# MSP Green Line -- super successful so far.



## NW cannonball (Oct 29, 2014)

"Any time you're above not only the projections for the first full year operation, but you're even coming close to long-range ridership goals — that's what you're hoping for," said Metro Transit General Manager Brian Lamb.

"The Green Line averaged 40,445 weekday rides between Sept. 1 and Sept. 5, up from 36,801 during the last week of August, Metro Transit data show."

It took a while, and lots of NIMBY stuff, and long long arguments about exactly where to put the stations -- and many old-time business on the University Ave went broke or at least had to cut back -- but now -- sheesh!

that Light rail line just really really works. NS!

I hope that other places get a clue -- when that transit thing works -- it works really good.


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## NorthShore (Oct 29, 2014)

What businesses on University went broke? Anything of interest or worth noting?


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## NW cannonball (Oct 29, 2014)

NorthShore said:


> What businesses on University went broke? Anything of interest or worth noting?


Not worth noting, but yes, University avenue from Snelling To Rice the cheapo storefront businesses that depended on free parking on University Ave -- ah lot of those went broke.

Not a lot of worry to me, but for them, lost their livelihood.

But also, the green line thing -- made a lot of ng who owned even a little two blocks-from-UNO and the lrt -- their crappy little inner-city place is now worth a LOT more.

The old bookstore at Snelling and Uno was always posting apocolyptic fear worries -- but is still in business, despite what they feared from the "scary scary light rail" thing"

The "Green line" -- we already learn to love it -- it "just works"


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## beautifulplanet (Oct 29, 2014)

Thank you for posting this. 



NW cannonball said:


> "The Green Line averaged 40,445 weekday rides between Sept. 1 and Sept. 5, up from 36,801 during the last week of August, Metro Transit data show." [...]
> 
> I hope that other places get a clue -- when that transit thing works -- it works really good.


Many might think this is amazing - more than 40,000 rides per weekday! In many cases there is a ramp-up period of several years, still the Green Line is just operating for a few months now. Might seem to some like "Wow - that Green Line is being used by a lot of people!" 

For everyone who wants to learn more about this success, this could be the article where above quote was taken from:

Green Line already nears 2030 ridership goal
Sep 19, 2014
By Marion Renault
http://www.mprnews.org/story/2014/09/19/green-line-ridership


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## NW cannonball (Oct 29, 2014)

NW cannonball said:


> NorthShore said:
> 
> 
> > What businesses on University went broke? Anything of interest or worth noting?
> ...


Actually, as a 40- year user of the University Avenue bus, and also riding my bicycle to my job at the UMN for a few dozen years -- riding my bike on U-know or UNI or UNO -- the light rail is -- the way to go?

Even my long-time buddy that works as a gas-passer at the U-kids hospital -- this man hated the construction time -- but now -- with the re-deployment of buses (it's a side-effect of the green line -- but now the connecting buses run more, and later, and weekends)

My inner city CRNA buddy who owns a house in Highland (that's a high-price in-urb place in Saint Paul) has stopped saying "damn that light rail construction I hate it" -- he's saying "it actually works for me"  He can take a bus and the Green, and review his patient charts and all that on his I-pad instead of having to drive himself with all those worries at 0 dark time. He loves being able to get to work with a clear plan for his OR cases before he even gets to the hospital.

Yup - the Green Line is a light rail success story.


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## Swadian Hardcore (Oct 29, 2014)

I would have expected as much. Seems like those government transit planners always set their projections too low. Typical.


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## Tokkyu40 (Oct 30, 2014)

The Reason Foundation will be glad to point out that the Green Line is a complete failure since

#1 The train hasn't achieved the projected was 42,000 passengers a day (by 2030)

#2 It hasn't completely eliminated all traffic congestion in Minneapolis and

#3 Trains are scary and don't involve everyone buying gas for their SUVs.

No one really knows how the public will respond to a train so the estimates are always quoted on the low side of the range to limit how much the Libertarian ideologues can convincingly complain about failure. Not that it ever stops them.


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## Swadian Hardcore (Oct 30, 2014)

Well if it don't stop them, then why even do it? I don't think anyone will seriously say the Green Line is a failure. OTOH, it would require 24/7 SRO like in Asia to impress me these days. Every or almost every other LRT project has exceeded ridership projections. Every or almost every light rail story has been a success story. I'm not surprised, and I would be utterly shocked if a LRT project failed to meet basic projections. I think they ought to be more aggressive and quote higher numbers in the projections. If these are political games, then whatever; I don't really care about political games, I'm just tired of hearing, "We exceeded projections! We massively exceeded projections!" for every project, and I don't think I'm the only person thinking that.


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## NorthShore (Oct 30, 2014)

Does the Green Line operate 24/7?

Is there still a University bus for local service? (At what sort of frequency?)

What's next? Downtown St. Paul to MSP airport?


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## Ispolkom (Oct 30, 2014)

NorthShore said:


> *1. *Does the Green Line operate 24/7?
> 
> *2. *Is there still a University bus for local service? (At what sort of frequency?)
> 
> *3. *What's next? Downtown St. Paul to MSP airport?


1. Yes, but only hourly in the early morning hours.

2.Yes, the #16. Its schedule is here.

3. Next up is a southwest route from downtown Minneapolis to Eden Prairie. There are vague, hand-wavy plans for a street car on West 7th heading from downtown St. Paul in the direction of the airport, but don't hold your breath for this or any other rail project east of the Mississippi River.


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## Metra Electric Guest (Oct 31, 2014)

It's interesting to speculate on how Minneapolis (as well as Seattle and Detroit) would have developed had they built the proposed rapid transit systems that were proposed around 1970 in each of them.

BTW I hope your buddy is NOT reading confidential charts on the train!


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## Swadian Hardcore (Oct 31, 2014)

They should build it now. New heavy rail rapid transit projects would be useful in the US. I'm sick and tired of the same LRT story everywhere. If demand is that high, then go HEAVY rail!


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## afigg (Nov 1, 2014)

There were two blogs that discussed the meaning of the ridership results for the MSP Green Line this past week.

Streetblog with a useful discussion of the constraints on how the ridership projections are calculated and why projections for lines serving large universities are likely to be too low: Are Federal Transit Models Short-Changing Universities? The projection models need to be refined for large universities.

Greater Greater Washington expanded on the above with regards to what it means for ridership projections for the DC suburb Purple Line light rail project which will have multiple stops on the University of Maryland campus: The Purple Line will likely beat ridership forecasts. The Maryland Purple Line has a lot of similarities to the MSP Green Line*, but will also connect to the DC Metro heavy rail system at 4 locations and to the NEC at New Carrollton. I do not see how the MD Purple Line will not be quite successful if it opens in 2021 as planned.

*Another GGW post this week on the MSP Green Line: Making room for transit can make better streets for everyone.


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## neroden (Nov 1, 2014)

Swadian Hardcore said:


> They should build it now. New heavy rail rapid transit projects would be useful in the US. I'm sick and tired of the same LRT story everywhere. If demand is that high, then go HEAVY rail!


The "subway everywhere" mentality has unfortunately crippled Toronto transit politics.

I think for most cities the right thing to do is rather old-fashioned: build light rail now, and put in short subway sections in the key downtown areas later. You know, like the way Boston's Green Line was built over 100 years ago.


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## jis (Nov 1, 2014)

neroden said:


> Swadian Hardcore said:
> 
> 
> > They should build it now. New heavy rail rapid transit projects would be useful in the US. I'm sick and tired of the same LRT story everywhere. If demand is that high, then go HEAVY rail!
> ...


Exactly! that is how many cities in Europe which were not already blessed with a heavy rail system built out their system. Heck, in Brussels they even call those light rail lines Pre-Metro! And of course whatever would make one think that those rubber tired contraptions used in Montreal and Paris are heavy anything anyway? Paris' general Metro loading gauge and curvature standards makes them more like light rail than heavy rail anyway. It is the RER that is heavy rail in Paris. And of course in addition to the Metro lines, which carry an enormous amount of traffic in spite of being of limited loading gauge. Paris is also building out several circumferential lines using surface LRT, even in one case converting a previously heavy rail lines to light rail (Issy - La Defense).


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## Swadian Hardcore (Nov 1, 2014)

beautifulplanet said:


> Thank you for posting this.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Wow? I'm not wowed, it's just deja vu. Almost everything about public sector transportation, especially rail transportation, these days is deja vu. "LRT built, super successful." "New study for passenger rail service" then later "Not built." "VIA Rail cuts service". "Amtrak grants order to lowest bidder." "(X country) in (Europe/Asia) increases service frequency." "(X country) in (Europe/Asia) builds/completes new HSR line." Deja vu around the clock. There's no excitement anymore when you expect everything that's going to happen.



neroden said:


> Swadian Hardcore said:
> 
> 
> > They should build it now. New heavy rail rapid transit projects would be useful in the US. I'm sick and tired of the same LRT story everywhere. If demand is that high, then go HEAVY rail!
> ...


Well I was just tired of deja vu. You see, if one of these cities had built heavy rail, that would be away from the status quo, away from deja vu; it would be something different, something exciting.


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## Swadian Hardcore (Nov 1, 2014)

Then I guess I might as well ask again. I asked before and got no response. What kind of structure do these LRVs use? Like the LRVs on the Green Line. Are they body-on-frame? Semi-monocoque? Monocoque? Through truss? And what materials? Fiberglass? Cor-Ten steel? Stainless steel? Galvanized steel? I have never been able to find any information about the LRV structures.


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## Metra Electric Guest (Nov 1, 2014)

Swadian Hardcore said:


> Then I guess I might as well ask again. I asked before and got no response. What kind of structure do these LRVs use? Like the LRVs on the Green Line. Are they body-on-frame? Semi-monocoque? Monocoque? Through truss? And what materials? Fiberglass? Cor-Ten steel? Stainless steel? Galvanized steel? I have never been able to find any information about the LRV structures.


Do you mean the cars or the tracks? It seems that I've seen assembly photos from Europe.

That in mind, the CTA in Chicago uses PCC based heavy rail cars (very loosely based at this point, but originally a lot of them were rebuilt streetcars when the CTA took over just before 1950 - not sure about the cars before that).

There is a cockamamie streetcar plan for Chicago, several routes are closely parallel to heavy commuter rail or rapid transit lines and seem to be vanity or "romantic" more than practical need projects.


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## Swadian Hardcore (Nov 1, 2014)

But I don't even know how PCCs were built or what materials they were made of. I asked, but I got no answer. See? Not your fault, Metra Electric Guest, but it just seems like nobody cares to even research it. The amount of LRT advocacy is massive but the amount of public knowledge about the equipment seems to be near-zero. I think it is fair to me to say that if you are a LRT advocate, I'd expect you to have a favorite LRV model that you would want the new light rail line (that you are advocating for) to use and know lots about that specific type, like how it's built, what materials, what cost, how fast it goes, how much energy it uses, how much gross weight and empty weight, basically, recite the whole spec sheet.

If you're just an Average Joe that wants light rail, OK, then maybe not, but if you study things like ridership and transit politics, then you're a light rail enthusiast, not the Average Joe, and then you should know about the equipment, and if you don't, then it's fair to accuse hypocrisy. One type of hypocrisy I've seen is that one goes around talking about light rail, cheering for light rail, blabbing about ridership and transit politics, throwing out paper figures, figures on articles, and pointing out LRVs that one likes but when asked something as simple as how tall that LRV is (exactly), one draws a blank before quickly peeking on a spec sheet (or not and just avoids the question). Then because that one is a hypocrite, everything else light rail-related that he/she says must be shot down.


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## Paulus (Nov 2, 2014)

That's a wee bit of an absurd thing to be labeling as hypocrisy. Knowing how tall a particular LRV is usually serves no earthly purpose unless aspiring for the Foamer Crown. Heck, I'm a major advocate for passenger railroad electrification, but I'll still double check my sources before giving anything other than a ballpark figure, especially if it's for a particular type. Nor do I see why I ought to even care what the specific vehicle is, much less have a favorite one, rather than caring that it meets particular standards.


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## Tokkyu40 (Nov 3, 2014)

The vehicles on the Green Line are Siemens S70 low floor trams.


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## Swadian Hardcore (Nov 5, 2014)

Thanks Tokkyu.

So according to Wikipedia, the Siemens S70 has a modular design.

Here's the deal, Paulus. Maybe I should have worded it differently. I mean that people focus too much on the functions and too little on the designs that achieve those functions. LRT supporters often fail to explain can't explain "how" or "why" while writing dozens of long paragraphs about functions and light rail politics.

Here's an example (remember, I'm neither pro- or anti-LRT):

Suppose a LRT supporter said to me, "LRVs last 30-40 years."

I ask, "How come? What are they made of? How come they last that long?"

The LRT supporter would likely say, "They just last that long. They are built to last that long. There's plenty of LRVs around the world that are 30-40 years old and still in service."

But then I would ask, "How though? How? Why are they so tough?"

The LRT supporter, if he were a hypocrite, would have no answer. He doesn't know. He doesn't know what they're made of. He doesn't know what they last 30-40 years, he only knows that statistically, they last 30-40 years.

Now if this LRT supporter was just casual and didn't write a dozen paragraphs supporting LRT, then fine, he's just casual. And if you're a LRT engineer and you know those things, then great, but LRT engineers rarely write a dozen pro-LRT paragraphs. The real hypocrites are the know-it-alls. People that write essay after essay in support of LRT, but don't know about much, if anything, about LRT physically, they only know about everything else. The ridership. The costs. The frequency. The lifespan. The OTP. If you're lucky, the speeds, if you're unlucky, they don't even know the speeds and they only know the travel times and distances.

How? How? How? Don't just cite papers, reports, and articles. Intangibles, man! Enthusiasm is intangible.


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## Paulus (Nov 5, 2014)

Gotcha. Original post gave off the vibe, at least in how I read it, of being one of those "How could you not know that the F Model Block 65 uses a reverse Wegman nut for the starboard fasteners?" type things. Though I'd quibble on some of the stuff; personally I'm just fine and dandy if average life expectancy is universally around a certain range without finding it necessary to inquire further as to the whys (it's when they become outliers that I want to know what's being done/not done).


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## NW cannonball (Nov 6, 2014)

Swadian Hardcore said:


> Thanks Tokkyu.
> 
> So according to Wikipedia, the Siemens S70 has a modular design.
> 
> ...



Who cares the tech details -- yeah enthusiasm is intangible -- but --

We who ride the new green line, and like it,

Like we do not give a stinky cheese about "hypocrits" and "musst give sonrrocho specs or never post agian --  

Sorry to say it - but "WHO THE f CARES" about what Swad totally misses.

Swad -- you've contributed a lot here --

But on the Green Line issue you have nothing to contribute.

So DONT..

"Hijack thread" -- youve apologized before about that.

"Hypocrysy -- " look up the word in the dictonary.

Nobody gives a dehydrated crap about the details of the LRT cars -- and you have no clue either -- so shut up.

The discussion is about the MSP Green Line.

Not about bus sizes or train widths;.

Please get a clue Swad. -- Hijack -- you slob -- !!!


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## Ispolkom (Nov 6, 2014)

I didn't realize that the equipment Twin Cities emergency vehicles use to preempt traffic lights doesn't work on the Green Line train signals. Apparently neither did one St. Paul police officer. I can't tell you how many times I've followed a speeding police cruiser or fire truck (at the prescribed distance of course) through a preempted signal. I'd hate to get nailed by a light rail vehicle.


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## Ispolkom (Nov 19, 2014)

Ispolkom said:


> There are vague, hand-wavy plans for a street car on West 7th heading from downtown St. Paul in the direction of the airport, but don't hold your breath for this or any other rail project east of the Mississippi River.


Here's an article indicating that planning might be getting past the hand waving. On the other hand, note that Raphael Ortega seems to be the point man. His big accomplishment is St. Paul Union Depot, a train station that sat for 18 months without any trains.


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