Twin Cities Future Transit Map

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Tcmetro
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Re: Twin Cities Future Transit Map

Postby Tcmetro » September 21st, 2017, 2:30 pm

IMO Gold line and Purple line are wasting money in areas where transit priority isnt needed. Those lines are at least radial and connect a major destination on one end.

2 and 21 are successful because they connect commerical corridors and have high density housing.

30, 32, 46 all connect lower density places with limited destinations. Broadway crosstown service didn't exist for a few decades because demand was so minimal.

RailBaronYarr
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Re: Twin Cities Future Transit Map

Postby RailBaronYarr » September 21st, 2017, 3:21 pm

We materialized thousands of extra riders a day in the Green Line, the A Line, and I'm sure it'll happen with other similarly urban route improvements. I'm not denying that current demand is low (though the 32 does sport 1,700 riders a day - just under half of what the 84 had prior to the aBRT treatment), but we're talking about pennies on the dollar compared to other investments. I'm not saying we're gonna see 10,000 rides a day on GV Road/Broadway. I know I'm off in the wilderness here. But waiting 30 minutes for a bus that runs crosstown within my own (small) city borders and doesn't have shelters or whatever is why people drive (or why they take taxis to get to grocery stores). It's **partly** why there's less appetite for development along those corridors.

I also think we under-value the existing destinations. Mid-City Industrial (not including the Quarry) has over 12,000 jobs. A 4-block wide corridor from Mid-City to Theo Wirth (but not including Mid-City) along Broadway/GVR has 8,500 jobs in it, while the same sized strip from Lake Calhoun to Midtown (including the Target/etc to the east of Hiawatha) has 14k jobs. Hell, ALL of Southdale (from 66th to Minnesota Drive, York to a N-S line roughly at Valley View) has just 12k jobs - the same as Mid City! Our perceptions of these places depend heavily on our biases. One could easily make the case that terminating a N/NE crosstown line at, say, General Mills HQ on one end and Midway at the other would add some significant pull to riders. There's not THAT MUCH separating a Broadway from a Lake St, or a 38th St from a Franklin Ave, but the difference in transit options available to people drive behavior (and, in a sense, justify the lack of zoning for anything more than what we have in/near those lower density corridors).

I want our city to take advantage of all the still relatively cheap land across broad swaths of N/NE/S, even SW Minneapolis for "missing middle" housing with 1 or even no parking spaces. But unless you work downtown, dropping 1 or 2 family cars isn't really an option for those locations. I don't think it'd take much in terms of added density in those areas (be it new housing or families re-populating empty houses) to support a bit more commercial usage along those corridors, either. And it shouldn't take much! We could actually aBRT-ify many of these corridors for even cheaper than the fully-blown projects by just consolidating stops, building some better shelters, committing to fare collection and fare inspector costs, and running existing route buses more frequently (cutting down on bus purchase req's). And if the city cared about making it as easy to get around town by bus as it does by car (seriously, we spend over a hundred million of local dollars a year on road capital/operating budget), we could afford to pay MT to do it.

tl;dr, reasonable people can disagree. I just think these corridors have more value than whatever metrics our transportation planners use to justify a system with like 2% regional and 8% city-wide mode share.

mamundsen
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Re: Twin Cities Future Transit Map

Postby mamundsen » September 21st, 2017, 3:41 pm

Reading the decisions from Feb 2017, it did say that the plan is for the LPA to be the Streetcar. That's a plus.

BigIdeasGuy
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Re: Twin Cities Future Transit Map

Postby BigIdeasGuy » September 22nd, 2017, 4:46 pm

What is the reasoning behind ending the West Broadway Streetcar at North Memorial instead of going all the way to the Robbinsdale Transit Center?

DanPatchToget
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Re: Twin Cities Future Transit Map

Postby DanPatchToget » December 15th, 2017, 11:59 am

My updated TCRT map (full description with the photo)-https://www.flickr.com/photos/141802592 ... ed-public/

Bakken2016
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Re: Twin Cities Future Transit Map

Postby Bakken2016 » December 15th, 2017, 2:07 pm

My updated TCRT map (full description with the photo)-https://www.flickr.com/photos/141802592 ... ed-public/
Nice! Unfortunately I don't think we ever see anything like this in our life times!

alexschief
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Re: Twin Cities Future Transit Map

Postby alexschief » December 16th, 2017, 5:15 pm

Last month I wrote an article for the main site, criticizing the current METRO projects and suggesting three new lines which would sorta ameliorate the system's issues while still mostly relying on legacy freight ROW, much of it abandoned. I made my own simple map to accompany the story, but obviously this map is the OG map, and really the only good map, so I spent the last few nights tinkering with this one—

Image

This is more or less what I proposed, but with a few changes based on feedback.

mamundsen
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Re: Twin Cities Future Transit Map

Postby mamundsen » December 17th, 2017, 9:10 am

That does look great. Looks like a top tier transit system. The biggest gap is the northern burbs. Basically the whole north side of the map has nothing.

amiller92
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Re: Twin Cities Future Transit Map

Postby amiller92 » December 18th, 2017, 10:11 am

If they ever built out the armory with reasonable density, it could make sense as a termination point of a north central line.

QuietBlue
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Re: Twin Cities Future Transit Map

Postby QuietBlue » December 18th, 2017, 12:36 pm

Nice map, but I think having both a blue line and a cyan line, along with a violet line and a plum line, is a bit confusing. And I'm still not sure why you made the existing red line part of the new magenta line, while making a new line red.

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VacantLuxuries
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Re: Twin Cities Future Transit Map

Postby VacantLuxuries » December 18th, 2017, 2:23 pm

And I'm still not sure why you made the existing red line part of the new magenta line, while making a new line red.
Many people feel giving a primary color like Red to a suburban highway bus was a mistake and it should be corrected by giving the color to Riverview.

I don't see that logically happening, but it's a fantasy map, so why not?

QuietBlue
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Re: Twin Cities Future Transit Map

Postby QuietBlue » December 18th, 2017, 2:55 pm

Many people feel giving a primary color like Red to a suburban highway bus was a mistake and it should be corrected by giving the color to Riverview.

I don't see that logically happening, but it's a fantasy map, so why not?
LOL. People actually care about that? Well, like you said, it's a fantasy map. No harm in it. :D

DanPatchToget
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Re: Twin Cities Future Transit Map

Postby DanPatchToget » December 18th, 2017, 10:39 pm

No harm in it, unless enough people gather and bring it to the Met Council, and then they waste more time and resources studying whether or not it should be called the Red Line.

And no, I'm not very fun at parties.

alexschief
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Re: Twin Cities Future Transit Map

Postby alexschief » December 19th, 2017, 9:08 am

It's definitely not the world's most pressing priority, but it's a pretty global convention that primary colors are used for the most central and important routes. Having a lines that are more similar in color (i.e. "magenta," "violet," and "plum") is a lot less confusing when they are lines you don't need to transfer between.

thatchio
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Re: Twin Cities Future Transit Map

Postby thatchio » December 21st, 2017, 3:15 pm

alexschief, I get it's a fantasy map and you did a really nice job with the professional design, but it's not clear who would use some of these lines. For example, who are the intended users of the Gold or Cyan lines? Seems like they'd require double transfers to provide that much use.

Bakken2016
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Re: Twin Cities Future Transit Map

Postby Bakken2016 » December 21st, 2017, 4:17 pm

alexschief, I get it's a fantasy map and you did a really nice job with the professional design, but it's not clear who would use some of these lines. For example, who are the intended users of the Gold or Cyan lines? Seems like they'd require double transfers to provide that much use.
His Cyan line mimics the Midtown Rail study, with additionally addressing service to Hopkins, and extending into to the Ford Site. I see it as a useful West to East Line to connect Hopkins - Uptown - Midtown - Ford Site - Downtown Saint Paul.

alexschief
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Re: Twin Cities Future Transit Map

Postby alexschief » December 21st, 2017, 6:27 pm

alexschief, I get it's a fantasy map and you did a really nice job with the professional design, but it's not clear who would use some of these lines. For example, who are the intended users of the Gold or Cyan lines? Seems like they'd require double transfers to provide that much use.
My Gold and Cyan Lines travel through the two fastest growing parts of Minneapolis—St. Anthony and Uptown/Lyn-Lake.

If everything currently proposed for construction is built by 2020, the St. Anthony area will have doubled its population in a decade, and with plenty of room to spare for more apartment towers if the economy coorperates. My Gold Line also travels through Marcy-Holmes (a dense neighborhood with plenty of multi-family buildings and a large student population), hits the University with stops in Dinkytown and the Biomedical Campus near TCF Bank Stadium, travels through the streetcar neighborhoods of St. Paul, and also adds a second stop in the North Loop.

My Cyan Line, as Bakken2016 notes, travels through the path of the Midtown Greenway trench, which has already been studied and recommended for rail. It also doubles service on TOD-ready parts of the Green, Blue, and Riverview (my Red) Lines, serves the Ford Site (which will hopefully someday have lots of residents), and eventually serves the West Side Flats, another area where dense development is planned.

So basically, these two lines are about hitting big population centers, and looping them into the system. So there are tons and tons of intended users—many more people live near these two proposed alignments than the current Green and Blue extensions. As for transfers, it's true that people might need to transfer once to hit either downtown or the airport/mall (although the Gold Line does have two stops in what I'd certainly consider downtown Minneapolis). But I'm not sure why you think that's a bad thing? There's nothing wrong with transfers if the headways are short.

RailBaronYarr
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Re: Twin Cities Future Transit Map

Postby RailBaronYarr » December 22nd, 2017, 8:56 am

I try to stay out of arguing over the details of (p)fantasy stuff as much as possible (for reasons), but I think what thatchio was perhaps getting at was that some of the lines seem to avoid hitting a major center in downtown St Paul. If we're dreaming of a world where we have enough money and will to plow rail through this many parts of each city, it would feel odd not to just build a single tunnel running under downtown St Paul (and Minneapolis, obviously) to address capacity issues of our routing, so that we could just terminate the Midtown/Ford Site and whatever other lines downtown - where more people will be going to/from. Downtown has more jobs, cultural attractions, and even population than the West Side Flats or the near-in parts of the East Side, not to mention a wealth of transit transfer opportunities. There are a lot of people living in Marcy Holmes or St Anthony or Uptown who would be better served by a single seat ride to downtown St Paul and then a transfer to a quality aBRT (or similar) to reach the neighborhoods just across the river/highway/RR infra.

I also find it interesting that next to no one (including the Met Council) sees value in connecting any 394-ish BRT routes with the (currently named) Gold Line using the 94 bus as one long all-day BRT with express service between the downtowns. (and maybe a darn H/OT lane on 94 to ensure reliability).

alexschief
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Re: Twin Cities Future Transit Map

Postby alexschief » December 22nd, 2017, 9:30 am

This is the "7 Minute Abs" argument. If we have money to do all that, how come we don't have money to do X, Y, and Z, too?

I mean, if making a kickass transit system was our only object, then this'd all be a subway, and we'd have lines running N/S through Minneapolis, and so on. But my map is attempting to show something realistic and attainable. The Riverview Line has been proposed and studied, as has the Midtown Line. The Ford Spur was considered as part of the Riverview study. The only new ideas are the new Gold Line, the connection of Midtown to Ford, and the tail ends of the Cyan and Gold routes.

The really key point though, is that these concepts center around the principle of using as much legacy freight rail ROW as possible. The vast majority (over 80%) of both the Gold and Cyan alignments that I proposed would run along legacy freight rail ROW (much of it abandoned in the case of the Cyan/Midtown route) or pre-existing transit track. The question that brought about this map is basically: How do we expand METRO service to the densest and fastest growing parts of the core cities, while still keeping costs as low as possible and making it politically feasible with as little disruption as possible? How can we envision a 2040 METRO system that is really robust—not spoke and hub but a true network—that is also something that policy makers could actually act upon?

That's the idea. So the proposal goes to great lengths to not have more than two routes run on the same track, because it wouldn't be possible to run three separate at-grade routes with 10 minute headways anywhere, let alone downtown St. Paul, and a tunnel there would cost so much money as to disqualify the entire proposal from ever being considered seriously.

Through-running the BRTs though is something that I think will eventually happen, although maybe not on I-94, but simply with the Rush Line route hitting the SPUD and then going on the Gateway Line route, and visa versa, and the same in Minneapolis.

dingo
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Re: Twin Cities Future Transit Map

Postby dingo » December 26th, 2017, 10:59 am

This is the "7 Minute Abs" argument. If we have money to do all that, how come we don't have money to do X, Y, and Z, too?

I mean, if making a kickass transit system was our only object, then this'd all be a subway, and we'd have lines running N/S through Minneapolis, and so on. But my map is attempting to show something realistic and attainable. The Riverview Line has been proposed and studied, as has the Midtown Line. The Ford Spur was considered as part of the Riverview study. The only new ideas are the new Gold Line, the connection of Midtown to Ford, and the tail ends of the Cyan and Gold routes.

The really key point though, is that these concepts center around the principle of using as much legacy freight rail ROW as possible. The vast majority (over 80%) of both the Gold and Cyan alignments that I proposed would run along legacy freight rail ROW (much of it abandoned in the case of the Cyan/Midtown route) or pre-existing transit track. The question that brought about this map is basically: How do we expand METRO service to the densest and fastest growing parts of the core cities, while still keeping costs as low as possible and making it politically feasible with as little disruption as possible? How can we envision a 2040 METRO system that is really robust—not spoke and hub but a true network—that is also something that policy makers could actually act upon?

That's the idea. So the proposal goes to great lengths to not have more than two routes run on the same track, because it wouldn't be possible to run three separate at-grade routes with 10 minute headways anywhere, let alone downtown St. Paul, and a tunnel there would cost so much money as to disqualify the entire proposal from ever being considered seriously.

Through-running the BRTs though is something that I think will eventually happen, although maybe not on I-94, but simply with the Rush Line route hitting the SPUD and then going on the Gateway Line route, and visa versa, and the same in Minneapolis.
I really love alot of what your fantasy map brings to life.

I have thought it would be great for your red line to not continue on to MOA like the blue line but instead continue West from Terminal two. Either on 77th but ideally 66th serving Richfield (The Hub) and Southdale, potentially connect with your Orange/Magenta lines a maybe even going all the way out to the Golden Triangle.

A few other thoughts:
Like the idea of the gold line if it could be more of an express than the current Green Line. Limit number of stops, to get people from Minneapolis to St Paul faster.
Wouldnt mind seeing the umber line continue up the ROW along west river road. Crossing the river, serving northeast (Lowry) and Columbia heights.


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