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And I know I've said it before, but I do think there's room for some better long-distance express suburb-to-suburb buses. In LA we had the "rapid" buses and they worked great. I don't know if there's the ridership here, but it would be nice if that were an option. Some of those suburb-to-suburb routes are so painfully slow; they serve a purpose and are better than nothing, but there's definitely room for improvement. But again, I assume you run into budget and ridership issues there, although it could be a bit of chicken-and-egg situation. (more people would ride if it were better service, but hard to justify spending even more to run them if the ridership levels are low)
Part of the problem might be how the transit planning is divided in the metro area. On one hand you have the Met Council which runs Metro Transit but also does a lot of planning (like the recent 2025 plan). I am not aware of such planning that occurs with regional carriers that have opted out of Metro Transit (?) and I am also unaware of planning that occurs between carriers (??). For example, to solve Golfgal's issue of commuting along 494 you would have to coordinate a plan between MVTA and Southwest Transit - do these conversations ever happen?
Then maybe the city people need to stop whining about cars.....and again, most people do NOT work in Minneapolis so why is everything focused on getting people to Minneapolis?
Anybody out there ever address this question to city officials where they live?
See I personally don't need to talk to anyone about the public transit where I live because I have a bus that can take me downtown to the transit hub of the metro and get to almost any place in the city or metro via bus or light rail, yet I drive anyway since its much more convenient.
I wonder about Minneapolis and the surrounding area's ability to cope with this expected population growth people are claiming. In the end we have to realize that the city can not cope with its current transportation option and current population growth unless we just bulk down and do one big job that helps ease transportation to all suburbs. Thats why I would be curious how a light rail around metro like 494/694 would work out with Light Rail lines spoked to Downtown Mpls/St Paul and bus lines and campus shuttle lines of all types linked to outer and inner Hi frequency destination points where one can car pool or is ones job site. A mixture of options that not only copes with existing issues but addresses future ones
And I know I've said it before, but I do think there's room for some better long-distance express suburb-to-suburb buses. In LA we had the "rapid" buses and they worked great. I don't know if there's the ridership here, but it would be nice if that were an option. Some of those suburb-to-suburb routes are so painfully slow; they serve a purpose and are better than nothing, but there's definitely room for improvement. But again, I assume you run into budget and ridership issues there, although it could be a bit of chicken-and-egg situation. (more people would ride if it were better service, but hard to justify spending even more to run them if the ridership levels are low)
My Dad did a suburb to suburb commute in the LA area for 10 years, 20 miles commute on a good day took 90 minutes. There isn't a commute ANYWHERE in the TC area that is that bad. Mass transit in the LA area isn't good either.
There are more people working in that 5 miles stretch from the airport to Normadale Towers then in all of downtown Minneapolis, all within 6 blocks of 494. It would have been FAR more efficient to run the light rail through there then where it is currently. Ridership in Minneapolis is at about 15% of the metro population, not even that, only about 267,000/day--which includes people from the suburbs--the 3 million people outside of Minneapolis subsidize a system that they can't use. Don't tell me that it's efficient in Minneapolis either because it just isn't.
I think its less a problem of availability than speed. You can go most places on transit, but people who drive look at the increased amount of time to do the same trip on transit and find it unacceptable. What the discussion has skipped so far is the FACT that every transit ride is presently subsidized. If you are willing to pay the full price, you can probably go anywhere to anywhere. But most people want the transit that is subsidized. At the same time, suburban legislators fight against any more subsidy and even want existing subsidies cut. So economics insure that service won't be expanded. I'm a lefty myself, but sometimes I think I'd like transit to pay for itself. To find out if only the subsidy keeps it alive. One thing we definitely do not need in the existing financial environment is more cost loaded on the public bill. Proposals to give much better service are just that. Lets drive up public budgets at the same time as things like education are slipping and hurting the state economy. I've never seen any economic study linking subsidized transit to more prosperity. It is more a mission of mercy for the poorest citizens. But like any public benefit, now middle class people want in. Totally predictable. That's how budgets and aid to the poor get killed. None of them can ever expand to serve the middle class because it is just too large.
My Dad did a suburb to suburb commute in the LA area for 10 years, 20 miles commute on a good day took 90 minutes. There isn't a commute ANYWHERE in the TC area that is that bad. Mass transit in the LA area isn't good either.
There are more people working in that 5 miles stretch from the airport to Normadale Towers then in all of downtown Minneapolis, all within 6 blocks of 494. It would have been FAR more efficient to run the light rail through there then where it is currently. Ridership in Minneapolis is at about 15% of the metro population, not even that, only about 267,000/day--which includes people from the suburbs--the 3 million people outside of Minneapolis subsidize a system that they can't use. Don't tell me that it's efficient in Minneapolis either because it just isn't.
hmm... so you are an expert in LA public transportation? And when, exactly, did you commute in Los Angeles? Let's see, never? I am not an LA transit expert, but having lived without a car there for several years and having done a few different LA commutes and a lot of exploring via train and bus there, I think I know just a teeny bit more than you do. And believe me, LA's public transportation blows the Twin Cities' out of the water. And unless your dad did his commute recently (and many people would just choose to live closer to their work than to take on a daily 3 hour commute!) things have drastically changed. The Rapid buses have really expanded, there are new rail lines, and LA's public tranportation is about a million times more effective than what you find in the Twin Cities. Of course LA is also drastically bigger and has much worse traffic (and more support for public transportation), but perhaps the Twin Cities could use LA as a model of both what to avoid (if we continue on our "let's drive everywhere" ways) as well as inspiration for what could be (really good long-distance suburb-to-suburb buses, for example). (sorry -- I get a little annoyed when people who have NO experience with LA public transportation indulge in stereotypes! Especially when they live in the Twin Cities, which is nowhere near as good as LA in the public transit department)
I don't understand your point about buses not being efficient in Minneapolis. Minneapolis has higher residential density and higher job density. The Hiawatha LRT line wasn't the most efficient of all options, but it was intended to the first in a network, and for political reasons it made the most sense. The SW line isn't for Minneapolis, anyway; that one serves very little of the city and is primarily for suburban commuters. Efficient doesn't mean it fully carries its own financial weight; it DOES mean, I think, that it's realistic to think that enough people will be able to get to/from their destinations via the transportation route to justify running more than just token service. No one is going to want to run a train line if you can't even fill up half a car with riders.
I'm also guessing that you haven't spent much time WALKING in the six blocks on either side of 494. Many of those areas are not, to put it mildly, conducive to pleasant strolls from the station (and six blocks is kind of a long way when you're talking about density of jobs near a station). And what about crossing the freeway? And it's not just the people working along that stretch; they'd have to live along it, too.
Seriously, if it was such a no-brainer someone would have thought of it before now. Or the buses would at least have higher ridership on some of those routes than they do.
I think rather than service to far flung suburbs, Metro Transit should do some serious engineering of its whole system. I do know they alter service several times a year, which indicates they realize the need. But nothing I've seen in 40 years indicates any realization of the overall inefficiency of what they do. I'm not even close to a traffic engineer, but I look at all the other industries that have gone through revolutionary change and I think transit engineering is pretty moldy.
hmm... so you are an expert in LA public transportation? And when, exactly, did you commute in Los Angeles? Let's see, never? I am not an LA transit expert, but having lived without a car there for several years and having done a few different LA commutes and a lot of exploring via train and bus there, I think I know just a teeny bit more than you do. And believe me, LA's public transportation blows the Twin Cities' out of the water. And unless your dad did his commute recently (and many people would just choose to live closer to their work than to take on a daily 3 hour commute!) things have drastically changed. The Rapid buses have really expanded, there are new rail lines, and LA's public tranportation is about a million times more effective than what you find in the Twin Cities. Of course LA is also drastically bigger and has much worse traffic (and more support for public transportation), but perhaps the Twin Cities could use LA as a model of both what to avoid (if we continue on our "let's drive everywhere" ways) as well as inspiration for what could be (really good long-distance suburb-to-suburb buses, for example). (sorry -- I get a little annoyed when people who have NO experience with LA public transportation indulge in stereotypes! Especially when they live in the Twin Cities, which is nowhere near as good as LA in the public transit department)
I don't understand your point about buses not being efficient in Minneapolis. Minneapolis has higher residential density and higher job density. The Hiawatha LRT line wasn't the most efficient of all options, but it was intended to the first in a network, and for political reasons it made the most sense. The SW line isn't for Minneapolis, anyway; that one serves very little of the city and is primarily for suburban commuters. Efficient doesn't mean it fully carries its own financial weight; it DOES mean, I think, that it's realistic to think that enough people will be able to get to/from their destinations via the transportation route to justify running more than just token service. No one is going to want to run a train line if you can't even fill up half a car with riders.
I'm also guessing that you haven't spent much time WALKING in the six blocks on either side of 494. Many of those areas are not, to put it mildly, conducive to pleasant strolls from the station (and six blocks is kind of a long way when you're talking about density of jobs near a station). And what about crossing the freeway? And it's not just the people working along that stretch; they'd have to live along it, too.
Seriously, if it was such a no-brainer someone would have thought of it before now. Or the buses would at least have higher ridership on some of those routes than they do.
Actually, I have walked those 6 blocks in several places. For someone that supposedly walks so much, you sure have a difficult time walking on sidewalks where you have to cross with a stop light. I just don't get it. Of course, it's back to your argument that Minneapolis is the ONLY place anyone could possibly walk
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