Net Density

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.

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Tags: hennepin county, lrt, met council, minneapolis, southwest, transit

Yonah Freemark at the Transport Politic has written an indispensable summary of the Southwest LRT routing alternatives. This is the post I wish I had written, plus his maps are prettier than mine!  His take on the FTA ridership accounting rules is especially interesting.

If you haven’t read it, go there now and arm yourself with talking points before you hit one of the open houses.

Tags: hennepin county, lrt, minneapolis, southwest, transit

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?

Tags: bus, hennepin county, lrt, minneapolis, southwest, transit, transportation

Hennepin County is now accepting comments for the Scoping stage of the Draft EIS on the Southwest Transitway light rail line.  Submit comments online, or at the final Scoping Meeting on October 23rd.  If you care about the alignment in Minneapolis, tell them what you think.  I’m holding back my opinion (see note below), although you may be able to guess which route I prefer.  2015 is not that far away (we’ll be halfway through Obama’s second term), and once this piece of infrastructure is in the ground, it ain’t moving for a very long time.

The image above is of the two possible routes in Minneapolis.  One would basically follow the Cedar Lake Trail into downtown and connect with the rest of the system at the “intermodal” station near the news Twins Ballpark.  The second would go through Uptown on the Midtown Greenway and turn left at Nicollet, connecting to the rest of the system at Fourth Street downtown.

Full disclosure: Bonestroo (the firm I work for) is currently part of a team working on station-area planning for Southwest Transitway stations outside of Minneapolis (Saint Louis Park to Eden Prairie).

Tags: environmental review, hennepin county, lrt, train, transit, transportation