The Green Line (St. Paul, Rice: loans, construction, university)

[Packwanderer]

What is the status of the green line? When is it expected to be complete?
Are they popular? Convenient? How late do they run? Is there usually good parking near the stops? How about parking near the St Paul downtown station?

Thanks. Do a lot of people use the light rail? Sorry for so many questions. Just curious about them.

[Minnesota Spring]

The Green line has been constructed for the most part and is scheduled to open in June. The Hiawatha Line is typically busy, even on the weekends. parking depends on the stop. I would say they are convenient as the Hiawatha connects the MOA with the Airport and Downtown (Nic Mall, Warehouse District, Target Field etc and the Northstar line). The new line will connect that all to the U of M, Midway and Downtown St. Paul. They connect with many bus routes.

[Packwanderer]

Originally Posted by Minnesota Spring

The Green line has been constructed for the most part and is scheduled to open in June. The Hiawatha Line is typically busy, even on the weekends. parking depends on the stop. I would say they are convenient as the Hiawatha connects the MOA with the Airport and Downtown (Nic Mall, Warehouse District, Target Field etc and the Northstar line). The new line will connect that all to the U of M, Midway and Downtown St. Paul. They connect with many bus routes.

I'm considering living downtown St Paul and was curious about the ease of use of the Green Line.
Do they come pretty often, base on your experience with the blue line? Thanks again.

[spectre000]

Originally Posted by Packwanderer

I'm considering living downtown St Paul and was curious about the ease of use of the Green Line.
Do they come pretty often, base on your experience with the blue line? Thanks again.

They'll run every 10 minutes. A couple minutes quicker even during rush hour. A couple minutes slower in the evenings/weekends. That often enough for ya?

[Packwanderer]

Originally Posted by spectre000

They'll run every 10 minutes. A couple minutes quicker even during rush hour. A couple minutes slower in the evenings/weekends. That often enough for ya?

Haha. yes, it is. thank you.

[uptown_urbanist]

It's set to open June 14. I don't know if there will be parking along the line; there are lots and garages by some of the stations now, but you'll have to pay. Currently the route is served by route 50 and route 16 buses, which work pretty well except they get stuck in traffic and get slowed down during winter weather. This winter when the buses have been running really slow the Blue Line has been mostly on time, so I'm optimistic that the Green Line will be the same! The 16/50 buses are already very well used, and I'm assuming that once the Green Line opens it will be very popular.

[Yosh01]

I wonder what the logic behind naming these rail lines by color is. It's much more confusing when the name of something has nothing whatsoever to do with what is being named. Why not simply Hiawatha and University Lines? Everyone would know what is being talked about.

With regard to parking, I can't think of too many places, and all the parking on University Avenue is now gone because of the rail system, but then all the businesses are disappearing too.

[StanleyVegas]

In downtown STPL Union Depot has 2 ramps and a surface lot (cheapest). The other 3 DT stations don't have dedicated parking - just area ramps and metered street. I'm curious whether parking will be allowed at the giant Sears parking lot on Rice across from the Capitol station. Part of it is used by the government center, but it's never full. That Sears doesn't get a lot of business, either.

[uptown_urbanist]

Originally Posted by Yosh01

I wonder what the logic behind naming these rail lines by color is. It's much more confusing when the name of something has nothing whatsoever to do with what is being named. Why not simply Hiawatha and University Lines? Everyone would know what is being talked about.

With regard to parking, I can't think of too many places, and all the parking on University Avenue is now gone because of the rail system, but then all the businesses are disappearing too.

Naming by color is fairly typical in transit systems.

As far as businesses disappearing, some did during construction -- but other, new businesses have already started to move in, many of them choosing to locate along the line because of the Green Line.

[Mr. In-Between]

Originally Posted by Yosh01

I wonder what the logic behind naming these rail lines by color is. It's much more confusing when the name of something has nothing whatsoever to do with what is being named. Why not simply Hiawatha and University Lines? Everyone would know what is being talked about.

I'm not sure "logic" is the appropriate word in this instance, but the reason for it was that they somehow felt it would be less confusing for visitors. They reasoned that since people from out of town wouldn't know anything about where "Hiawatha Avenue" was, or "University Avenue," or what a "Central Corridor" was, they wouldn't be able to remember which rail line went where. So they decided to name all the rail lines after colors, so that nobody - either visitors or residents - would be able to remember which was which. Brilliant, eh?

Originally Posted by Yosh01

With regard to parking, I can't think of too many places, and all the parking on University Avenue is now gone because of the rail system, but then all the businesses are disappearing too.

There is no real plan to address the parking issues. There are vague intentions to promote the building of parking space by offering businesses and property owners forgivable loans to make parking available on the corridor, but at present, there's nothing on the table that looks like a serious solution. I privately suspect that the plan was to wait for a lot of the businesses to go belly up, and then tear them down and build parking facilities. Whether that was indeed the plan, I think it will inevitably be the result.