Hennepin Avenue Reconstruction (Douglas to Lake St)

[SurlyLHT]

I have to say I wonder what ridership will be on this line. The parking should reflect ridership. Which we don't know what that is yet. Parking shouldn't be removed for empty buses. Bus ridership isn't what it once was obviously.

Like I understand where you are coming from, but we are already seeing the return of ridership on major high frequency routes and aBRT tends to just increase that as well. The road also reopens in 2026, which is 4 years from now. I have a comfortable hunch that transit ridership(especially in the urban core) will have returned to pre-pandemic levels.

I took the C Line to the Orange line a few times this week. The C-Line has riders, but can be sparse at times. The Orange Line is so empty I feel guilty riding it. The E-Line will probably be somewhere in between. I would like to know what the current ridership is on this stretch of Hennepin. COVID, Rideshare and scooters and ebikes and concerns about safety have changed the transportation business in inner-cities. We need to evaluate our assumptions on ridership on these projects and we need to adapt.

On a personal note...I took the transit because I was ill, but I am going to return to biking, because it's easier and faster and safer. The stop I get off of for the C-Line someone was killed there and I have to walk past the memorial every time I get off the bus. I know of shootings at 3 of the Northside C-Line stations in the past months. My family and I stay off of Penn in our car and on our bike when things heat up. To say the least we're not going to be taking the bus when we don't feel safe driving on the same road. Before COVID we freely took the C-Line Downtown for enjoyment and etc.

[Bakken2016]

I feel like you are trying to apply a one size fits all lenses here, Highway BRT and aBRT are two entirely different things. I don't have the ridership numbers on me, but I recall Downtown to Uptown via Hennepin has some of the highest ridership.

Personal Note: I was on the Orange Line on Tuesday and it was packed. I don't understand why you feel guilty for a line that has only been open for 6 months while still in a pandemic.

[DanPatchToget]

I have to say I wonder what ridership will be on this line. The parking should reflect ridership. Which we don't know what that is yet. Parking shouldn't be removed for empty buses. Bus ridership isn't what it once was obviously.

Like I understand where you are coming from, but we are already seeing the return of ridership on major high frequency routes and aBRT tends to just increase that as well. The road also reopens in 2026, which is 4 years from now. I have a comfortable hunch that transit ridership(especially in the urban core) will have returned to pre-pandemic levels.

I took the C Line to the Orange line a few times this week. The C-Line has riders, but can be sparse at times. The Orange Line is so empty I feel guilty riding it. The E-Line will probably be somewhere in between. I would like to know what the current ridership is on this stretch of Hennepin. COVID, Rideshare and scooters and ebikes and concerns about safety have changed the transportation business in inner-cities. We need to evaluate our assumptions on ridership on these projects and we need to adapt.

On a personal note...I took the transit because I was ill, but I am going to return to biking, because it's easier and faster and safer. The stop I get off of for the C-Line someone was killed there and I have to walk past the memorial every time I get off the bus. I know of shootings at 3 of the Northside C-Line stations in the past months. My family and I stay off of Penn in our car and on our bike when things heat up. To say the least we're not going to be taking the bus when we don't feel safe driving on the same road. Before COVID we freely took the C-Line Downtown for enjoyment and etc.

You assume buses are empty just because you rode a few times and it was like that?

Ridership is definitely coming back, especially now with high gas prices. Rideshare is pricey and bike-share/scooter-share is something not everyone can or wants to do to reach their destination. Bus routes like the ones on Hennepin, as well as the aBRT routes, are much more likely to recover ridership faster than suburban routes.

[Didier]

They should compromise by allowing citizens to report bus lane parking violations and be rewarded with 20% of the towing fine. Report by app that takes the photo submitted. Violation reports go directly to towing companies who compete to tow first, the conservative small government types in control will be happy at this out sourcing and competitive initiative.

Civilian Shoveling Corps, baby!

[twincitizen]

Apologies if this has already been suggested to death, but I swear we've talked about (probably in this very thread) how other cities have cameras on their buses that capture license plate info of cars parked in the bus lane and offenders get a ticket in the mail (and possibly automatically alerts the city that towing is needed).

[Silophant]

I'd imagine those are disallowed under the same state law that prevents us from having red light cameras, right?

[Mdcastle]

IRC not a specific law the that makes them illegal, but that since running a red lights is an offense committed by the driver of the vehicle, whereas a photo ticket was issued to the owner of the vehicle, the State supreme court ruled it created a due process violation because it unconstitutionally shifted the burden on the owner to prove they were not driving, as opposed to the state to prove that the owner was driving.

Parking violations it's a subtle difference in that it's always the owner of the vehicle that is guilty of illegal parking, not the person that parked it there if it's someone else. So presumably parking cameras would be legal since there isn't the issue of whether it was or was not the owner that parked it there.

[gpete]

Theoretically the state could re-implement camera enforcement with some tweaks to state law. The legislature was discussing it about 10 years ago but it fizzled out.

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2013/02/1 ... ht-cameras

[Mdcastle]

The tweaks don't seem to address the underlying constitutional issue though; if you take a picture of the motorist, the burden still shifts to the owner to prove that it wasn't them, and that's what was ruled unconstitutional so as the article hinted, the state would be sued if they enacted it.

Chicago gets around that issue by making it clear that red light cameras are levied against the owner of the vehicle, which they can do because it's treated essentially as a parking ticket- pay your fine and be done with it, no reporting to your insurance and no possibility of a license suspension.

[Anondson]

It seems that the clear change is to make it so that the fines are assessed to the owner of the vehicle not the alleged user.

[Bob Stinson's Ghost]

You could start by mailing a small, cheap postcard to the registered owner notifying them that the camera had spotted their car running a red light. I think a substantial reduction could be achieved by simply alerting them to the fact that somebody is paying attention. This avoids the accusation of penalizing people due to racial/socio-economic status. If the violation was committed by someone other than the vehicle owner it gives the owner valuable information about what's happening when they lend it out.

Once you start issuing citations and charging people money there are some pretty thorny race/class issues which come up.

[Bakken2016]

Passes City Council 11 - 2 today

Layout is the same, 6 hours minimum bus lanes in each direction.

Wonsley and Goodman voted against.

[daveybabymsp]

Passes City Council 11 - 2 today

Layout is the same, 6 hours minimum bus lanes in each direction.

Wonsley and Goodman voted against.

The good news is that the layout is unchanged, so it is designed with bus lanes in mind. I would be much more upset if they had made changes to the actual geometry of the layout, since that would be a lot more permanent. The second Minneapolis elects a more pro-transit mayor(assuming that happens someday lol) we can have well designed 24 hour bus lanes.


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[Silophant]

Yeah, that's pretty much where I'm at. It would have been better to lock it in from the start, but the important thing is that the concrete they pour that's gonna last decades is in the right configuration, with bus lanes and a bikeway. The usage can be changed whenever, and we've got two council and one mayoral elections before this goes into service in 2026 to get better officials.