The Green Line (Minneapolis, Bloomington, Eagan: employment, transfer, cost)

[Glenfield]

Originally Posted by golfgal

If you followed the whole conversation and didn't take my comment out of context like you always seem to do, it was proposed to cut funding to the highway system to fund more mass transit...after that you are on your own...

That was only a small part of the thread and there was no way to tie this somewhat odd reference to cattle to that part of the thread, which I have read completely BTW. Thank you for the clarification.

[Ghengis]

I think one of them should have been named the Lindbergh Line and one the Humphrey Line

[rogead]

Here's a story and a map which looks at the value (as opposed to the cost) of urban mobility. The example in this story assesses The Minneapolis/St Paul Metro Area in regards to the number of jobs that can be reached within half an hour via public transit. This is, of course, exclusive of the upcoming Green Line.

This Map Wants to Change How You Think About Your Commute - Emily Badger - The Atlantic Cities

[Thedosius]

Originally Posted by golfgal

Kind of hard to haul cattle on the light rail....

Never said freeways were "profitable"...but the suggestion was to dump more money into a system that only services a small percentage of the population....

LRT does not service a small percentage of the population.

Recent events in Atlanta show the potential for disaster facilitated by "uni-modal" transportation. LRT is part of a network and it removes a small portion of users from the freeways. That small portion of users lessen incidents of saturation and gridlock that does not just impact Minneapolis. And though that portion is small, it is like the weight of an orange added to one side of a balanced teeter-totter- the actual weight is small but the impact is dramatic. And there is a watershed threshold of "busy but flowing" and "gridlocked" when it comes to freeway traffic.

Your thinking on this matter is very parochial and extremely short-sighted. It's like saying that the FAA should not improve service at Chicago O'Hare because that would only benefit Chicago. Since transportation is inherently a network, making the nodes work better makes the entire system work better. This is why flight delays in Chicago can impact people catching flights in LA, or free-flowing traffic on the other end of the metro impacts your commute.

Though it is true that far more business activity takes place in the suburbs, the single largest cluster of business activity is in downtown Minneapolis. You can take a 45 minute walk around 10% of Minnesota's gross state product in downtown Minneapolis. Suburban business is more scattered and less concentrated, and so is traffic to it. Even so, encouraging more "business nodes" serviced by mass transit in the suburbs would be of benefit to us all because the NETWORK of traffic is becoming ever more saturated and ever more likely to bog down. Bogged down traffic costs money. That 10% of the states GSP is impacted by traffic issues, and the state's GSP does impact you, though it is not a direct impact and takes broader and far-sighted thinking to perceive that.

If you have never ridden LRT once but live in Minnesota, LRT benefits you. That's part of the reason the business community (including the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce) split with Governor Pawlenty to push for transit-heavy traffic infrastructure several years back. Business understands that a smooth-flowing network requires smooth-flowing access to the major nodes of that network, and that our region competes in part on our infrastructure. We're behind our competitors, unfortunately, in our transit infrastructure in large part due to our (hopefully past) parochial and short-sighted approach to it. We need to change, and I'm happy to report that I believe we are changing in a positive direction.

[golfgal]

Originally Posted by Thedosius

LRT does not service a small percentage of the population.

Recent events in Atlanta show the potential for disaster facilitated by "uni-modal" transportation. LRT is part of a network and it removes a small portion of users from the freeways. That small portion of users lessen incidents of saturation and gridlock that does not just impact Minneapolis. And though that portion is small, it is like the weight of an orange added to one side of a balanced teeter-totter- the actual weight is small but the impact is dramatic. And there is a watershed threshold of "busy but flowing" and "gridlocked" when it comes to freeway traffic.

Your thinking on this matter is very parochial and extremely short-sighted. It's like saying that the FAA should not improve service at Chicago O'Hare because that would only benefit Chicago. Since transportation is inherently a network, making the nodes work better makes the entire system work better. This is why flight delays in Chicago can impact people catching flights in LA, or free-flowing traffic on the other end of the metro impacts your commute.

Though it is true that far more business activity takes place in the suburbs, the single largest cluster of business activity is in downtown Minneapolis. You can take a 45 minute walk around 10% of Minnesota's gross state product in downtown Minneapolis. Suburban business is more scattered and less concentrated, and so is traffic to it. Even so, encouraging more "business nodes" serviced by mass transit in the suburbs would be of benefit to us all because the NETWORK of traffic is becoming ever more saturated and ever more likely to bog down. Bogged down traffic costs money. That 10% of the states GSP is impacted by traffic issues, and the state's GSP does impact you, though it is not a direct impact and takes broader and far-sighted thinking to perceive that.

If you have never ridden LRT once but live in Minnesota, LRT benefits you. That's part of the reason the business community (including the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce) split with Governor Pawlenty to push for transit-heavy traffic infrastructure several years back. Business understands that a smooth-flowing network requires smooth-flowing access to the major nodes of that network, and that our region competes in part on our infrastructure. We're behind our competitors, unfortunately, in our transit infrastructure in large part due to our (hopefully past) parochial and short-sighted approach to it. We need to change, and I'm happy to report that I believe we are changing in a positive direction.

Like I said, it serves a very limited population...with over 3 million people in the metro area, the main target are the 100,000 people that work in downtown Minneapolis. Ridership would have been much better served to invest funds where the jobs are and traffic is, along the 494-694 loop. The business nodes are already there...just drive around the loop and look left or right...

[Thedosius]

Originally Posted by golfgal

Like I said, it serves a very limited population...with over 3 million people in the metro area, the main target are the 100,000 people that work in downtown Minneapolis. Ridership would have been much better served to invest funds where the jobs are and traffic is, along the 494-694 loop. The business nodes are already there...just drive around the loop and look left or right...

Yes, you said that before: that is true. Clearly, you don't understand my point and given your rapid and dismissive response it's for lack of any real effort.

Carry on-

[golfgal]

Originally Posted by Thedosius

Yes, you said that before: that is true. Clearly, you don't understand my point and given your rapid and dismissive response it's for lack of any real effort.

Carry on-

No, I understand fully what you are saying...but the complaints are the amount of traffic in the metro...so...do something about that by having viable mass transit where people drive...it's really not a hard concept to understand.

[Thedosius]

Originally Posted by golfgal

No, I understand fully what you are saying....

Nope, you don't, but I'm not going to harp on it- I know an entrenched opinion when I see it.

[Minnesota Spring]

I know there are over 150,000 people that work in Downtown Minneapolis. If you add Downtown St. Paul, the U of M, Midway, the airport and MOA to the mix, I wonder what the total numbers would be? Now if we add the proposed SW line to the Eden Prairie area, that starts to add quickly, the number of jobs that would be available by light rail.
I tend to side with Golfgal on perhaps planning for a line running down 494, the Bloomington strip anyway. It would connect the south end of the Hiawatha with the SW line. There are a lot of jobs there that would be accessible if your coming from South Mpls. for instance and can connect at 494 and head to one of the job spots along there. I mean, those jobs wont likely be going away or moving downtown. It would cut down on auto dependence, congestion on 494 and encourage density in Richfield/Bloomington. With the light rail footprint in MSP proposed to be more interconnected with job centers, I think it would make sense as a future option.

[golfgal]

The Blue Line was built because it was the lowest cost option, much of the land needed to build the line was already owned. It's a start but as it is, people drive to the stations and ride the line to Minneapolis. If people wanted to reduce car traffic, put the lines where people drive. Taking the line from the MOA to Minneapolis via 35 would have made much more sense...except that was a much more expensive option.