Green Line Extension - Southwest LRT

[thatchio]

I understand the trail reroute is proposed further away and crossing busy streets. To me, that is a politicaly unviable option. I think what I outlined is a much more politicaly viable option. Not to say it is technically viable, but the terrain was far more level and direct than I initially thought. I see it as e 13th hour solution that will be put out there.

[David Greene]

I understand the trail reroute is proposed further away and crossing busy streets. To me, that is a politicaly unviable option. I think what I outlined is a much more politicaly viable option. Not to say it is technically viable, but the terrain was far more level and direct than I initially thought. I see it as e 13th hour solution that will be put out there.

This seems like a good potential option to me. Have you presented it to any of the staff? I hope they'd be pretty open to other ideas.

One thing I want to get clear is whether rerouting the bike trail and running LRT + freight at grade would still require removing homes. I believe TC&W has been willing to compromise a bit on ROW buffers.

[tabletop]

A little food for thought, looking at these old plans for a rapid transit system in the Twin Cities, this line has always existed in one shape or another. If you haven't seen this, check it out. Courtesy of gettingaroundmpls (not sure what kind of door this is about to open...)

http://gettingaroundmpls.wordpress.com/ ... aid-plans/

[mattaudio]

In most of those plans, there was a southwest line but it didn't go to Eden Prairie. Time to cut this one back to Hopkins and save Eden Prairie for a future phase when we have money to invest in lines with significantly less mobility gains. We can reserve the ROW and we have some of the engineering, so we can give Eden Prairie and Minnetonka some standards for the type of development around future stations that would merit an extension. 450 space park and rides do not count. Park and rides should be for express buses. Billion dollar transit lines should connect actual walkable and usable nodes.

[tabletop]

Yes, but back when those plans where drafted Eden Prairie wasn't even on the map in terms of population and political influence. Should we expect everyone out there to drive to work so we can keep expanding the freeway network, or provide a solid form of transit that support what is already there?

I'm not happy about suburban sprawl, but I believe we need to accommodate the land we've built out or we'll be stuck in traffic.

[tabletop]

And also, I've never taken a bus to Eden Prairie. That sounds like maybe the last thing I would ever want to do, it just sounds really long and painful and my heart goes out to those who do it on a daily basis. Nor is driving there on the top of my list for that matter. But a train on the other hand seems like less of a hassle.

[RailBaronYarr]

As I've stated before, the options are not only "build this line" or "build more freeways." We've convinced ourselves that more freeways have continued to be wise economic investments, when the reality is every investment we've made has seen diminished returns ( http://blog.lib.umn.edu/levin031/transp ... oo-li.html ) - mobility-wise and for improving economic viability. Open up Minneapolis, St Louis Park, Richfield, etc for development. Minneapolis itself is between 1/2 and 1/3 the density of San Francisco right now. Prices are high enough in many areas for property to justify more valuable development with higher densities (done 'right') and people would live there (ie free market response). Maybe some people living in EP, Carver, Wayzata, Independence, etc who continue to see frustrating commute times and rising gas prices might choose to live closer to their job in result.

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a certain level of walkability to connect a transit line out to. I struggle with the Van White development because there is literally nothing there and we're talking about putting in a station. But the line is already running through that space (assuming 3A, obviously), so a station is marginal cost and time loss to the line's service in exchange for what could be a bunch of housing and business. Building out to EP requires tunnels, flyovers, stations, and more track. Very costly. The nodes it connects should have minimum threshold of use beyond people driving in and parking 5 times a week.

[mattaudio]

Should we expect everyone out there to drive to work

That's the choice people made.

I made a choice to buy a home in the city after growing up in the burbs because I disliked long drives or an hour on an express bus. I chose to turn down multiple job offers at companies with suburban campuses. It's not like people are stuck in Eden Prairie. They live there or work there as a choice.

Again, I'm just suggesting that a) we have higher priorities for our transit backbone... connecting high quality nodes, not park and rides and b) we have a corridor and engineering in place, so we need to let E.P. and Mtka show that they want LRT by building a compatible land use around the future corridor.

[Tom H.]

Should we expect everyone out there to drive to work

That's the choice people made.

Actually, some people (like me) made the choice to live in Eden Prairie partly due to the availability of transit. While I would have liked to live in a more urban area, my wife's work schedule and location made this infeasible, so a relatively close-in suburb (EP is actually not far from the center of population of the Twin Cities) with good transit service to the U of M (my ride is a little over 30 minutes each way) was our optimal choice.

Suburbs exist. We can't bulldoze them away. A two-pronged approach of disincentivizing future sprawl, and repairing and activating the sprawl we have seems like a good pragmatic strategy, and that's at least what it seems like the SWLRT is trying to do.

[David Greene]

Suburbs exist. We can't bulldoze them away. A two-pronged approach of disincentivizing future sprawl, and repairing and activating the sprawl we have seems like a good pragmatic strategy, and that's at least what it seems like the SWLRT is trying to do.

Exactly. It's totally, totally unrealistic to say "screw you" to the existing suburbs. People live there and can't easily move.

[FISHMANPET]

Not building SW to EP isn't saying "screw you" to the suburbs, it's saying that they've developed in a way that doesn't make a billion dollar rail investment very productive in comparison with other transit investments we can make in the region. If Eden Prairie wants to rebuild itself around a town center focused on a transit station, then maybe we can run rail to it at some point. But it makes no sense to invest in a line that is meant to carry people to all sorts of destinations at all sorts of times when most of those destinations are just parking lots.

[David Greene]

Not building SW to EP isn't saying "screw you" to the suburbs, it's saying that they've developed in a way that doesn't make a billion dollar rail investment very productive in comparison with other transit investments we can make in the region.

Except that, according to the studies, it does.

[FISHMANPET]

The studies are based on CEI which values new riders to transit above all other things, so through that flawed (or at least flawed by my perspective) methodology, yes it's worth it. But I think a little bit of common sense says that bringing upper middle class employees into the core for work doesn't really enhance the mobility of the region, and there are plenty of places that nearly 2 billion could be spent to better improve mobility.

[David Greene]

The studies are based on CEI which values new riders to transit above all other things, so through that flawed (or at least flawed by my perspective) methodology, yes it's worth it. But I think a little bit of common sense says that bringing upper middle class employees into the core for work doesn't really enhance the mobility of the region, and there are plenty of places that nearly 2 billion could be spent to better improve mobility.

The CEI doesn't "value new riders to transit above all things." It values travel hour saved per dollar, which is pretty much the price/performance definition of mobility.

Whether travel hour saved per dollar is a reasonable metric is certainly a debate worth having but it's the metric we're operating under for this project and it does directly address mobility. One can't simply argue the metric away as it's a big part of what determines the viability of the line.

[David Greene]

The CEI doesn't "value new riders to transit above all things." It values travel hour saved per dollar, which is pretty much the price/performance definition of mobility.

Whether travel hour saved per dollar is a reasonable metric is certainly a debate worth having

For example, "mobility" is not the same thing as "access" and for a long time I've thought that our evaluations should give access a higher priority that we do now.

[Snelbian]

The studies are based on CEI which values new riders to transit above all other things, so through that flawed (or at least flawed by my perspective) methodology, yes it's worth it. But I think a little bit of common sense says that bringing upper middle class employees into the core for work doesn't really enhance the mobility of the region, and there are plenty of places that nearly 2 billion could be spent to better improve mobility.

The CEI doesn't "value new riders to transit above all things." It values travel hour saved per dollar, which is pretty much the price/performance definition of mobility.

Whether travel hour saved per dollar is a reasonable metric is certainly a debate worth having but it's the metric we're operating under for this project and it does directly address mobility. One can't simply argue the metric away as it's a big part of what determines the viability of the line.

That last bit sounds a bit circular.

[David Greene]

That last bit sounds a bit circular.

Only in the sense that the line is viable and productive given the measurements we use and we can't argue away the measurements, so the line is viable and productive. That's not even circular, actually. FTA uses the CEI, among other criteria, to determine whether a line is viable. That's simply a statement of fact.

One can't change the rules of the game after the fact simply because one doesn't like the result.

[FISHMANPET]

I was always under the impression that CEI gave a huge benefit to new riders at the expense of improving conditions for existing riders. But you've been more involved in this process then I have so you probably have a more correct view of what's going on.

That being said, SouthWest Transit buses are currently faster door to door from the transit center to downtown. I spoke to a planner once upon a time in a class I took, and he said that even though SouthWest Transit was currently faster, the plan was for traffic to continue to get worse on those roads until the train was faster than the bus.

Essentially we're paying a whole pile of money to give a few people better reverse commutes into an environment that's completely hostile to anything but driving, because those people already have pretty good choices to get Downtown as it is, so I'm just not seeing the improved access or mobility.

I don't see SouthWest improving access to anything because there's nothing there but parking lots. Of the Met Council was going to enforce rigid zoning around stations maybe there could be some change, but that's not going to happen. As it stands I don't see the need to keep advocating for a line that's so bad. Just cut it off at Hopkins or something and call it a day.

[talindsay]

Should we expect everyone out there to drive to work

That's the choice people made.

I made a choice to buy a home in the city after growing up in the burbs because I disliked long drives or an hour on an express bus. I chose to turn down multiple job offers at companies with suburban campuses. It's not like people are stuck in Eden Prairie. They live there or work there as a choice.

Again, I'm just suggesting that a) we have higher priorities for our transit backbone... connecting high quality nodes, not park and rides and b) we have a corridor and engineering in place, so we need to let E.P. and Mtka show that they want LRT by building a compatible land use around the future corridor.

An enthusiastic second to this whole post. I too grew up in outer suburbia (in a different metro, mind you) and chose to buy a small house in the city because I had better things to do with my life than sit in traffic. The suburb I grew up in voted down a light rail line to connect it and so it went from #2 on the priority list to being removed from the plans. If suburbanites choose to sit in traffic, let them. Let's develop the core.

I fully support the SW line being built, btw. I just think it should stop in Hopkins.

[David Greene]

Essentially we're paying a whole pile of money to give a few people better reverse commutes

That's not right. Southwest Transit doesn't serve a whole bunch of markets in Hopkins, SLP, etc. There are more new riders than simply reverse commuters. I suppose the CEI favors new riders in the sense that their current trip time is so bad that direct rail service is a huge win.

I don't see SouthWest improving access to anything because there's nothing there but parking lots.

The Golden Triangle is a huge jobs center. It's not just parking lots. Eden Prairie Center has jobs. Town Center has jobs.

Of the Met Council was going to enforce rigid zoning around stations maybe there could be some change, but that's not going to happen. As it stands I don't see the need to keep advocating for a line that's so bad. Just cut it off at Hopkins or something and call it a day.

Planning and zoning is up to the cities, yes, but Met Council certainly has influence. It has to approve all comp plans and it doles out money. EP has already stated it wants significant, dense development at Town Center. That's why we're looking at alternative alignments through that section in the first place.

If you cut this line off at Hopkins you lose the westernmost anchor, meaning you lose commuters from EP, reverse commuters and trips between stops along this shorter line and the alignment west of Hopkins. If it was a good idea to do that, we'd have done it already, during AA.