Green Line Extension - Southwest LRT

Roads - Rails - Sidewalks - Bikeways
amiller92
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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby amiller92 » November 16th, 2018, 10:25 am

You know with swlrt finally seems to be moving forward I kinda have an idea for an article
Go to each station site and see what is currently there and what is proposed to be there eventually in a x mile radius.
Ever year or so (maybe less) go back to each station site and see if anything has changed for better or worse as construction progressed be it new development proposals, changes to already established ones, etc.
I know it doesn't seem like much but it might be kinda cool to have a documented timeline of development around the SWLRT to look back on.
I did the Minneapolis station sites awhile back but it would be interesting to update:
https://streets.mn/2014/05/21/anatomy-o ... n-station/
https://streets.mn/2014/05/14/anatomy-o ... e-station/
https://streets.mn/2014/06/11/anatomy-o ... royalston/

Okay, I thought I did all the Minneapolis stations, but apparently I didn't do 21st St (might have been temporarily off the table at the time).

DanPatchToget
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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby DanPatchToget » November 16th, 2018, 11:20 am

Not so much development around station sites, but I have a ton of photos and some videos from the past few years along the route between Target Field and Hopkins. With construction about to commence I'd like to take photos of the route in Eden Prairie and Minnetonka. Just to see how will have changed and if this rail line blends in nicely with communities or the NIMBYs are somehow right and its a complete mess (I highly doubt it).

Anondson
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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby Anondson » November 16th, 2018, 1:43 pm

Unlocked F&C article by Brian Johnson with info on what would have happened if the Feds delayed much longer.

https://finance-commerce.com/2018/11/ac ... k-of-time/

DanPatchToget
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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby DanPatchToget » November 29th, 2018, 3:44 pm


Qhaberl
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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby Qhaberl » November 29th, 2018, 4:43 pm

Can people from the general public go see the ground breaking?


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Korh
Union Depot
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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby Korh » November 30th, 2018, 10:46 am

Did a quick Google search and seems like it's open to the public, it's at 2:30 pm

Anondson
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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby Anondson » November 30th, 2018, 11:01 am

At 610 16th Ave S in Hopkins.

Korh
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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby Korh » November 30th, 2018, 5:16 pm

So did anyone go to the groundbreaking? I wanted to go but was stuck at work.

Bakken2016
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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby Bakken2016 » November 30th, 2018, 5:40 pm

So did anyone go to the groundbreaking? I wanted to go but was stuck at work.
https://www.pscp.tv/MetCouncilNews/1kvJpEwDjeMxE

you can watch it here

I was stuck at work too.

Anondson
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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby Anondson » November 30th, 2018, 6:49 pm

I planned on going. It’s even my day off but things had to get done.

DanPatchToget
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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby DanPatchToget » November 30th, 2018, 8:07 pm

I went. Although this project is an absolute dog and pretty late getting going, its nice to finally see some dirt getting moved (literally).

I need to get more pictures of the route and maintenance facility area before the construction really starts. Its going to look very different in just a few years.

Anondson
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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby Anondson » November 30th, 2018, 8:14 pm

Get some photos for the 2023 Before/After post for Streets.mn?

Multimodal
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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby Multimodal » November 30th, 2018, 9:07 pm

Thanks for the video link. Peter McLaughlin got a standing ovation. The governor got thanked many times in absentia.

I’m glad things like aBRT can get approved & done so much faster, but I do wish things would change and we’d get more rail-based transit sooner rather than later.

I can’t believe it’s been going on since 2001, but today is a red-letter day for SWLRT. Can’t wait to ride it in 2023.

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jtoemke
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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby jtoemke » December 1st, 2018, 4:00 pm

I went. Although this project is an absolute dog and pretty late getting going, its nice to finally see some dirt getting moved (literally).

I need to get more pictures of the route and maintenance facility area before the construction really starts. Its going to look very different in just a few years.
If someone has a drone, now would be the perfect time to do aerials of the station areas.

Multimodal
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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby Multimodal » December 3rd, 2018, 10:50 am

From Hennepin County Commissioner Jan Callison’s newsletter:

“SWLRT is a 14.5-mile line with 16 stations serving Minneapolis, St. Louis Park, nearby Edina, Hopkins, Minnetonka and Eden Prairie. In 2014, there were approximately 64,300 jobs within a half mile of the proposed stations and 126,800 jobs in downtown Minneapolis. By 2035, employment is expected to grow to 80,900 within a half mile of the proposed stations and 145,300 in downtown Minneapolis — an 18 percent increase in employment. The population along the line outside of downtown Minneapolis is expected to grow by 56 percent from 2014 to 2035.”

Interesting that population is expected to grow 56 percent, but employment only 18 percent. I realize this is being thought of as a commuter-ish line downtown (although with frequent, all-day service), so it makes sense that population will grow faster than employment.

But that’s a huge difference. I would’ve thought employment would grow more around the stations in the suburbs.

When this project was first envisioned, suburbs were for people more than businesses. But with climate change and a push for non-car transportation (multimodal), and things just generally being closer to each other than they are today, it seems we need retail, services, and employment to grow around these stations as much as housing.

Anondson
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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby Anondson » December 3rd, 2018, 11:44 am

SWLRT already had a large number of jobs that I recalled were spoken as a huge reason to build it, “Golden Triangle” and Opus particularly, and connecting low income neighborhoods in Minneapolis with the jobs in those station areas.

alexschief
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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby alexschief » December 3rd, 2018, 12:18 pm

I'll be extremely interesting to see how this line becomes used. There are a number of different potential populations that it could serve, but also reasons to doubt about how well it will serve each.

Downtown Workers/Commuters: A lot of money and land is going into Park and Ride facilities. There's a pretty clear expectation that white collar workers from the southwest suburbs will take the train to work downtown, modeling the commuter lifestyle their peers in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, or DC might expect, and that this demographic is likely to be familiar with. But for many users, the train will be a slower ride than the existing commuter bus service.

Suburban Workers/Reverse Commuters: The proposed alignment makes a slightly tortuous tour of southwest metro employment centers, and could really become popular with reverse commuters who have suburban jobs but want the lifestyle amenities of the city. It successfully hits some big job locations, but the station locations are really less than ideal. In several situations, the stations are located on the far end of vast parking lots from the actual office buildings. Can these office complexes be convinced to invest on their own in better station areas and pathways? Will there be big seasonal shifts in how people use these stations, based on their uncomfortable-to-reach locations?

Future Residents: There has never really been a reason to build residential along the railroad right-of-way as opposed to any other location. So there's a lot of vacant or underutilized land in the station areas, especially along the middle stretch between the West Lake to Shady Oak stations. The Met Council obviously would love to see these station areas transformed like the current development alongside the Prospect Park Station, which would allow people to live on the train and the bikeway and commute either way, while perhaps enjoying the suburban amenities of Hopkins and SLP. But this is a model that hasn't really had a ton of success elsewhere, and places like Denver which staked the success of their entire system on this kind of development have seen it not emerge as quickly as they would like.

So I guess when the line opens, and in the five to ten years afterwards, it will be fascinating to see how the line manages to attract riders from these three groups. In the best case scenario, it attracts all three and incremental improvements are made (like better station to office connections) that improve its utility. In the worst case scenario, the line is a jack of all trades but master of none, and doesn't really draw any one group especially well.

DanPatchToget
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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby DanPatchToget » December 3rd, 2018, 12:38 pm

Regarding suburban commuters to downtown, most who use the express bus will stick with that. However there are people who commute outside peak time, those who suddenly have to get back home for whatever reason, and those who want to stick around in downtown for whatever reason. Those people will take the express bus from Southwest Station, but can easily take the Green Line whenever they want back to Southwest Station without having to worry about frequency. I wouldn't be surprised if people took the train instead of the bus during a blizzard simply because a train can get through inclement weather easier and the train doesn't get stuck in traffic. It would be interesting to see if the Northstar gets a slight uptick in ridership on days when there is a blizzard.

As for development, the Blue Line was slow to have development, but Hiawatha Avenue doesn't help with that. For the Green Line Extension I think there's a better chance of development happening quicker (as long as the economy is good).

Multimodal
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Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby Multimodal » December 3rd, 2018, 2:11 pm

It seems that SWLRT was conceived & designed in the era of commuter rail, and it may start out that way, but I agree with DanPatchToget that the reliability (esp. as we’ve seen with snow) of rail will end up being a big draw.

And, over time (if not right away), people will realize that they can do stuff at the various stops on the way home from work. Shopping, dining, meeting friends, running errands, all the normal stuff you’d normally drive for.

With rail, those destinations get compressed into cores, like mini-downtowns. This just ends up being more convenient than driving hither and thither all over town.

People today will drive 5 and 10 miles to run errands, go to their preferred doctor/restaurant/hairdresser/coffee shop/brewery, etc.

People will still do that for some things with transit, but mostly they’ll stay closer to home, closer to these nodes that are so easy to get to (transit, walk, bike).

For the suburbs they are in, these rail stations will become the urban core (until further transit gets built, anyway). Just as the streetcar corners of the past became areas of neighborhood commerce & housing density, these busier LRT stations will become centers of activity, diversity, & life that suburbs have mostly not known in the past.

We won’t have to sell people on it—it will just happen.

alexschief
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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby alexschief » December 3rd, 2018, 2:18 pm

It would be interesting to see if the Northstar gets a slight uptick in ridership on days when there is a blizzard.
I don't think that there's a lot of debate that the answer is yes.


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