Northstar Commuter Rail

[Suburban Outcast]

I bet it would if done right. It would actually serve a lot of job centers, especially the West End (if routed via the "iron triangle") and Normandale Lakes. Doubt it will ever happen especially now that Orange Line BRT seems to serve the south of the river portion of this corridor.

The Orange Line probably is concrete poured over the coffin for the Dan Patch Corridor, but even if they cut the line down to West Bloomington or Savage (or they could stay north of the MN River). If I had the money, I would plan lines to Wayzata with maybe a Plymouth spur, White Bear Lake, Maple Grove (if Bottineau doesn't get built). I would try to stay within the current built-up sprawl in the main urban area. If Northstar ever wants to see anywhere near 10,000 riders per weekday it would have to go to Saint Cloud and development in the exurbs (aka the vinyl outskirts) be focused on the stations and not Highway 10 (but it sadly will not go that way probably). 10,000 riders/day could be possible on the Dan Patch Corridor, Wayzata Line, NE Corridor/WBL Line, etc. At least even 5,000 riders on a 10-15 mile line is still better than 2,600 on a 40-mile line. We should probably divert this to a fantasy thread for commuter rail transit.

[Tcmetro]

The line south of the Minnesota River is in disrepair, and would probably need a substantial rebuilding. I like the idea of running Dan Patch to Shakopee and Mankato, though.

[Suburban Outcast]

I have Adobe Illustrator/Photoshop and a lot of free time so I made this:

The map needs more time for a final product and what not, but this could be basically what the network could look like. I added a connection to the Union Depot with a station at the U of M since Amtrak will be based at S.P.U.D. and the U of M could be used a station for commuter students and for weekend/breaks (could be beneficial for outstate students from places like Milwaukee, Chicago, even Seattle or Portland if they can handle the train ride). I could do one with a Northstar Expansion (with detailed bus routes connecting the train to Downtown St. Cloud and SCSU, along with basically a 2030 vision on what could be Metro Transit's commuter rail network mixed in with a regional rail system.

[UptownSport]

Somewhere there's a job for you! Wow!

[mulad]

That might be a good starter for a "Minnesota Valley Line" thread. Twin Cities to Mankato is a Tier I corridor under the 2009 state rail plan, meaning that it is planned for sometime between now and 2030.

Going from Minneapolis would probably require a flyover or something in Savage, but it could be done with existing tracks as long as a train was designed to reverse direction (locomotives on both ends or loco+cab car).

This is the tricky bit when getting to Minneapolis. The Union Pacific tracks on the south side of the river do lead straight to SPUD, though.

[Tcmetro]

The Dan Patch line has a bridge over the UP line, so a parallel track from the river bridge to the UP line would need to be built. It actually seems like it would be quite easy to do. The UP line does have quite a few industrial customers (Port of Savage, etc), so some sidings might need to be built. There are quite a few movements at the yard near the Bloomington Ferry Bridge, so maybe an additional track in that area could be useful.

That being said, the station locations would actually be quite decent. I would suggest Cedar Lake Rd, Minnetonka Bl, Excelsior Bl, Vernon Av, Edina Industrial, 84th St, Old Shakopee Rd, Savage, Stagecoach/Shakopee, and Downtown Shakopee. A spur to Valleyfair could be built quite cheaply as well. Considering the low use of the Dan Patch in that area, an all-day service could be quite possible.

[spearson]

I would love to see some conveniently placed signs promoting the Northstar. Not talking a billboard, but instead estimated travel times.

For example, on many of our highways and interstates we have big electronic signs that display estimated travel times to certain major places down road. I would like to see something similar for Northstar.

On Eastbound Hwy 10, before the Ferry St. exit, there is a simple blue sign that just informs drivers that this is the exit to the Anoka Northstar station. This section of Hwy 10 is often pretty heavy with traffic during rush hour. I think it would be enticing to a driver to see an electronic sign at some point before Ferry that would list it's consistent travel time to minneapolis, and next departure time, and then list alternate travel times to minneapolis by car.

For example, most of those information signs above highways have three lines of display. So in this case, I think it'd be nice to display somethign like this:
First line: Northstar to Mpls: Est Arrival 7:37am, Next Dept, 7:12am
Second line: Mpls Est Arrival by Hwy 10 to 35W: 8:00am
Third line: Mpls Est Arrival by Hwy 10 to Hwy 252 to I94: 815am

I think it would especially handy when Hwy 10 is gridlocked after a snowstorm. Seems like a really easy way to inform people.

Thoughts?

[mattaudio]

They have these all over Burnsville and Lakeville, on 35W and even on side roads like County 46. Wonder if there's a way to measure if they have an impact.

[Suburban Outcast]

So basically something like this along Highway 10?

[spearson]

Yes - I suppose so

[mamundsen]

I've seen similar ones for park and rides... they say "by car" and "by bus" which confuses the heck out of me. How can a bus be faster than a car?

[mattaudio]

It's one of the main purposes of HOV/HOT lanes and bus-only shoulders... providing a transit advantage. Anyone who has been on an express bus on 35W or Cedar Ave knows what I'm talking about... the satisfaction of flying by people stuck in their cars.

[RailBaronYarr]

It's one of the main purposes of HOV/HOT lanes and bus-only shoulders... providing a transit advantage. Anyone who has been on an express bus on 35W or Cedar Ave knows what I'm talking about... the satisfaction of flying by people stuck in their cars.

Until some jackwagon with a MnPass juts out right in front of the bus and causes the bus to jam the brakes and people go flying.

In all seriousness, the signs in Lakeville advertise time to downtown "by car" as the HOV lane, so it's almost always only a 2-3 minute difference.

[Andrew_F]

That's a great idea! Around here there are a lot of Metra billboards on the freeways, but I've never seen anything dynamic like that.

[FISHMANPET]

Totally random and off topic, is there a rivalry between the CTA and Metra? Riding the blue line from O'Hare into downtown I've seen a few Metra ads where the two lines are only separated by a freeway, an I'm not sure if they're making a dig at people stuck in traffic or people stuck on a broken down subway car with smelly poors.

[mulad]

The Strib has an erroneous headline saying that Northstar ridership was up 3.7% in February compared to 2012. It's actually up 13.7%. (46,505 in Feb. 2012, 52,874 in Feb. 2013.)

http://www.startribune.com/local/north/198618571.html

Finance & Commerce says that January ridership also saw a similar jump of about 16%. We're still in the reduced-fare trial period, which may have helped numbers, though the Ramsey station had also opened last year and the price drop was accompanied by an advertising blitz. There are about 130 daily boardings in Ramsey now.

The fare reduction is scheduled to last until April 30th. A recommendation on whether or not to continue is expected to be made to the Met Council on March 25th, and they'll vote on it on April 3rd.

Overall, Northstar ridership was 710,426 in 2010, 703,427 in 2011, and 700,276 in 2012, and it would have been worse without the surge in ridership toward the end of the year. At the moment, Metro Transit is projecting that Northstar will have 720,000 riders this year.

http://finance-commerce.com/2013/03/nor ... fare-drop/

[NickP]

I hope this is a sign of things to come. I want this to do well really badly. Keep in mind, well is relative. Although it is below projections, the line still sports a ridership of 2600 a day, per wikipedia. This is not an insignificant amount. Question about ridership numbers though, does that indicate the number of people, or the number of rides?

[mulad]

It's just counting individual unlinked trips. A daily commute counts as two trips. Additional trips may also accrue to LRT or bus service after a transfer.

Of course, roadway traffic counts work out in roughly the same way -- a single vehicle can be counted multiple times.

[gahwi003]

http://finance-commerce.com/transit/201 ... permanent/

Permanent fare reduction to be decided upon April 10th.

[RailBaronYarr]

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/levin031/transp ... -cost.html

Prime example of why treating this as a "commuter" rail is stupid. The same reason I'm not a fan of the SW LRT (or any other suburban lines) - political pressure makes it so that they have ample parking even if the stations are designated for TOD. I'm not disputing that taking away from car share on the freeways during commute times is a good thing - it saves opportunity cost of road construction. But it still allows sprawl in the sense that frequent, reliable, high capacity transit with ample parking (taking up space around the station that could be used for anything else productive) allows people to live out in unproductive places and continue to drive everywhere (getting from train to home still requires a car for most). And at super high costs because garages aren't cheap to build and maintain. At least make the people using it pay to park so we're not rolling in auto-subsidy to the cost of operating transit.