Twin Cities Future Transit Map

Roads - Rails - Sidewalks - Bikeways
Tcmetro
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Fantasy Transit Maps and Ideas

Postby Tcmetro » August 10th, 2012, 8:01 am

We had a thread about this on the old site, but it's now lost. A lot of the posts were from quite a while ago as well. Anyways, I'm making this thread because it would be cool to see what everyone thinks should happen for an ideal transit network in the Twin Cities.

My plan:
1) Assumes Blue and Green Lines are built out from Brooklyn Park to Mall of America and Eden Prairie to St. Paul.

2) Downtown Tunnel from Olson/7th along 5th St to the Metrodome, and opening right into the retained cut known as 122. 3rd and 4th Streets would be rebuilt on the surface and over 35W, and light rail would take over the cut and would be built over to "tunnelize" the LRT lines. The Blue Line would branch under Cedar with stops at Riverside and Franklin. The entire Franklin/Cedar/Minnehaha intersection would be restored to its former grade and alignment.

3) Underground/Elevated LRT line starting at 694 and Central to Downtown Minneapolis with a tunnel under Nicollet to 61st St where it would turn to follow the RR ROW. At 66th St, the line would branch. One branch via 66th St, Southdale parking lot, France Ave, to 77th St, Edina Industrial Park, and Normandale Lake Office Park. The other branch would follow the RR ROW to 95th/35W, then follow 35W to the Burnsville Transit Station or to CR 42.

4) New line branching at Fort Snelling along W 7th St to Downtown St. Paul, entering Downtown on 5th St. The line would merge into the Green Line at Cedar/5th Station, continue to Union Depot, then follow the Rush Line ROW to White Bear Lake.

5) A new streetcar line would operate from Rice St and Little Canada Road to 494 and Robert via Rice, 12th St, and Robert. A Grand-E7th Line would also be built, as well as a Snelling line from University Ave to 46 St LRT.

6) New streetcars in Minneapolis on the Hennepin-University, Chicago-Fremont, W Broadway-Riverside.

7) A new circular LRT line around Mpls, serving the Midtown Greenway, E Lake/Marshall, Snelling, Rosedale, The Quarry, Central Ave Business Dist., 13 Av NE, W Broadway, Golden Valley, The West End, merging into SWLRT near Hwy 100, and back to the Greenway.

Sorry, no map right now!

mulad
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Re: Fantasy Transit Maps and Ideas

Postby mulad » August 10th, 2012, 9:42 am

Some of my mapping attempts have gotten big enough that Google automatically divides them into multiple "pages", making it impossible to see the entire thing at once. Apparently that isn't a problem when viewing the KML in Google Earth, but a lot of my ideas involve using the freight rail network for regional/commuter rail, and it's hard to trace rails in that since it's a "satellite" view rather than a map view.

Anyway, I think there's a lot of value in building a robust network in the Twin Cities, even though outstate residents complain a lot. Since 3.3-3.6 million of of the state's 5.3 million residents are in the metro area, you get a significant payback without having to extend all that far (farther than it should be because of sprawl, of course).

But beyond that, I'd like to see a statewide network of passenger rail, based on the State Rail Plan network, but with some extra links and branches. I'm sure buses would need to be used in some cases where the leap is just too big.

Here's a map I made of communities in Minnesota with populations of 5,000 or up, just to help me narrow down the possibilities of where things could go:



5,000 is probably on the low end of what should be considered for stops, but that's a level where multiple communities can be strung together fairly well in most parts of the state. Looking only at communities of 10,000 or 15,000 seemed to limit opportunities too much for my taste. Also, keep in mind that there are some significantly-sized communities along the borders which could make for useful destinations (such as Sioux Falls, SD).

Most of the towns on the map have rails going somewhere (I should really go back and color-code this somehow and add in the populations), but they don't always go in the directions that make sense for people to move (grain doesn't care much about taking circuitous routes).

(I also have a similar Wisconsin map.)

Tyler
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Re: Fantasy Transit Maps and Ideas

Postby Tyler » August 10th, 2012, 9:47 am

Here is froggie's page on fantasy transit in MSP: http://www.ajfroggie.com/roads/minnesot ... index.html

I don't think he'd mind me re-posting it as he put a ton of work into this.
Towns!

UptownSport
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Re: Fantasy Transit Maps and Ideas

Postby UptownSport » August 12th, 2012, 11:28 am

This route:
(note, with all appropriate sadness, Gov. Walker was struck by train during initial testing, somehow)
Image

This train:

Image

And Elevated, too please.

UptownSport
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Re: Fantasy Transit Maps and Ideas

Postby UptownSport » August 12th, 2012, 11:31 am

Statewide:
Not sure why google spells 'Minnesota' and our cities wrong.
They have New Ulm in south, but they left the 'New' off.
Image

mplser
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Re: Fantasy Transit Maps and Ideas

Postby mplser » August 12th, 2012, 12:33 pm

this thread is full of awesome so far

UptownSport
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Re: Fantasy Transit Maps and Ideas

Postby UptownSport » August 12th, 2012, 10:52 pm

it said fantasy ...

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Re: Fantasy Transit Maps and Ideas

Postby mulad » August 12th, 2012, 11:50 pm

Wow, I guess I never dug into Froggie's pages before -- there's a lot to digest.

On his page for rail transit in the Duluth area, I think it'd be better to route the Cloquet/Carlton branch via the Willard Munger Trail, which seems much more direct than the circuitous routing southward through unpopulated areas in Wisconsin.

I ended up having the line continue through the Gary/New Duluth area and into Wisconsin to reach Superior Village/Superior, which ends up making a loop, but it might be better to try and build a new alignment basically splitting the difference between Gary/New Duluth and turning toward Duluth itself, and just let people who want to get to Superior transfer later.


aguaman
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Re: Fantasy Transit Maps and Ideas

Postby aguaman » August 13th, 2012, 12:38 pm


fehler
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Re: Fantasy Transit Maps and Ideas

Postby fehler » August 14th, 2012, 10:18 am

I would just like to complete Southwest LRT, then have a Riverview LRT and an American Boulevard LRT connecting MOA and Southwest Station in Eden Prairie. Then you'd have three loops, the "Blue Triangle Loop" of Hiawatha, American, and Southwest, the "Red Triangle Loop" of Hiawatha, Riverview, and Central, and the "Green Diamond Loop" of Central, Southwest, American, and Riverview. All nice and very seemless.

min-chi-cbus
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Re: Fantasy Transit Maps and Ideas

Postby min-chi-cbus » August 14th, 2012, 12:19 pm

I would just like to complete Southwest LRT, then have a Riverview LRT and an American Boulevard LRT connecting MOA and Southwest Station in Eden Prairie. Then you'd have three loops, the "Blue Triangle Loop" of Hiawatha, American, and Southwest, the "Red Triangle Loop" of Hiawatha, Riverview, and Central, and the "Green Diamond Loop" of Central, Southwest, American, and Riverview. All nice and very seemless.
Aaaaaaand the North and East metro would be utterly pissed that they were not included in your plan! I think Bottineau needs to happen as well as a Central Ave Corridor of sorts (5 miles or less is fine with me) and/or a White Bear Lake line, just to complete the hub/spoke system.

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Re: Fantasy Transit Maps and Ideas

Postby PhilmerPhil » October 12th, 2012, 3:18 pm

Image

UptownSport
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Re: Fantasy Transit Maps and Ideas

Postby UptownSport » October 12th, 2012, 6:52 pm

Wicked.

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Nathan
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Re: Fantasy Transit Maps and Ideas

Postby Nathan » October 14th, 2012, 7:53 am

Oh man, the 20's must have been a trippy time for people!

MNdible
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Re: Fantasy Transit Maps and Ideas

Postby MNdible » October 14th, 2012, 10:35 am

That image is confusing to me. Where am I supposed to dock my personal dirigible?

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woofner
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Re: Fantasy Transit Maps and Ideas

Postby woofner » October 18th, 2012, 2:06 pm

Personally, I like the idea of the 22 and 14 moving over to 4th Street. The contra-flow lane works really well and the facilities are already in place. Also, I'd like to see one damn bus route run the entire length of Washington Ave downtown, from roughly 10th Ave N (edge of N. Loop n'hood) down to 7 Corners/West Bank Station.
I'm not sure I agree that the contra-flow lane works all that well, as it tends to get overloaded at rush hour, although that will obviously no longer be an issue after 2014. At that point 4th St will be kind of an awkward choice for a transit facility because it'll be a block away from the high-frequency corridor on 5th and 4th St isn't very connective for local bus route. Instead I'd say move all of the 4th St buses to Washington Ave, ideally with a reserved bus/bike lane in each direction. Washington makes a lot of sense for the 22 because it's coming from 7 Corners on that street anyway, and if the 7th St N-Lyndale-W Broadway alignment for the W Broadway rapid bus/streetcar comes to fruition the 22 can take up the North Loop to West Broadway route currently served by the 14. The 22 and the 7 will provide good cross-downtown frequency on the highly legible Washington Ave and will be reinforced by the 3.

If the 4th St facility sticks around, I agree that moving the 22 to it is a good idea, although in that case the W Broadway rapid bus/streetcar better go through the North Loop or that neighborhood will be stuck without bus service. I don't think the 14 should move to 4th unless you can think of another route to serve 11th Ave in Elliot Park - maybe the 9 could and the 14 could take the E Franklin - Park/Portland alignment, but the 9 is super low frequency and I prefer to have the higher frequency route travel the length of Downtown at that important latitude.

Speaking of, I really think the important E-W bus corridor needs to remain where it is because that's where most destinations are. In the short term all buses should move to a single couplet, but the City should also push for an E-W transit mall here because there is ridership to justify it, it will improve the transit and urban experience, and it's the only way to grow ridership downtown. Either 8th or 9th will work (although 8th is better for accessibility), neither of those streets are very useful for cars, pick one and let's do this. At that point, instead of transit on 11 different E-W streets Downtown, it will be consolidated onto just 5: Washington, 5th, 8th, and 11th/12th (with a reconstructed Hwy 65 exit, these could be consolidated onto 12th as well). Much better frequency and much simpler for riders, and probably for drivers too.
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Visualizer
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Twin Cities Future Transit Map

Postby Visualizer » December 3rd, 2012, 11:17 pm

I'm making a map of Twin Cities' future frequent transit network and I would appreciate any comments or feedback you may have.

[ latest update ]

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Final print will be 28.5" by 21" printed on heavy matte paper

Interested in getting one of these? Sign up here to be notified when becomes available.


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Last edited by Visualizer on February 8th, 2013, 7:04 pm, edited 5 times in total.
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Andrew_F
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Re: Twin Cities Future Transit Map

Postby Andrew_F » December 4th, 2012, 3:46 am

Beautiful map! I think you've got some wishful thinking with those streetcar routes. ;)

A couple quibbles-- why include the Orange Line BRT and not Red? Also, you've got some of your location names wrong. Linden Hills is on the other side of Harriet.

Thank you very much for putting this together! I really appreciate it!

helsinki
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Re: Twin Cities Future Transit Map

Postby helsinki » December 4th, 2012, 5:52 am

Yes, a very beautiful map.

I especially like the inclusion of the 494/694 beltway. It gives a sense of proportion.

What happened to the SW LRT 21st Street Station? Is Kenwood the new Georgetown (illogical rejection of transit by the affluent); or has there been some other change?

Also, what is the grey line heading west from the interchange? And where is Northstar?

mattaudio
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Re: Twin Cities Future Transit Map

Postby mattaudio » December 4th, 2012, 9:04 am

I had done something like that back in 2009 on Minnescraper, but with a fantasy system. I'll try to find the files! I like what you've done.


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