point by simply stating facts- So you really don't have do anything more to be effective.

If you were just joking here, I apologize for the impersonal nature of my response.

[mplsjaromir]

Pot meet kettle.

[Nick]

Oooooookay guys...

[LRV Op Dude]

Metro Transit has a new blog called the Riders Almanac. Also Metro Transit is offering more online options for Go-TO card holders called My Metro Transit

[twincitizen]

The Riders Almanac sounds like it should be written by riders...just missing the all-important apostrophe.

I would love to see Metro Transit take blog submissions by actual transit riders. I'd love to see what various riders from different parts of the city use and view the system. I think it could generate positive, open communication between the public and staff, beyond the confines of Facebook, Twitter, and more traditional customer service interactions.

But mostly I just hope there would be a bunch of comments saying that the bus stops too frequently and that the public would be more than welcoming of fewer stops in dense, urban areas if it meant speeding up the service

[FISHMANPET]

I just wish it would be useful on mobile. I followed the link MetroTransit posted on twitter on my phone (while riding the bus) and I got directed to their bare text mobile site. But it sounds like they are actually working on a better mobile site.

[twincitizen]

This isn't transit news, but spelling news related to transit.

I just wanted to remind everyone that the plural of bus is buses, not busses.

Please and thank you.

[MNdible]

While we're at it, the plural of Busey is Buseys.

[Nick]

Ehhhh...that said I hate when a word has two acceptable spellings. Looking at you, canceled/cancelled.

[mattaudio]

I've always thought it was buses for vehicles and busses for conveyances of electrons or data.

[Viktor Vaughn]

Yeah, either one is correct. I looked it up a while ago when I saw it frequently being used both ways. I'm still with the spirit of Twincitizens comment though. "Busses" just looks wrong.

[talindsay]

Nick, you can thank Mr. Webster for "canceled" - the English forms of such words had double ells, but for some reason Webster hated that construction and pushed for the single ell. The result is that both the older, properly-English spelling and the new, distinctly-American spellings are legitimate.

[Andrew_F]

I apologize if this is the wrong place to post this-- haven't been keeping up with everything 100% lately.

Do we know how much the new transit tax would increase CTIB funding by? Is the idea that once the tax is passed, the state would stop bonding for transit?

[MNdible]

Do we know how much the new transit tax would increase CTIB funding by? Is the idea that once the tax is passed, the state would stop bonding for transit?

Didn't they stop bonding for transit when Pawlenty came into office?

(I kid. Sort of.)

[Tom H.]

I think the proposal is to increase the tax from 0.25% to 0.5%. That, along with the sales-tax broadening scheme of Gov. Dayton, would increase annual incomes for the CTIB to something like ~$250M per annum. I belive this comes with the stipulation that the CTIB would take on 100% of operating subsidies of all fixed transitways in the region, up from 50%; it also recommends funding the $118M remaining state obligation for SWLRT through the CTIB.

The CTIB published this little infographic about the proposal: http://www.mnrides.org/sites/default/fi ... al2013.pdf

[Andrew_F]

Thank you, Tom H! That document had exactly what I was looking for, particularly these lines: "$350M in new transit-dedicated revenues for SFY 2014-15; offset by $46.8M in general fund savings" and "$500M in new transit-dedicated revenues in SFY 2016-17."

So I guess what it all shakes out to is +$230m a year for CTIB, with the added responsibility of taking over the state's role in transit. Sounds damn good to me.

[mulad]

The Met Council has acquired the property at 677 Transfer Road discussed previously, according to F&C. One crazy aspect is that Wellington Management had negotiated a purchase earlier in the year for $3 million, and the Met Council negotiated to buy it from them for $3.925 million. Wellington ended up holding onto the property for less than a day. Both prices are well below the $5.37 million value previously assessed by Ramsey County.

http://finance-commerce.com/2013/02/jus ... dway-area/

[Andrew_F]

Oberstar as new US Transportation Secretary?

http://www.startribune.com/politics/sta ... 75661.html

[Nick]

And now for some infrastructure porn:

http://gizmodo.com/5985618/incredible-i ... -york-city