Postby helsinki » October 18th, 2012, 10:22 am
I agree with absolutely everything that the two of you just said. And I think that before we build streetcars, we seriously need to improve the bus system. Washington DC has shelters with maps and NextBus numbers to call at every single bus stop in the entire city - it's phenomenal. MSP is not a poor metro (quite the contrary) - we can have something similar here too. At the same time, I think that a starter streetcar line, or system, would go a long way (as Hiawatha has, I might add) towards improving public perceptions of the system generally (in addition to improving an already high capacity corridor).
I have spent an embarassing amount of time thinking about where and what kind of lines could work crosstown (fantasy alert, yes, admitted) and really, a subway running from the new West Lake SW LRT stop, to the river under Lake Street would be perfect (I say this cognizant of the Minneapolis-bias it probably exudes). You look at a site like urbanrail.net and you realize how tortuous some routes are to make connections in other cities. We have such a prime candidate in Lake Street. Put stops at the SW LRT, Hennepin, Lyndale, Nicollet (re-opened, of course), 4th Avenue, Chicago, 15th/Bloomington, Cedar, Hiawatha LRT (Blue Line, whatever), 36th and 46th (and if you've lost your marbles completely then why not cross the river and meet up with Central or head down to St. Thomas and run under Grand past Macalester to downtown St. Paul). The stops I listed would create a line running approximately 6 miles - not outrageous, even at the absurd $200 million per mile costs US transit authorities pay for full underground metros. Just imagine - the corridor would explode with development, rising tax base, lower crime, and on and on. Try and convince people of the attendant social benefits of such investments though; they just can't get past the headline cost. Anyway, I digress.