Public Transit News / Current Events (MN only)

[Silophant]

No pictures, but Target Field Station Platform 1 has NexTrip, while Platform 2 does not. Weird.

[VAStationDude]

The green line in st Paul had real time arrivals this morning.

[talindsay]

It only took eleven years, sounds like Metro Transit really outdid themselves.

[MNdible]

I cut Metro Transit a lot of slack on a lot of things -- it's really hard running a big transit system. But it's just inexcusable, bordering on bizarre, that it took them this long to do this one simple thing.

Anyway. Hurray for real time arrivals!

[mister.shoes]

We should probably remind ourselves that the real-time arrivals issue wasn't that of technology so much as it was that of legal/patent issues. MT was getting threatened with lawsuits over using a technology someone else had claimed to patent. So I guess it was a technology issue: software patents are ridiculous.

[twincitizen]

There was a patent troll issue thrown in there, but Metro Transit did have tech issues getting two systems to talk to each other properly. They promised this would be working last June, in time for the Green Line. I don't think the patent troll issue was responsible for that 7-month delay.

But yes, it is time for celebration. From what I've heard, for at least a few metro systems that have had arrival time displays for years, are still based on scheduled times, not actual real-time/GPS. So I'm happy that we do have the real-time tracking.

[mullen]

it's cool to see finally see these signs actually being used for their intended purposes.

[mattaudio]

In Memoriam: "Please Check Schedules" 2004 - 2015

[twincitizen]

I'm stealing that for the UrbanMSP Twitter. Quick, someone get me a photo!

[FISHMANPET]

https://i.imgur.com/iKdlANI.jpg

[HuskyGrad]

NexTrip is now working with light rail.
http://www.metrotransit.org/NexTripBadg ... &stop=46HI

[WAngell]

I went down to the Amsterdam last night for this but it was sold out with a line of people filling the stairwell hoping to be let in. Did anyone here go? Highlights?

[mattaudio]

Couldn't get a ticket, but it was a lively debate on Twitter.

[twincitizen]

I was on the stairwell in that wait line. Eventually we were all let in before the program started. You should have stuck around!!

It was good, though it predominantly focused on transit and roads - bikes were mostly an afterthought to the conversation. It is January, so that wasn't too surprising...it's probably been 3 months since 90% of the audience had last biked, and will be another 3 months before they do so again. We did get one #angrybiker question/proclamation from the audience that was a real groaner.

I think the host maybe under-appreciated just how incredibly wonky/smart the crowd was, and kept trying to dumb it down a bit (which would be entirely appropriate for this conversation in most rooms). I was really impressed by Charlie Zelle (MNDOT) and John Doan (with Hennepin County Housing/Transit/Community Works, formerly a Met Council rep). I think the Mayor of Bemidji was smart and progressive and awesome for a greater MN "hub" (she's a former planner - can't beat that), and I'm glad she was a she, for gender balance on the panel, but I wish they would've had someone from the metro up there instead. She was basically silenced due to the direction the conversation went. It would've been better to have a couple mayors from around the cities instead.

Seach #policypint on Twitter for a brief review. We even got an angry right wing jerk (emphasis on angry & jerk) "ShabbosGoy" on Twitter who replied to a bunch of the tweets, mocking bicycling, transit, and urbanist philosophies in general. He seems pretty proud of himself: https://storify.com/Shabbosgoy/a-gather ... old-winter I legitimately hope he gets hit by a car. Preferably by an F-150 with a confederate flag or "Obummer" sticker.

[woofner]

Dunno, I hope John Gilmore is around to discredit conservatives for years to come:

http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2013 ... uslims.php

[Silophant]

Hooray!

[FISHMANPET]

Used NexTrip to figure out when to leave lunch to catch the train back to my office.

A++ would use again.

[PhilmerPhil]

I used it to decide if I should just keep biking or hop on a train. Train was 7 mins away so I kept riding. Game changer.

[FISHMANPET]

Someone needs to write a little android or webapp or something that will just display a nextrip stop and keep it updated if the page times out or whatever, so I can just install it in my porch and always know when to leave for the train.

[RailBaronYarr]

Shouldn't notifications work through omgtransit? I never use it for that but thought it could...