Category Archives: transit

Minnesota’s First “Online” Bus Station Opens In Minneapolis

Posted on by
2

This week, Metro Transit opened a new bus station at 46th Street and 35W in Minneapolis.  The design of the station, including boarding at freeway-level, is a first of its kind for Minnesota.  Local buses drop off passengers on 46th street, who then take an elevator or stairs down to the freeway level for boarding.

The idea is to increase the speed of buses: they no longer have to pick up passengers on freeway on- and off-ramps, but instead use special lanes in the center of 35W to enter the station area.  The station is part of a larger plan to improve Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) service between southern suburbs and Minneapolis.

However, one or two local routes in Minneapolis may have actually had their travel time increased during certain times of day since passengers now need to transfer at 35-W rather than local streets.  I’m getting most of this information anecdotally, but the Metro Transit overview of the changes seems to indicate the same (see Route 146).

Later this week, I hope to post a first-hand account of the using the new station from a regular bus rider in south Minneapolis.

Minneapolis seeks funding for analysis of streetcar “starter” lines

Posted on by
1

The City of Minneapolis is applying for TIGER II grant funding from the US DOT for an alternatives analysis for Central Avenue and Nicollet Avenue, two routes the city prefers for a new streetcar system.  How they can prefer streetcar as the mode without an alternatives analysis is puzzling to me since the previously completed streetcar study did not consider any other transit modes.  The Metropolitan Council also recommends arterial BRT, not streetcar, for the Nicollet and Central Avenue corridors in the 2030 Transportation Policy Plan.  As explained by a guest here at Net Density before, arterial BRT can offer significant travel time savings and increased ridership at a much lower cost than either LRT or streetcar.

According to the FTA, an alternatives analysis is supposed to answer some key questions: What are the problems in a corridor? What are their underlying causes? What are viable options for addressing these problems? What are their costs? What are their benefits?  If all of these questions are fairly explored and answered and streetcar turns out to be the best option, so be it.

Anna Flintoft, a transportation planner with the City of Minneapolis who is quoted in the Minnesota Daily article linked to above, told me in an email that the city does plan to evaluate multiple modes, including streetcar and “enhanced bus”.  This is a good sign, but the City Council seems to have already made up their mind about the mode without having seen any alternatives.

Bill to allow value-capture to pay for transit (with a streetcar bias)

Posted on by
1

From the Transportationist, TC Daily Planet reports that a bill before the legislature introduced by Rep. Frank Hornstein would allow cities to capture property tax value (like TIF) from locations within one half mile of a transit line to pay for improvements (stations, streetscaping, etc).  However, the bill only allows captured revenue to be used for operating costs if the transit is a streetcar.

Why the authors would limit expenditures on operating costs to streetcars is beyond me.  Why not include all fixed-route transit?  Even if there is a rail bias, why not include LRT?  Are there fears about losing tax base along Central Corridor?

Minneapolis picks streetcars over busway improvements: spending more for less?

Posted on by
7

The South Lake Union Streetcar Line in Seattle

Minneapolis is taking one more step toward putting street cars in major transit corridors in the city.  Friday the City Council voted to adopt the 30-year vision for these rail transit corridors. It also appears that the city is considering a “starter” corridor, and determining whether they should enter into the “federal project development process”.

Even though these corridors could certainly use transit improvements, and streetcars may in fact be appropriate for some of these corridors, more analysis of alternatives is called for before a streetcar is chosen as the best mode, especially along the transit-heavy corridors of Hennepin and Nicollet (which seem to be the favorites for selection as the “starter” corridor).

The long-term vision for these corridors is based on a 2007 Streetcar feasibility study, which seems to take as a given that streetcars are the preferred mode for bolstering transit in the corridors.  The study contains no alternatives analysis, but instead contains a few pages answering the question, “Why Streetcars?”  Many of the report’s conclusions about the advantages of streetcars (assumed over buses, and in the case of cost, over LRT) could also likely be said about enhanced bus service.  But the report never explores this, since it is dedicated to streetcars.

Potential "starter" corridors for Streetcars

Different vehicles, better signage (or some signage at all), real time arrival information, and higher amenity stations could all be said to achieve the benefits presented in the study, whether using a streetcar system or an enhanced bus system.  In a guest post by a Metro Transit planner here on Net Density, two examples of arterial Bus Rapid Transit, a form of enhanced bus service were highlighted.  These examples, from Kansas and LA, showed that ridership can be improved dramatically (60 and 40 percent, respectively), with a much smaller expenditure than streetcar or LRT would require.

Travel time savings of over 20% was also realized in both Kansas and LA.  A new streetcar system on Hennepin or Nicollet will likely have little or no travel time savings over existing bus service.  The study admits as much saying that buses are more flexible, being able to maneuver around parked or stalled vehicles, and that the only travel time savings with streetcars would be advance boarding, something that could easily be implemented with bus service.

One characteristic that we can compare is cost.  Minneapolis staff prepared a Funding Study, to explore potential options for funding a new streetcar system and looking at potential “starter” corridors.  According to this study, a Nicollet line would have a capital cost of $75 million, while a Hennepin line (only extending to the Walker Art Center) would cost $70 million.  A similar (but longer) line along Nicollet using enhanced bus service may be closer to $30 million.  Neither of these new streetcar lines would extend much beyond downtown initially, likely provide little or no travel time advantage over existing bus service and would likely cost double what a longer, faster enhanced bus service would cost.  The full Streetcar study also identifies a significant issue at Franklin Avenue for the Hennepin Avenue line, a grade over 6%.  Once the line was extended into Uptown, would the intersection need to be totally rebuilt?  This would likely bring costs even higher.

While it is clear that Minneapolis needs improved transit service, alternatives need to be studied.  Can we build a better, faster, more legible bus system for half the cost of a new streetcar network?  And one that will dramatically increase ridership and improve the experience for those who already ride?  If so, then this is the better option.  Building what basically seems like a downtown circulator, which moves people barely further than the distance of a comfortable walk, does not seem like the best investment of city or federal tax dollars.

Could new FTA “livability” funding rules change Southwest LRT route?

Posted on by
10

The two alignment choices in Minneapolis

The big news this week is that the planned Central Corridor LRT line will get three new stations between Minneapolis and Saint Paul, and the reason seems to be the new FTA rules which relax the sole focus on cost-effectiveness from travel time savings to include broader goals of “livability“.  With the three new stations, the project would not have met a “medium” rating for cost-effectiveness, and therefore would not likely not have been funded by the FTA under the old rules.

What implication might this have for the planned Southwest LRT line and its contested route?  It’s hard to say, but it certainly seems like the alternative routes should be re-assessed under the new formula before telling the feds that 3A is the Locally Preferred Alternative (LPA).  More below the break.

Continue reading →

Freemark corrects Glaeser on HSR

Posted on by
1

I’ve posted a lot about transit lately, so I promise to post on something else soon.  However, this thread is worth following up on.

The New York Times has been running a four-part series, now concluded, considering the possible benefits and costs of a hypothetical high-speed rail line.  There has been much protesting about Glaeser’s analysis, in particular, about his failure to include population growth, and worse in my opinion, a failure to include any analysis of an alternative to rail and what those benefits and costs may be.  Yonah Freemark, writing at the Infrastructurist, comes up with his own set of numbers and sees a much brighter future for HSR (even in Texas).

This reevaluation of Glaeser’s argument seems to upend his primary conclusion that the construction costs of the high-speed line would vastly outweigh the corridor’s benefits. While he figures that a 240-mile train system would result in a net annual loss of around $500 million, this analysis – using his own economic benefits model – shows a net benefit of $30 million a year (see our PDF for the math). High-speed rail between Dallas and Houston, then, seems like an eminently sensible thing to do.

Southwest Transitway Open House – Why I’m Still For 3C

Posted on by
7
Basically a bus.

Basically a bus.

I left Thursday’s Southwest Transitway open house in Minneapolis with a better understanding of the benefits of route 3A, and also the methodology by which the consultants have identified that as the “best” route.  However, I remain unconvinced that 3A is the best alternative, for a few reasons, including reasons that are not considered during the LPA decision-making process (but maybe should be). After the break, I’ll start with reasons that the FTA cares about.

Continue reading →

Where are the transit riders in Southwest?

Posted on by
5
Where are the transit riders in southwest Minneapolis?

Where are the transit riders in southwest Minneapolis?

The very first Southwest Transitway open house happened tonight, but hopefully some of you intrigued transit nuts will come home and want even MORE data to think about.  Based on comments from one of my previous posts, I realized I hadn’t done any analysis of where people are riding transit.

Thanks to the amazing Data Finder, you can see where transit trips are happening by bus stop.  To make this map, I summed all the weekday trips from bus stops within 1/4 mile of each planned LRT station.  Station areas are labeled with their totals.  As you would expect, downtown stations show the most trips, with Uptown and 28th Street next.  The 3A alignment shows very few trips.  The Met Council data for Van White shows a stop, but no routes and no trips are assigned to it.

I’ll be attending Thursday’s open house in Minneapolis and I’m excited.  It’s great to be on receiving end of a public meeting once in a while.  The gossip I’ve heard is that 3A and 3C ridership would be the same, which is something I would like explained in detail.  Anybody out there go to Hopkins tonight and have any post-meeting thoughts?

Economix blog: Is High-Speed Rail a good investment?

Posted on by
Reply

Vacation means scoping out a new city, beautiful mountains and extra time to read all the news I’ve missed. Because of this great free time, I caught a four-part series on the NYT Economix blog by Edward Glaeser about the economic calculus of a high-speed rail investment (thanks Transportationist). The second part, (the first is really an intro, but a good read) is an abbreviated cost-benefit analysis of a hypothetical 240-mile line between Dallas and Houston.

The bottom line? Bad news for HSR in his estimation. Costs are six times greater than benefits. Even with a ridership level equivalent to the Northeast corridor, costs are three times greater. Glaeser argues that this math is tough to beat, and I would agree given the limited number of benefits he is analyzing. What he labels “passenger benefits” only include monetary ones, not congestion and not environmental benefits, which he promises to tackle next time.

I took a stab at quantifying the greenhouse gas pollution savings.  Read on to find out if this benefit can make up the difference. Continue reading →