Green Line Extension - Southwest LRT

[woofner]

http://m.startribune.com/opinion/?id=228693411&c=y

We've talked about this before, but since no significant concentrations of low-income households are within walking distance of a station, and because the Northside bus network is oriented to downtown, the difference between the two lines in terms of job access for low-income households is negligible. I'd guess most northsiders will continue to transfer to LRT at Hennepin, which is of course only a minute away from a Nicollet transfer to a 3C. Probably the fastest transfer would be at Royalston, but that's a 1300' walk from the bus stop, so for most people that's a wash compared with transferring at Nicollet.

[Tcmetro]

Of course if we had a proper network (you know with tunnels in the inner city) those from north could just walk down a staircase at Broadway and Emerson, get to Nicollet and 6th in less than 10 minutes, then just another staircase down to the SW Line which would get out to the deep suburbs in 25-30 minutes.

[David Greene]

http://m.startribune.com/opinion/?id=228693411&c=y

We've talked about this before, but since no significant concentrations of low-income households are within walking distance of a station, and because the Northside bus network is oriented to downtown, the difference between the two lines in terms of job access for low-income households is negligible.

Or, ya know, we could do something radical like realign bus service to bring people to the LRT. Nah, we'd *never* do that!

Keep in mind we just built a nice new bridge to Van White.

[mulad]

Then the big question becomes, can a route to Van White station be popular enough to run any more frequently than half an hour? The frequency of downtown-bound service could easily trump the viability of transfers in a dead zone.

[RailBaronYarr]

^^Exactly. None of the aBRT or streetcar proposals (nor the Blue Line extension) have any meaningful transfer outside of downtown, with Royalston still requiring a 1,300 ft walk from the improved bus/rail line stops. Certainly, a 1,300' walk (6 minutes with waiting for lights) is quicker than than traveling in to Nicollet via bus/rail (5 extra minutes) and then traveling back out via 3C (which saves another ~10 to West Lake, the next common stop). This is a net of 9 minutes savings. A bus re-route to Van White would add another 2 minutes Northside reverse commute savings vs a 3C route (now up to 11). So the question is, would ridership on this re-route be high enough to justify anything better than 30 minute headways (avg wait time of 15) compared to the 7.5-10 minute peak frequencies of aBRT/Blue Line in to downtown?

It seems like a wash to me for current North Minneapolis residents (outside the re-development potential at VW and Royalston, which is somewhat speculative). Those riding Penn or Chicago-Fremont or Broadway Streetcar or Blue Line could save 9 minutes vs. a 3C transfer at Nicollet by transferring at Roayalston. Those choosing a re-routed bus to VW might save a minute or 2 vs. heading to downtown when taking in to account wait time to grab the first bus.

When you factor in reduced trip and transfer times for those in Whittier making the same trip (with similar demographics and incomes), it's a pretty tough sell.

[Tom H.]

As RBY mentioned, a lot of the argument (one way or the other) depends on how real you think the development potential at Van White is.

[David Greene]

When you factor in reduced trip and transfer times for those in Whittier making the same trip (with similar demographics and incomes), it's a pretty tough sell.

Is this really true given a Midtown streetcar?

I do understand the argument being made. It seems to me from an access perspective, Kenilworth + a Midtown streetcar get improvements to both places.

[RailBaronYarr]

When you factor in reduced trip and transfer times for those in Whittier making the same trip (with similar demographics and incomes), it's a pretty tough sell.

Is this really true given a Midtown streetcar?

I do understand the argument being made. It seems to me from an access perspective, Kenilworth + a Midtown streetcar get improvements to both places.

Well, depends:


3CvsGreenway Walk Shed by RailBaronYarr, on Flickr

The green areas are the 1/2 mile walk sheds (roughly) for a Midtown Greenway streetcar, which would be the duplicated with a 3C alignment. The blue areas are those served by 3C but not Midtown Greenway. This matters very little for those heading in to downtown - 3C saves them a little time vs the 18 or Nicollet streetcar/EB (EDIT: it saves them 7 minutes from 28th to Nic/4th vs the 18, likely 5 minutes compared to EB or Streetcar, so not "nothing"). But for those in the blue areas heading SW via SWLRT, in a 3A/Greenway Streetcar situation have to make 2 transfers instead of 1, and the people in green make no transfers. Saving both groups on average 5 minutes. (whilst North Minneapolis residents will be making 1 transfer regardless, it's the travel time that they save between 2 and 9 minutes, as noted above).

If it's about access, neither North Mpls or Whittier/Uptown people are losing out and the argument is moot - both have transit lines and improvements in the pipeline to shave time off those first-leg journeys. If you're talking about improving travel time for those with access, then the comparison has to be made for people in Whittier vs people in N Mpls (under the lens of income/demographic justice), as well as throwing in the time savings for the affluent people in Uptown of a 3C vs Hennepin, Lyndale, or Nicollet bus to downtown (or, potentially to the SW burbs as well).

[UptownSport]

Of course if we had a proper network (you know with tunnels in the inner city) those from north could just walk down a staircase at Broadway and Emerson, get to Nicollet and 6th in less than 10 minutes, then just another staircase down to the SW Line which would get out to the deep suburbs in 25-30 minutes.

Making core infrastructure solid makes so much more sense to do first. There are jobs downtown, too, it would make total sense to move skilled workes there, efficiently.
It also allows access to the many downtown connecting routes to many areas.

IF there are so many people wanting to work SW of the city, why not just run a connecting bus line, now?
I'm just not 'buying' that there is significant call for service from North to SW Metro, it sounds like more propaganda to cram the line through.

[HoratioRincewind]

...an interesting quote from our erratic governor regarding bonding for SW LRT:

"If there's money beyond that, then there'll be quite a frenzy at the legislature with people with various ideas on how to use that money and I'll have ideas myself," Dayton said... He also said the current dispute over the fate of the Southwest light rail project probably means funding for that project won't be a priority in the next legislative session.

There was some hyperbole about Dayton's delay decision pushing this into another Presidential administration, which is incorrect, but the person who made the comment is on to something.

First of all, given the state's financial situation it probably cannot bond for this project at all next session. There just simply won't be the money for it. An arrangement could be made to backfill the state's responsibility but none of the local partners could make that lift-- unless the CTIB has a new sales tax increase-- which isn't going to happen next year either.

So, this transit project is going to ultimately be contingent on the municipal leaders along the line, with Minneapolis' obviously being the most important, the state legislative make-up in 2015 (beyond the question of who is in charge, keep in mind that even years are supposed to be bonding years, so does a DFL house bond for it in 2015, or wait until 2016?), and the federal legislative make-up and appropriation priorities.

Basically this project is contingent on a tailwind, and three elections landing right.

[twincitizen]

http://finance-commerce.com/2013/10/day ... -lrt-plan/ (free)

I'm not sure what any of this means. Does anyone here think the problem with SWLRT is at all related to a lack of citizen participation? I don't see how more is going to help anything, other than to serve as a smokescreen while other agreements are made between political leaders behind closed doors.

The entire problem today stems from bad decisions made years ago (either 3A vs. 3C-2 or not securing a binding agreement for relocating freight, pick your posion)

[David Greene]

Does anyone here think the problem with SWLRT is at all related to a lack of citizen participation? I don't see how more is going to help anything, other than to serve as a smokescreen while other agreements are made between political leaders behind closed doors.

It's not going to help anything. Either Dayton is totally naive about this (and I think that's a real possibility) or it's cover for doing whatever Minneapolis wants.

I believe it's the former. He is seriously misinformed not just about this line but about transit and transportation altogether. He does not understand the multiple purposes of transportation investment and so is easily swayed by those presenting incomplete or flat-out incorrect information. I've seen it happen multiple times with him.

[woofner]

Either Dayton is totally naive about this (and I think that's a real possibility) or it's cover for doing whatever Minneapolis wants.

Or maybe he's waiting to see if a very different city council thinks very differently about the shallow tunnel.

[mulad]

Spending some time learning my way around QGIS -- Block-level population density map overlaid with bus/rail routes. Of course, one major missing piece is job density data.


density-with-proposed-routes by Mulad, on Flickr

[Tom H.]

Not to nitpick, but it looks like you didn't truncate the SWLRT at SouthWest Station, which is the current plan.

[mulad]

I just used the route as it was in the datafinder.org "Planned Transitway Alignments" shapefile, so there are probably differences. That also included a "Phase 2" of the Red line going off into nothingness for some reason, but didn't include Bottineau (so I added that one).

[talindsay]

That map is really interesting. A few observations:
(1) Surprising to see that the Hiawatha Line is more immediately surrounded by density than Central. Of course, the jobs data being overlaid would definitely put Central ahead, but interesting nonetheless.
(2) Interesting how the actual trench Bottineau is to be put in appears to be the boundary of density: the east of the line is quite promisingly dense while west of the line is not. Clearly from a proximity perspective N Mpls is much better than Robbinsdale/Crystal/random suburbs that I don't care to know the exact borders of.
(3) Why again isn't Southwest stopping in Hopkins? Or, if Opus is such a huge jobs site, why isn't it stopping there? The collapse of density past Hopkins is striking.
(4) At this point it probably could go without saying that we're managing to snake Southwest through the lowest-density route away from the downtown, but I'll point it out anyway. Running through Southwest Minneapolis and terminating at Hopkins would certainly maximize the population within walking distance of the line in a way that this route does not.

[Tom H.]

Terminating SW and Bottineau at Hopkins and Robbinsdale, respectively, seems like a no-brainer to me - you can leave open the possibility of extensions in the future. They achieve most of the benefits of the full lines at fractional cost. Unfortunately, I think that federal cost-effectiveness criteria are the culprit behind having to build the 'complete' lines from the get go, rather than the (from my perspective) more logical piece-meal approach.

[RailBaronYarr]

Other than the limited ROW and tricky crossing of the trail and roads, I don't know why downtown Hopkins wasn't served directly. It's got great density of jobs, housing, and commercial, and the latter 2 are growing. Skirting by the edge makes such little sense to me...

[Tcmetro]

The area between Hopkins and SW Station on SWLRT is almost all jobs, except for the scattered apartment here and there. I think that the potential of the line is being underestimated in Eden Prairie. We are talking about service to the largest suburban job center outside of the 494 strip, a regional shopping center, and a low-to-moderate income area with a lot of apartments that is poorly served by transit.

The Bottineau line would be fairly useless if ended at Robbinsdale. Crystal's main shopping area is at Bass Lake Road, the 63rd Ave station would probably get most of its traffic from a Zane Ave (low-income, high-density street) bus, Brooklyn Bl is a busy shopping center and, IMO, a useful Arterial BRT line, 85th is home to North Henn. CC. Getting rid of 93rd and 97th would be a good idea, but they are planning a large parking garage at 93rd, and 97th is where Target is.

Cutting the tails of the lines isn't going to raise enough money to go through the high-density neighborhoods in tunnels, and would be unpopular amongst the suburban politicians as well as the Metropolitan Council.