Public Transit News / Current Events (MN only)

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mattaudio
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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby mattaudio » April 11th, 2017, 9:40 am

Agreed. Someone with a simple coffee and donut kiosk could make a killing at many of these stations.

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sdho
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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby sdho » April 11th, 2017, 9:57 am

I've been a proponent since 2004 of Metro Council considering how to provide retail *in* or *at* the major light rail stations - especially thinking of the grade-separated high-use stations such as Lake Street and the airport. It makes waiting for the train a good deal more pleasant, it creates more activity in the station, and more importantly for this point, it gives somebody a financial incentive to maintain a baseline of conditions in the station. Unfortunately, many of the *best* stations for this type of auxiliary use - Snelling, East Bank, Nicollet - are built in a way that pretty much precludes this. But Lake Street and St. Paul "Central" would both be excellent places to try this out. Heck, the contract could even include an expectation that they take part of the task of cleaning the station.
28th Ave Station has a Subway (no pun intended?) integrated in. It is empty almost the entire day, but busy at the beginning and end of the workday. Wonder how that came to be, but nothing in stations that have more even all-day traffic

cooperrez
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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby cooperrez » April 11th, 2017, 10:02 am

Lake Street station is pretty gross now though, tbh. Someone (city, county, CTIB, the Lake Street Council, someone) should really work at funding better janitorial services.
I've been a proponent since 2004 of Metro Council considering how to provide retail *in* or *at* the major light rail stations - especially thinking of the grade-separated high-use stations such as Lake Street and the airport. It makes waiting for the train a good deal more pleasant, it creates more activity in the station, and more importantly for this point, it gives somebody a financial incentive to maintain a baseline of conditions in the station. Unfortunately, many of the *best* stations for this type of auxiliary use - Snelling, East Bank, Nicollet - are built in a way that pretty much precludes this. But Lake Street and St. Paul "Central" would both be excellent places to try this out. Heck, the contract could even include an expectation that they take part of the task of cleaning the station.
That's a great idea. Are there other proponents of this idea? Obviously with the development around the stations taking place, this is already being considered, but having the commercial activity located within the station is ideal. How does something like this get more consideration and momentum?

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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby QuietBlue » April 11th, 2017, 10:44 am

There's some retail (a Starbuck's, Bruegger's, Leann Chin, Cole's Salon and one or two other places) at the Eagan Transit Station, and it seems to do well. Not much turnover since it first opened, either.

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FISHMANPET
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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby FISHMANPET » April 11th, 2017, 11:02 am

There will hopefully be a coffee shop type place opening in the space that fronts the new transit Plaza here. Only useful for people coming from the south west corner but also I suspect that's the vast majority of walk up traffic to this stop.

There's also plenty of space to do something under the Hiawatha Ave Bridge but I'm guessing that with the lack of parking nobody is going to want to try that at all.

If we had more of a street retail scene here a coffee cart on the platform itself would probably do quite well, but that's probably only useful for a few hours in the morning.

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sdho
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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby sdho » April 11th, 2017, 3:01 pm

There's some retail (a Starbuck's, Bruegger's, Leann Chin, Cole's Salon and one or two other places) at the Eagan Transit Station, and it seems to do well. Not much turnover since it first opened, either.
That one's really well-done, where they basically integrated a mall as a liner around a park and ride ramp. I think most of the traffic probably isn't even there for the transit center -- whereas I doubt many go to the 28th Ave Subway unless planning to hop a train.

Korh
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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby Korh » April 11th, 2017, 11:19 pm

I'm curious if they do start setting up retail at some of the station whether or not some of the money will go back to metro transit to help pay for the systems overall operating costs and whether or not it will help that much.

Also this kind of reminds me of an idea a friend had where metro/Hennepin county starts offering permits to food truck vendors that allow them to be able to park/sell food close to any specific station in exchange for a good portion of the money that was needed to buy the permit going to help fund the light rail

twincitizen
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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby twincitizen » April 12th, 2017, 7:44 am

There was a lot of talk about making the Lake St/35W Orange Line Station "vendor cart ready" with utility hookups, etc (down on Lake St, not up on the freeway level). IIRC, Metro Transit's position is that these types of things have been unsuccessful here, so they're hesitant to make the investment themselves (not to mention perpetually cash strapped). I think Uptown Station might have electrical hookups, or at least had space set aside for a newsstand or something like that. I think that was the example they presented to demonstrate the "we tried, it wasn't successful here"

And re: Hi-Lake LRT station...I'd assume in that scenario that any coffee/food vendors would be down on Lake St, not up on the platform. I can't imagine Metro Transit would ever allow any kind of cart up there...so probably drop that fantasy right now.

mattaudio
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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby mattaudio » April 12th, 2017, 9:15 am

You'd think drawing people to transit stations would be good for transit business, no?

cooperrez
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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby cooperrez » April 12th, 2017, 9:36 am

I would think some sort of commercial partnership at Hi-Lake on the ground level would have a nice impact on livability at that station. There really isn't a lot of room up on the platform, so I agree that would be difficult. I don't think it would even have to be food related, but thinking outside the box and getting a micro-business person or two or three who maybe makes tamales or something to roll in a cart and sell there would be cool. There was a woman and her daughter who sold tamales outside of Aldi and Savers, someone like that, if they could get some help to establish themselves enough to have a license and sell on a small scale, there wouldn't need to be much if any infrastructure improvements for that kind of addition. Something like that in tandem with a small newsstand that is a bit more permanent would be nice, along with bathrooms, as mentioned. The cleaning guy I mentioned earlier said he had heard rumors of remodeling plans for the Lake St station, but they were just rumors. With the talk of fare increases and budget issues, maybe that talk to long gone.

amiller92
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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby amiller92 » April 14th, 2017, 9:12 am

A public restroom is in order at this location.
I noticed this morning that there are two portable toilets below the overpass (near the station entrance) on the north side. There is also one across the path from the Franklin Ave station. Maybe someone's listening?

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FISHMANPET
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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby FISHMANPET » April 14th, 2017, 9:21 am

Those two at the Lake St station have been there for quite a while now, not sure if they made a substantial difference or not. Even though they're wide open they always seemed for enough away that they were there for some other purpose.

amiller92
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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby amiller92 » April 14th, 2017, 9:46 am

Yeah, I couldn't remember whether I'd seen them before and/or whether they were construction-related. Didn't look like the Franklin one was, though.

cooperrez
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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby cooperrez » April 14th, 2017, 10:33 am

I also thought they were construction related and assumed they were locked, based on the condition of the station most mornings this past winter.

amiller92
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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby amiller92 » April 17th, 2017, 9:05 am

Checked this morning: not locked. At least when I went by.

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Tcmetro
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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby Tcmetro » April 20th, 2017, 12:45 pm

Met Council saying HF 861 could cause
- elimination of 20 to 70 bus routes
- "thousands" of trips eliminated
- Red line reduced
- Northstar weekend service eliminated
- Transit Link eliminated

https://metrocouncil.org/News-Events/Tr ... e-fel.aspx

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Silophant
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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby Silophant » April 20th, 2017, 12:51 pm

Ew, I can hear outstate Republicans salivating from here.
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jebr
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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby jebr » April 20th, 2017, 2:10 pm

So are they also proposing a 40% cut to all the outstate and suburban transit agencies as well? (Based on the map and what I've heard, the suburban transit agencies are getting no cut and, in fact, a small increase in funding.)

It frustrates me to no end. I don't mind having money funnel outstate to some extent, but when they're being vindictive to the core cities and declaring that the flow of money is from outstate to the metro (which, by population, is false) and acting on that rhetoric, I start becoming tempted to push for cuts that impact outstate (eliminating LGA, maybe?) I know that's harmful rhetoric, but if this passes...

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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby SkyScraperKid » April 20th, 2017, 3:01 pm

Met Council saying HF 861 could cause
- elimination of 20 to 70 bus routes
- "thousands" of trips eliminated
- Red line reduced
- Northstar weekend service eliminated
- Transit Link eliminated

https://metrocouncil.org/News-Events/Tr ... e-fel.aspx
It's about time low income residents riding public transit start paying fares high enough they start making a profit for the government! Roadways need repairing, and those increases costs need to be paid from somewhere! Now if we can start making homeless shelters profitable enough to fund a wall street bailout fund since all that deregulation we will FINALLY be building the Great America we deserve! :D

QuietBlue
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Re: Public Transit News and Current Happenings

Postby QuietBlue » April 21st, 2017, 7:39 am

It frustrates me to no end. I don't mind having money funnel outstate to some extent, but when they're being vindictive to the core cities and declaring that the flow of money is from outstate to the metro (which, by population, is false) and acting on that rhetoric, I start becoming tempted to push for cuts that impact outstate (eliminating LGA, maybe?) I know that's harmful rhetoric, but if this passes...
If there were enough votes to cut LGA, we wouldn't be in this position in the first place, because we wouldn't be seeing these transit cuts.


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