urbanMSP

charging for park-and-ride spots certainly isn't going to stop (or even appreciably slow) suburban sprawl.

I love these.

I think matt should stick to his math to make his point. He is by no means an NFL referee...

Matt doesn't have Ed Hochuli pipes, but then again, who does?

Yup, there's a third option. They could decide it's not worth the expense and hassle to get downtown and look for work and play in the suburbs.

But of course we should stop social engineering that option into viability, then that option would dry up.

Right, because the only people allowed to live and work in the same city are the people of Minneapolis and St. Paul. For everyone else it's social engineering.

You 2 lately...

Gosh I feel like I've typed this before.

There's, like, a range of options we can take from a policy perspective. The outcomes, with my personal ranking of most-bad to least-bad:

- People drive in single occupancy vehicles to municipal parking ramps paying no property taxes downtown, may not cover ramp capital and operating costs (though looking through Mpls & St Paul budgets, they seem to overall)
- People drive in single occupancy vehicles to private parking ramps that at least pay property taxes
- People drive single occupancy vehicles to a free parking ramp paying no prop taxes in the burbs, ride express buses downtown
- People ride express buses paying a buck or two per vehicle per day to park in a suburban ramp paying no prop taxes in the burbs. As a result, some people may choose to bike to the ramp, carpool downtown, or leave earlier/later to avoid traffic. Worst case is that a non-insignificant amount of people stop choosing to work downtown.
- Transit runs to an area of somewhat reasonable density, but not enough to support 100% walk-up transit. MT leases the land to a company who pays a significant fee to run parking at a fee for those outside a walk/bike shed. Of the 4 blocks surrounding a station, 1 is dedicated to parking with the rest beign medium-density housing/commercial
- Full-on DOT, with next to no park n rides, served by all-day transit to the core and even some local feeder bus routes. Some dropoffs and a private ramp sprout up somewhere, but nearly 100% transit riders are bike/walk. Or, "Evanston."

I guess, I dunno. Free park and rides aren't the worst case, nor are they best case. Does a free park and ride at Kenrick Ave served by peak-hour only buses in Lakeville represent a good long-term TOD generator or an equitable use of funds when thinking about access to suburban destinations for urban residents? No. Does AVTS along with a (not-great) all-day, all-week Red Line, with a few actual uses surrounding it (with at least hope for future densification) while also getting cars off our freeway? I guess, yeah. I think the argument for taking cars off the streets downtown is better than taking cars off the freeways - the number of transit riders on 35W or Cedar is fairly insignificant. The number of suburban commuters entering downtown Minneapolis relative to drivers is not.

Alex is right, we should focus on what's the least bad option. As a whatever the hell I am, I'd say the last option is the "best" but obviously that requires a huge tectonic shift in the built environment in the suburbs.

But I'll also say in general that the idea that we have to dig and scrape for every last commuter into the cities is kind of silly. Companies are moving into downtowns, and I don't think they're doing that because people have the opportunity to live in Lakeville and park in Apple Valley and work in downtown. They're doing it because they're trying to attract that kind of talent that wants to work downtown, and the kind of talent that wants to work downtown will, in general prefer to live in a place where walk up transit works more than they'd want to live in a place requiring drive up transit.

I'd say the least bad option here is to take the buses they bought for the red line and use them to get one of the urban aBRT lines up and running faster. Stop throwing good money after bad.

Gosh I feel like I've typed this before.

There's, like, a range of options we can take from a policy perspective. The outcomes, with my personal ranking of most-bad to least-bad:

I basically agree with your argument, but it doesn't really address the counter argument of re-directing those funds to something more "worthwhile". Yes, I know that doing so is somewhere between difficult and impossible, but that doesn't address the morality of the choice. I have amended your two options that seem be debated above for an example. The pattern could be carried through, but I'm lazy

- People drive in single occupancy vehicles to private parking ramps that at least pay property taxes AND other infrastructure (enclosed bus stops, new buses, payment kiosks, etc) are put in place throughout the existing system to serve less economically affluent riders using the public money..

- People drive single occupancy vehicles to a free parking ramp paying no prop taxes in the burbs, ride express buses downtown AND the existing riders above continue to use their sub-standard transit infrastructure because the public money was used elsewhere.

What I'm trying to say is that providing additional park-and-ride parking is not a bad thing, but it does have definite costs and those resources could be used to benefit more riders in different ways. Is it still the least bad option when the funds could be used elsewhere?

Matt doesn't have Ed Hochuli pipes, but then again, who does?

Nor does he have Ed Hochuli-style arms for cannons, but that's another story.

Here's the full presentation that article references: http://www.cedartransitway.com/wp-conte ... r-2015.pdf

Skimming this plan, I first saw that they are planning $92m in improvements in phases 2-5 covering 2015-2040 (pp. ii-iv). I then saw that by 2040 about 3,000 more riders per weekday would be expected if those $92m in improvements would be built (p. 34). I then scrolled through the rest of the document to find some sort of decision-making methodology, and found none. Hmm.

For comparison's sake, the >$30,000 per new rider for the next phases of the Red Line is more than six times more expensive per new rider than American Blvd aBRT (which is about $5k per new rider). Hmm.

Yup, there's a third option. They could decide it's not worth the expense and hassle to get downtown and look for work and play in the suburbs.

People obviously have some choice as to where they work but a lot of times they just take the best job they can get and then just deal with the commute or move closer to where the job is.

Are they still going to build that Oak Grove inline station this year?

Are they still going to build that Oak Grove inline station this year?

Yes, and have it finished in 2017.

Cedar Grove online station breaks ground today.
http://www.startribune.com/improvements ... 377326971/

I'm trying to convince some of my coworkers to take the Red Line to work when we move. Not much luck yet...

I drove down Cedar south of Apple Valley to see what it looks like right now since they want to eventually extend the Red Line to Lakeville. Most of the area is just farm fields, and the only development I've seen are some single family homes. Just south of Lakeville Blvd. (Dakota County Road 50) there is an old park & ride with a bus shelter. Anyone know the story behind it? There are signs directing to the park & ride but it doesn't appear to be in use (note that I'm not talking about Lakeville/Cedar Park & Ride, which is north of this location).

I don't know about that one specifically, but there is a network of hundreds of park-and-rides around the metro area that extends well beyond the area that has bus service, so they can be used by random carpools or more organized vanpools. It doesn't show up on Metro Transit's official list, but I see a set of bike lockers which are probably labeled with the responsible agency somewhere.

It's fairly common to find random park-and-rides strewn around the region. I think a lot of them were built in order to receive Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) grants to top off budgets of roadway projects.