Green Line LRT

[Chava]

I rode the train this afternoon-- it took 24 minutes to get from Target Field to TCF Bank Stadium in the middle of the day, with good weather and no traffic. The transit schedule says it should take 16 minutes.

Hey Grant,

Cut the Cheetah some slack. 8 minutes could mean the difference between hitting a connection, and waiting quite a while. In a city with frequent service throughout the system, this isn't a deal breaker. But those kinds of delays have stretched my commute 20-30 minutes longer here.

If that 16 minute travel time pans out, I may stop driving to work and take LRT for part of my commute. I'm hopeful!

My LRT tester reported today: It took 16 minutes 30 seconds to go from East bank to TFS this evening with departure time of 7:00pm. It was about 20 minutes this morning from TFS to East this morning at approximately 6:08am. Not sure why the difference over same distance. We start the timer when doors close.

Let's give them two weeks to try and improve things. I think it's perfectly ok to hold MT to those numbers, especially when they can't use traffic as an excuse. Like Mulad, I'm wondering why they installed the signals only a month before this thing opened. Not the first LRT line they have opened......

[Andrew_F]

I was out of town this weekend, so I went to Saint Paul and back after work today. My eastbound run took 54 minutes (12 slower than scheduled) from Government Plaza to Union Depot. My westbound run, on the other hand, only took 35 minutes (4 faster than scheduled!) from 10th St to Nicollet.

[David Greene]

Yes, it's true that ease of implementation is a factor. I figured everyone would know that, but I suppose it makes sense to mention it to the haters ($government waste!!!$). With the planned LRT lines, we've pretty much tapped out the easy stuff. It will be interesting to see what we do next. While I'd love to see tunnels and subways, I'm pretty sure beefing up the bus system is a bigger bang for the buck.

[mullen]

having two urban rail lines was such a dream it's amazing how far we've come. loving the green line... feels so urban. loving this connection and everything it brings.

[EOst]

Also, nobody is willing to talk about light rail in extremely expensive places - the 5 and the 21, though obvious places where buses are near capacity and where more transit capacity would dramatically improve regional connections, are being ignored because both would likely require extensive tunneling.

Are you willing to spend the money for a subway along the 5? That's about 30 km, depending how you route it; if we're lucky, it could be tunneled for $6-7 billion dollars (probably more, though). Worth it? How much are you willing to see your taxes go up to fund that?

Rode the Green Line from East Bank to Hennepin last night, and had no problems with logjams or unreasonable delays. So nice.

[Tom H.]

Saw a westbound train this morning with only 2 cars. I guess we won't be seeing exclusively 3-car trains along the line, at least not yet.

[talindsay]

Also, nobody is willing to talk about light rail in extremely expensive places - the 5 and the 21, though obvious places where buses are near capacity and where more transit capacity would dramatically improve regional connections, are being ignored because both would likely require extensive tunneling.

Are you willing to spend the money for a subway along the 5? That's about 30 km, depending how you route it; if we're lucky, it could be tunneled for $6-7 billion dollars (probably more, though). Worth it? How much are you willing to see your taxes go up to fund that?

Rode the Green Line from East Bank to Hennepin last night, and had no problems with logjams or unreasonable delays. So nice.

A few things: (1) I wasn't arguing that we should do it, I was simply pointing out that we may pay lip service to the notion of handling the most necessary corridors, but in fact we mean the most necessary easily-built corridors; addressing these dense lines isn't up for discussion right now. (2) there is no item two. (3) It would be asinine to tunnel anything other than the dense parts that require tunneling.

[mulad]

I'd rather see us evaluating 3-5 mile corridors radiating from the downtowns anyway. The Green Line could basically be considered two of those joined together. Our region has tended to start out these corridor evaluations by flinging lines waaay out 40 or 80 miles -- that's fine for some sort of regional service stopping every 3, 5, or 10 miles, but has distorted our regional leaders' views of what LRT and BRT should be.

Anyway, I took a 2-car train in to work today. It seemed to be running relatively close (~4-5 minutes) behind a 3-car train that I had just missed. If Metro Transit feels they can run 5-minute service on University with 2-car trains, I'm all for it.

[mulad]

People have a bad habit of running through red arrows when making left turns. (In particular, I think people tend to follow others who proceeded on green/yellow -- not sure if that's been the case for these or not.)

http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_ ... hits-green

[IllogicalJake]

Still wish they'd get the signage updated on the Bombardiers for less confusion among the public. I was just watching a group of 50-or-so passengers at Downtown East station that couldn't figure if the train that pulled up was Blue or Green. Granted, the train's signage was turned off completely.

[aeisenberg]

Holy cow it's the 3rd day of operation, 8 minutes off ain't bad

8 minutes behind on a stretch that's supposed to be 16 minutes-- with good weather, no traffic, and light ridership-- IS BAD. bad, bad, bad. I'm optimistic they'll fix it, but my experience was pretty darn frustrating.

[HiawathaGuy]

Holy cow it's the 3rd day of operation, 8 minutes off ain't bad

8 minutes behind on a stretch that's supposed to be 16 minutes-- with good weather, no traffic, and light ridership-- IS BAD. bad, bad, bad. I'm optimistic they'll fix it, but my experience was pretty darn frustrating.

I agree! It's not like this is the first line... I fully expect a minute or two here and there. But that's bad.
Taking the Blue Line this weekend there were countless delays once downtown. The trip from 50th into downtown (to Government Plaza) is normally 16 minutes. Sunday afternoon it took about 25! I can only assume it had to do with trains downtown, etc. I too hope they get the kinks out quickly!

[ProspectPete]

At the prospect park station, there were no trains for more than 15 minutes. Then, there was an announcement that there would be a delay of 10-15 minutes.
Shortly there after, came one train, and then about 90 seconds later came another (both of these were 2 car configurations).
Then just a few minutes later was another train (3 car).
What gives? How do these trains get so bunched up and spread out trroughout the line? And why are some 2 car while others are 3 car? Just curious.

[Chava]

Holy cow it's the 3rd day of operation, 8 minutes off ain't bad

8 minutes behind on a stretch that's supposed to be 16 minutes-- with good weather, no traffic, and light ridership-- IS BAD. bad, bad, bad. I'm optimistic they'll fix it, but my experience was pretty darn frustrating.

13.5 minutes from TFS to East Bank today. This was at 6:20am or so. I still doubt it made it to Stadium village in 16 min considering that the train has to endure the rest of Wash Avenue before turning toward Stadium Village.

I imagine that the inconsistency in times is human related? Are all the green line operators new? If so, why didn't they have some Blue Line operators in the mix to work through initial kinks?

[talindsay]

If I were a betting man I'd guess that former blue line operators would be worse than former 50 operators. The 50 operators know the traffic patterns and understand how to work crossings, while the railroad operation of the blue line would encourage caution along the short stretch of possible conflict.

[Chava]

Interesting. I'll defer to LRV opDude on that one. I really don't know.

[Anondson]

What kind of damage is done to the train cars when they are hit by cars? Is that train out for days while being repair and what kind of cost? Sometimes I think it makes sense to put ram plates on the train

[ProspectPete]

I just saw a train go by with a fresh big a** white scrape down the starboard side from the front the about mid car. I'm guessing some vehicle pullled up to far past the paint line at a stop light.
Just a supposition.

[Tom H.]

At the prospect park station, there were no trains for more than 15 minutes. Then, there was an announcement that there would be a delay of 10-15 minutes.
Shortly there after, came one train, and then about 90 seconds later came another (both of these were 2 car configurations).
Then just a few minutes later was another train (3 car).
What gives? How do these trains get so bunched up and spread out trroughout the line? And why are some 2 car while others are 3 car? Just curious.

A co-worker of mine said there appeared to be some sort of medical emergency on one of the WB trains in St. Paul this morning. Could that have been it? (He was riding the 16 instead - he says he prefers the solitude that the bus now offers.)

[ProspectPete]

I'm still camped out across the street from Prospect park station, and another announcement just came on that there is another delay. (perhaps another "medical emergency"). Some people are bailing off the platform and heading for the 16 stop looks like.