urbanMSP

I am interested in finding statistics about individual bus routes performance year-over-year. Is there an easy way about going about finding that?


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yea, that would be interesting to look at. I don't think they track that kinda data, wish they did.

They definitely have that data. I think they sometimes publicly release data on the Top 10 routes, etc., but it doesn't always get the fanfare of the overall ridership numbers. But you can get it if you know who to ask.

Here's 2014 data: https://streets.mn/2015/01/28/chart-of- ... ship-2014/

There's also boardings and alightings data, which is a bit more cumbersome to use, but very detailed: https://gisdata.mn.gov/dataset/us-mn-st ... alightings

It has data by weekday vs Sat vs Sun, ons and offs by route for every bus and light rail stop they serve.

Thought I'd share something I just stumbled across: https://imgur.com/a/bzHzU

There is apparently a 64P that runs once a day on weekdays from Johnson High School at 3:12pm to WBA/Hillcrest at 3:24pm.

There are a number of extras from St. Paul high schools now that SPPS has joined the Student Pass program. Other lines with extras in St. Paul include the 74 and the 61.

Wish they'd include the middle schools in that.

Bus crashed into house in Columbia Heights-http://www.startribune.com/bus-crashes- ... 411380785/

Metro Transit says the bus wasn't theirs, so I'm guessing First Transit.

Its still too early to say what the cause of this crash was, but I'm beginning to be concerned about the safety record of First Transit. Twice I've had First Transit drivers try to run a red light from a complete stop. Once at Killebrew Drive & 24th Avenue (Route 539) and the other yesterday at Raymond & Energy Park Drive (Route 87).

It was a First-run Anoka County Traveler route. Looking at the house on google maps, I wouldn't be surprised if the driver hit a patch of ice going downhill and lost control.

As someone who's worked for First Transit, I don't think the safety practices there are any worse than at Metro Transit or any of the other operators. There are good and bad drivers at all of them, and all of them are overworking their drivers due to driver shortages. One thing that I have noticed, though, is that a lot of the scheduling for routes is completely unrealistic and encourages drivers to drive poorly to make their timepoints. That's an issue with the Metro Transit scheduling staff, not the contractors who drive the routes.

The First Transit routes seem a lot more tightly scheduled than the Metro Transit routes, though. I'm not sure if that's just a fluke or if First Transit schedules more aggressively. (I'm not sure what influence Metro Transit has on them, or if the scheduling is contracted to First Transit along with the route.)

I would imagine that it's just a fluke. Metro Transit does all scheduling in house, including for the contracted regional routes. The contracts for the regional routes are basically just for the day to day operation of them, and even then a lot of things like signage, detours, etc are still under direct Metro Transit control.

$208 million of federal funds from the Regional Solicitation have been matched with $205 million of local funds. Transit projects are:

• Arterial BRT improvements on Hennepin, Lake, Penn, and Chicago
• Eden Prairie Town Center LRT Station
• Rt. 63 (Grand-E 3rd) service improvement
• SW Transit Mall of America express service
• Heywood II bus garage
• Regional Communications Improvement

https://metrocouncil.org/Transportation ... jects.aspx
https://metrocouncil.org/News-Events/Tr ... ea-pr.aspx
https://metrocouncil.org/Transportation ... urce=child

Federal funds that were approved?

There has been a year long process to determine appropriate projects, so I would imagine that the funds are available.

Hmm...

Metro Transit sent some people to Houston to observe Super Bowl transit operations. Some early findings in this strib article. http://www.startribune.com/metro-transi ... 413627623/

SW Transit is making some changes on March 6th:

Line 638 - Shakopee-Amazon-Eden Prairie will be eliminated
Line 687 - SW Village-SW Station-Target North will no longer run on Fridays
Line 684 - 6 AM trip canceled, last PM EB shuttle combined into downtown trip
Line 694 - 4:30 pm trip canceled
690/697/698/699 - minor changes/trip consolidations

http://swtransit.org/route-alerts/expre ... 7-changes/
http://swtransit.org/route-alerts/route ... 7-changes/
http://swtransit.org/route-alerts/route ... 7-changes/
http://swtransit.org/route-alerts/route ... on-3-6-17/
http://swtransit.org/route-alerts/route-687/

Sad but not too surprising with 638 ending.

With the funding for Southwest Station-MOA service I wonder if it will be an express route or make stops in between.

Anyone know when Metro Transit will retire the Gillig Phantom buses? I thought all of them were gone but my commute to school (Route 589) had one.

Speaking of fares a bill was introduced in the House to require transit within the 7 county metro area to have at least an 80% farebox recovery ratio.

https://www.revisor.mn.gov/bills/text.p ... rsion=list

80% is ridiculous, but in 2017 the Met Council only expects to get 17% of funding through fares. That has to improve greatly or the Met Council loses a lot of leverage in these debates. We've seen proposals for a fare increase but no info yet on how that would move the farebox recovery ratio.

http://www.startribune.com/citizens-lea ... 414404383/