urbanMSP

I swear if someone sneezes on the light rail KSTP will write 3 articles about it. Hundreds of people die on Minnesota roadways each year and they may mention it as a footnote unless its a multiple fatality collision. But of course they'll never write it in a way that's critical of the driver or road...

Regardless of the possible changes to the transit lanes, I'm really excited about this reconstruction. It narrows lanes, includes bumpouts, adds protected bike lanes, expands pedestrian space, reduces parking, adds part time transit lanes, and removes a slip lane and the 5th St crossing of Hennepin ...

Got a response for my email to the project manager. "Thanks for your email. Based on the project goals, it was determined by the City of Minneapolis, Hennepin County and Metro Transit that transit lanes are heavily needed Monday – Friday from 6AM – 7PM. This is based on data that shows transit ...

Unfortunately it isn't fully funded. Last year when the legislature passed the state funding of the project, it was with the intention of receiving a federal match. In December when the FRA made grant announcements, NLX didn't receive funding this round. I think there will be another round of grants...

I have the files from the 2022 preferred design and rather than "transit priority lane/parking" it just says "12' transit lane". Nothing mentioned about parking that I can find before the 2024 layout.

Interested to see how the opening of the B line will coincide with any other new developments along east lake. It's sometimes is a little disheartening walking down it and seeing so many empty lots post 2020. That and the strangely high number of used car lots and auto shops in such a relatively sho...

Is West 7th up for a full rebuild in the near future? I'm also curious how much of the price tag on the streetcar would need to be used for things like that too. Seeing every media headline reporting on the blue line extension using the contingency cost of $2.9-3.2 billion rather than the $2.2 billi...

Metro Transit says that they'll continue to reevaluate ridership calculations as new data comes out each year on post COVID rider recovery. Once full 2023 numbers are confirmed, they can re run the formula using 2023 instead of 2022 numbers and will get a higher ridership estimate. That should get b...

Transit costs money, and the longer we wait to make these investments to move us away from auto-centric infrastructure, the more it's going to cost. That's definitely not carte blanche to approve every transit project no matter how bad it is, but we have had decades of bad transportation planning th...

Yeah, can't say I'm in love with the design and the size of the parking ramp. Is that supposed to be all for the hotel? Its footprint is almost twice as large!

I consider myself very much pro rail transit but I'm left scratching my head at what this project hopes to accomplish with a modern streetcar sharing ROW for a good portion of a route that's predicted to take almost 45 minutes end to end. A speed limit of 25-30mph? This feels like you're getting the...

I'd wager with the rise of contactless payments, implementation is a lot easier these days than it would have been with swiping cards in 2004. Contactless and cashless payment systems are the standard now. Removing barriers of entry to transit ridership is a huge win for metro transit if they can ge...

The Metro Council is looking to adopt a new 2050 transportation policy plan and regional planning guide this year after their 2040 plans were adopted in 2014. I'm curious to see if any new transit projects come from that due to their new $400-500 million annual guaranteed funding from the 3/4 cent m...

It really does hurt knowing that the overpromising and under delivering of this project will stymie further development of a regional rail system. We need a comprehensive plan, not the piecemeal approach that isn't working for us now. I only hope once this line opens, it is successful and reinvigora...