Green Line Extension - Southwest LRT

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MNdible
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Re: Southwest LRT

Postby MNdible » October 4th, 2012, 4:31 pm

I agree that 21st could stay or go, but the Penn and Van White stations do have value, and for the little bit of money that you'd save in building them, it's completely not worth it. I heard a figure that only 10% of a LRT project budget goes for stations, so the little you save doesn't buy you anything, and then when you do want the station, you don't have a federal funding source to tap.

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Re: Southwest LRT

Postby UptownSport » October 4th, 2012, 6:28 pm

problem is, more stops= more time for one's commute, this lessens attractiveness of line.
Noticed streetcar rails on girard north of lake- it'd make sense to have rails off hennepin one block so traffic isn't another hwy 55 standstill

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Re: Southwest LRT

Postby seanrichardryan » October 4th, 2012, 7:43 pm

From the article:

"Engineers will also have to design tunnels, street crossings and consider existing freight operations on the Kenilworth Corridor in dealing with the 15-mile route between Minneapolis and Eden Prairie."

I don't remember any tunnels?
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Re: Southwest LRT

Postby Tcmetro » October 4th, 2012, 7:58 pm

There is a tunnel under Prairie Center and Flying Cloud.

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Re: Southwest LRT

Postby MSPtoMKE » October 4th, 2012, 8:14 pm

An undercrossing might be a better term for those tunnels, I doubt they will be very long. There does seem to be a lack of details available on the layout of this line, however.
Noticed streetcar rails on girard north of lake- it'd make sense to have rails off hennepin one block so traffic isn't another hwy 55 standstill
Not really sure about the relevance of this, but those were stub tracks that came off of Lake St. They were for the Selby-Lake streetcar (precursor to route 21) to turn around, not as a parallel route next to Hennepin.
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Re: Southwest LRT

Postby LRV Op Dude » October 4th, 2012, 9:40 pm

Southwest LRT Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) Public Hearings Set
The Hennepin County Regional Railroad Authority has scheduled three public hearings in November to formally gather public comments on the Southwest Light Rail Transit (LRT) Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS). The DEIS is scheduled for publication in the Federal Register on Friday, Oct. 12; the comment period will be 60 days, extended from the minimum requirement of 45 days due to the Thanksgiving Holiday.
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Re: Southwest LRT

Postby Tcmetro » October 5th, 2012, 9:17 am

Finally. I thought that the DEIS would have been available last summer. But this will be very informative and answer a lot of questions.

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Re: Southwest LRT

Postby fehler » October 5th, 2012, 9:55 am

A Penn station would require vertical circulation. That's not a "little" money.

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Re: Southwest LRT

Postby MNdible » October 5th, 2012, 12:36 pm

A Penn station would require vertical circulation. That's not a "little" money.
Well, on a billion dollar project, it's all relative. But if we believe that there's $100 million for all 16 of the stations, and even if this one is quite a bit more expensive than the others, we're still not talking that much money.

And this station has the potential to be a key transfer point for reverse commuters.

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Re: Southwest LRT

Postby LRV Op Dude » October 5th, 2012, 1:30 pm

by seanrichardryan »
From the article:

"Engineers will also have to design tunnels, street crossings and consider existing freight operations on the Kenilworth Corridor in dealing with the 15-mile route between Minneapolis and Eden Prairie."

I don't remember any tunnels?
You must not have seen the You Tube video on the alignment.
[BBvideo 425,350]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWqewQB-fR8[/BBvideo]

It has 3 new tunnels and about a dozen new or replacement bridges. One new bridge will be over 3000 ft long.
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Re: Southwest LRT

Postby UptownSport » October 5th, 2012, 3:38 pm

One billion? At all that, it'd end up costing more than the space shuttle

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Re: Southwest LRT

Postby mplsjaromir » October 5th, 2012, 3:46 pm

One billion? At all that, it'd end up costing more than the space shuttle
Total space shuttle budget was $192 billion. Not sure where you got your numbers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_program

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Re: Southwest LRT

Postby Nathan » October 5th, 2012, 4:55 pm

LAWL! Vikings Stadium/Space Shuttle/SW Light Rail... one of these things is not like the other...

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Re: Southwest LRT

Postby UptownSport » October 5th, 2012, 6:09 pm

A little hyperbole- Don't have to be so 'concrete' ;)

Start video and start adding-Bridges, including a 3000 footer? Tunnels? Even if you call them 'under-crossings' it's still going to be wildly expensive

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Re: Southwest LRT

Postby FISHMANPET » October 8th, 2012, 3:50 pm

Well, Snelling was the most viable corridor that wasn't already being considered in other studies.
There are way better ways to better serve uptown with transit than putting light rail through.

Uptown is too dense for light rail to do any good, for such a small distance that's so equally dense, something with more local stops would be better. A dedicated bus lane or streetcar would do a lot more for the area than light rail.
There's a big temptation to put stops close together in dense areas, but that's not a good idea. A dense corridor is more likely to have people wanting to get on or off at almost every single stop. It doesn't matter too much if a lower-density corridor has stops every block, because a typical bus trip will skip past most of them simply due to lack of demand. As a corridor gets busier, you really have to force people to walk a bit farther in order to avoid stopping every block. A bus can't even accelerate up to the speed limit before needing to slow down again under those conditions.

But perhaps your thinking is colored a bit by the ways many light-rail lines have been planned out up until the past few years. The Hiawatha Line has some stops spaced more than a mile apart in south Minneapolis, which doesn't really make sense, and would be totally inappropriate for Uptown. Something more like 1/3 mile spacing would probably be optimal.

I also think light rail would be good in Uptown simply because the capacity of each train can be so high. Buses that run in the Hennepin and Lyndale corridors today are standard 40-footers, but they probably should be running articulated units. I'm sure a lot of people don't ride buses in the corridor today simply because they can get very cramped inside. There's probably a lot of latent transit demand in the area that would appear if the service was faster, more comfortable, and more reliable, and light rail offers all of those things.
I'm all for better Transit in Uptown, I just don't think 3C did anything for Uptown. Having a stop on Franklin and then over a mile away north of the Kmart on Nicollet doesn't really help the businesses in between. Now put a stop in the middle between 25th and 26th, then we're talking. 3C would tear up Nicollet for years, kill a lot of business, and then not really help a third to a half of the businesses on the line.

I guess when I'm talking about closer stop spacing I'm not saying every block like a bus, but at most maybe a half to a quarter mile between stops? Hennepin, Lyndale, and Nicollet are already dense corridors, and they need something that will serve that existing density. Light rail is too spendy for a mile long line with 3-4 stops, so it has to be street car or bus, but either way it should be in a dedicated lane for speed. On all thee corrdidors, stop at Franklin, 24th, 26th, 28th, and Lake. Maybe interline into Downtown somehow, I don't know.

But 3C doesn't really serve uptown, and it would do a disservice, because if this fancy light rail ran threw, it would be decades before any more rail transit would be built in the area that could actually help residents.

And that is why I'm against the 3C. Doesn't really mean I'm "for" 3A though.

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Re: Southwest LRT

Postby helsinki » October 9th, 2012, 2:33 am

A little hyperbole- Don't have to be so 'concrete' ;)

Start video and start adding-Bridges, including a 3000 footer? Tunnels? Even if you call them 'under-crossings' it's still going to be wildly expensive
Perhaps this has already been mentioned, but it seems relevant; apparently it doesn't need to be so expensive:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-2 ... costs.html

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Re: Southwest LRT

Postby Tcmetro » October 12th, 2012, 7:20 am


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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby MSPtoMKE » October 12th, 2012, 11:10 am

I have started to browse through it... Surely they don't plan on building parking at every station west of Van White Blvd? I seem to recall earlier reports saying that every station west of West Lake would have parking, but I assumed a few would get consolidated. I recognize this line will need more parking than Hiawatha and Central, but that is ridiculous. 100 parking spaces at 21st. St. Station? These need to be consolidated to fewer stations to allow adjacent land to be developed.
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby twincitizen » October 12th, 2012, 12:08 pm

I think most of us here are hoping that 21st Station isn't built at all. That neighborhood certainly isn't going to allow any parking. The most infrastructure that will happen here is a "Kiss-n-Ride" drop-off loop. At best, the Route 2 would be extended to this station.

By not building 21st, the Kenilworth corridor could later be converted to a non-revenue connector once we find a way to get this sucker built through Uptown.

The Van White and Penn stations could continue service on a stub line to West End (or further).

I know there was some talk of not having parking at both Beltline and West Lake.

That would just be horrifying if we only built park-n-ride lots/ramps at each station without intergrating them into some sort of development. Are we just completely incapable of learning from other cities (in the US and globally)?? Friggin Dallas does a better job at TOD than Minneapolis and that is sad.

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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby UptownSport » October 12th, 2012, 7:00 pm

I think most of us here are hoping that the Green Line isn't built at all.
I'd agree with that- Can't see this as being anymore than a realtor's dream, much like 394


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