urbanMSP

http://www.startribune.com/gold-line-bu ... 499353131/

Downtown routing chosen by advisory committee, but will still be studying ending at Union Depot. Glad this is going in the right direction.

You're welcome.

Still boggles my mind that they're still considering it just so they can say people are actually using the depot throughout day. With a stop near the depot entrance it seems to be a win-win for a downtown routing. I'm sure a handful of Gold Line riders will go inside the depot for whatever reason (just visiting, taking Amtrak or an intercity bus, connecting with a local bus, an event, etc.).

I am in agreement with the sentence following the one I highlighted. But you are mistaken about the section I highlighted.

Not quite sure how to tamp down the conspiracy some people on this site run with that officials are trying to "artificially inflate" Union Depot usage (false) as opposed to having a vision for the Depot to make quick and efficient transfers (true). Today's streets.mn article even points to the fact that Union Depot will be an important transportation hub.

What it means is that when more services do eventually enter the back of the Depot, there will be a block walk between some of the modes instead of all of them in the back of the Depot. I place practical ridership numbers and obtaining federal funding for the Gold Line over the "vision", but I do also understand the vision and it gets frustrating to keep seeing it misrepresented.

Today's streets.mn article even points to the fact that Union Depot will be an important transportation hub.

Yes, a transfer hub for *people connecting to intercity rail* not *commuters trying to get a half mile closer to their jobs in the downtown core.*

Today's streets.mn article even points to the fact that Union Depot will be an important transportation hub.

Yes, a transfer hub for *people connecting to intercity rail* not *commuters trying to get a half mile closer to their jobs in the downtown core.*

Even so, does that somehow change the fact that "artificially inflating Depot usage" is a complete misrepresentation of McDonough and Ortega's points and arguments?

I keep reading that conspiracy over-and-over and it is really grinding my gears.

Doesn’t land use follow (new) transportation infrastructure?

It seems new jobs, housing, retail (density, generally) downtown will start to concentrate around Union Depot if it becomes a transportation hub.

The biggest problem I see with Union Depot (especially the bus bay area) becoming a true local transportation hub is that it's relatively time-consuming to run buses through Union Depot without starting/ending there. Currently the 54 extension skips Union Depot, and any Gold Line through-traffic would likely add a couple extra minutes to pull in and out of the bus area. In an ideal world, buses could at least exit onto Sibley and come in via 2nd St., but until such time as it's seen worthy to build that I think the best we can expect is stations on either side of Union Depot near the headhouse.

Since Kellogg has AADT of 14,200 near SPUD, why not just reconfigure Kellogg to have one lane of traffic each way and one lane of local bus drop-offs? This seems to have all the advantages: It can have vertical circulation right into the SPUD concourse, but buses can still through-route SPUD towards DT St. Paul

Bus stops on Kellogg under the depot looks so sensible!

The biggest problem I see with Union Depot (especially the bus bay area) becoming a true local transportation hub is that it's relatively time-consuming to run buses through Union Depot without starting/ending there. Currently the 54 extension skips Union Depot, and any Gold Line through-traffic would likely add a couple extra minutes to pull in and out of the bus area. In an ideal world, buses could at least exit onto Sibley and come in via 2nd St., but until such time as it's seen worthy to build that I think the best we can expect is stations on either side of Union Depot near the headhouse.

IMO one thing that we've never seriously tacked is a more comprehensive, integrated vision for a St. Paul transit spine. We have a depot and a light rail line and some buses and haven't seriously thought about building infrastructure in service of all of these. Instead of answering narrow questions like "how can we move commuters from Woodbury to Downtown" I'd like to see plans addressing "how can we build infrastructure that will be useful for all kinds of lines that move people to and throughout St. Paul?" (This is also my broader critique of transit planning in MN: we are super, super, super focused on corridors instead of networks.)

Creating better connections for transit coming into SPUD from the west, like you said, would be one example of this, where it makes loads of sense given all the routes that do or could serve the depot, but will never happen because no individual line can justify that improvement relative to its total scale or cost.

My more ambitious suggestion: Instead of reviving the fight over alignments through Downtown every single time something serves Downtown, I think we are way overdue for commiting to a dedicated transitway (shared LRT and bus) and pouring our resources into improving it. Assuming tunnels are out because this is still Minnesota, I would like to see a dedicated transit ROW along surface streets from I-94 on the west side of Downtown, to SPUD on the east side. This would serve (a) the E-W portion of the Green Line; (b) Riverview from W 7th to SPUD; (c) the Gold Line from SPUD through Downtown St. Paul as proposed, and onward to Downtown Minneapolis; (d) the tail end of the Rush Line; (e) the Red Rock Line (which would be collocated with the Gold Line from the 61/94 Junction onward); and (f) all sorts of other local buses that cross Downtown or connect to I-94.

My back-of-the-napkin routing would convert streets to transit-only (with ped/bike/sidewalk improvements where possible) from the SPUD bus bay north on Broadway for a block, west on 4th St. to Minnesota, through Central Station, then west along 5th to W 7th. At 5th/W 7th, it would connect to the Riverview ROW as well as a bus lane onto I-94.

http://www.startribune.com/gold-line-bu ... 499353131/

Downtown routing chosen by advisory committee, but will still be studying ending at Union Depot. Glad this is going in the right direction.

You're welcome.

Still boggles my mind that they're still considering it just so they can say people are actually using the depot throughout day. With a stop near the depot entrance it seems to be a win-win for a downtown routing. I'm sure a handful of Gold Line riders will go inside the depot for whatever reason (just visiting, taking Amtrak or an intercity bus, connecting with a local bus, an event, etc.).

I am in agreement with the sentence following the one I highlighted. But you are mistaken about the section I highlighted.

Not quite sure how to tamp down the conspiracy some people on this site run with that officials are trying to "artificially inflate" Union Depot usage (false) as opposed to having a vision for the Depot to make quick and efficient transfers (true). Today's streets.mn article even points to the fact that Union Depot will be an important transportation hub.

What it means is that when more services do eventually enter the back of the Depot, there will be a block walk between some of the modes instead of all of them in the back of the Depot. I place practical ridership numbers and obtaining federal funding for the Gold Line over the "vision", but I do also understand the vision and it gets frustrating to keep seeing it misrepresented.

You believe what you want, but I believe if we somehow end up with a SPUD terminus politicians will be happy to see the depot get artificial usage even though they know the Gold Line won't meet its full potential. I've used numerous rail terminals in Europe and most of them required walking the equivalent of at least a few blocks to access buses, trams, and/or metro. Looking at the stops for the Gold Line downtown routing its straightforward between the rail platforms and bus platforms. You just need good way-finding, there were quite a few European rail terminals lacking that and a straightforward path.

Also FYI, I wrote that article. When I said BRT and LRT connections I meant they would be within reasonable distance from the SPUD platforms.

http://www.startribune.com/gold-line-bu ... 499353131/

Downtown routing chosen by advisory committee, but will still be studying ending at Union Depot. Glad this is going in the right direction.

You're welcome.

Still boggles my mind that they're still considering it just so they can say people are actually using the depot throughout day. With a stop near the depot entrance it seems to be a win-win for a downtown routing. I'm sure a handful of Gold Line riders will go inside the depot for whatever reason (just visiting, taking Amtrak or an intercity bus, connecting with a local bus, an event, etc.).

I am in agreement with the sentence following the one I highlighted. But you are mistaken about the section I highlighted.

Not quite sure how to tamp down the conspiracy some people on this site run with that officials are trying to "artificially inflate" Union Depot usage (false) as opposed to having a vision for the Depot to make quick and efficient transfers (true). Today's streets.mn article even points to the fact that Union Depot will be an important transportation hub.

What it means is that when more services do eventually enter the back of the Depot, there will be a block walk between some of the modes instead of all of them in the back of the Depot. I place practical ridership numbers and obtaining federal funding for the Gold Line over the "vision", but I do also understand the vision and it gets frustrating to keep seeing it misrepresented.

You believe what you want, but I believe if we somehow end up with a SPUD terminus politicians will be happy to see the depot get artificial usage even though they know the Gold Line won't meet its full potential. I've used numerous rail terminals in Europe and most of them required walking the equivalent of at least a few blocks to access buses, trams, and/or metro. Looking at the stops for the Gold Line downtown routing its straightforward between the rail platforms and bus platforms. You just need good way-finding, there were quite a few European rail terminals lacking that and a straightforward path.

Also FYI, I wrote that article. When I said BRT and LRT connections I meant they would be within reasonable distance from the SPUD platforms.

It's not a matter of me believing what I want - it is a matter of me presenting the facts behind McDonough and Ortega's vision. You don't have to agree with that vision, but stop with the conspiracy nonsense. They earnestly believe in their vision, so to present their arguments in such patently false light is intellectually lazy at best, and pernicious at worst.

I have also ridden all over Europe. One of my favorite train stations was in Luzern Switzerland. Despite the station's SEVERAL block walk from where the majority of businesses/residences are, it is a thriving place where one can catch or transfer to a train or a bus in a convenient and fairly frictionless manner. So I would submit their overall vision to make the Depot a hub for transfers isn't necessarily an unrealistic one. But I'd hate to be at risk of losing federal funding and want to see more of a transit culture built up here, so I am in support of the loop.

I wonder if Lucerne has more than 2 Empire Builders a day.

I wonder if Lucerne has more than 2 Empire Builders a day.

I wonder why so many people are mis-representing Ortega and McDonough's motives.

Their (Ortega and McDonough's) vision has a very easy compromise that you agree on: route the buses nearby. Why can't they just accept that?

If they want SPUD to get real use how about they work on getting intercity and commuter trains there? Seems lately that vision has gone backwards with Red Rock becoming BRT (terrible decision in my opinion), no funding for higher speed rail to Chicago, and we won't even get a second daily Empire Builder until 2022 at the earliest.

If they want SPUD to get real use how about they work on getting intercity and commuter trains there? Seems lately that vision has gone backwards with Red Rock becoming BRT (terrible decision in my opinion), no funding for higher speed rail to Chicago, and we won't even get a second daily Empire Builder until 2022 at the earliest.

Yup, as far as I’m concerned this is the issue. We built the depot but since then the commitment to rail has evaporated. Some of those were outside our control (good riddance, Walker), though a lot of them weren’t: choosing buses as the mode for literally every East Metro commuter corridor, for example.

It’s a rare example of our state actually investing in forward-looking transit infrastructure in service of a long-term network plan, but without following through on the network that would benefit from that investment, it will instead be used for a long time as an example of waste and inefficiency.

Ortega and McDonough may sincerely believe that the best path forward is to force people to use Union Depot, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily the right path forward for the Gold Line and for the region.

Do we need a SPUD thread?

Do we need a SPUD thread?

SPUD Thread

Article in a local paper about 3M Station: http://www.lillienews.com/articles/2019 ... ne-station

It still amazes me that this entire line is being planned with a dedicated guideway, yet we can't get bus-only lanes in Uptown or other areas with far more bus-ROW-interference issues.

I'm not sure what Maplewood expects... their short segment of I-94 has single family housing to the south and the 3M campus to the north. I do wonder if there was exploration of running the BRT through the middle of the 3M campus rather than the south side. That would increase walkability from jobs to the station, improve the station experience (sheltered from freeway), and be a stronger option should any of the campus get redeveloped, right?