The Green Line is the spine of the Central Corridor, fed by a network of bus routes that were extended and given enhanced frequencies and hours of service to complement the LRT. We now have numbers that indicate that the feeder buses are doing their job, attracting more passengers to LRT. The data source is […]
The August 22 quarterly schedule change is pretty modest in scope, with only two items worth reporting. St. Paul School Service Following Minneapolis’ successful shift of high school students from school buses to public transit, St. Paul Public Schools has been interested in trying it. There was much discussion with Metro Transit last year and […]
There has been much discussion about how to connect north Minneapolis to the Southwest LRT, and that’s important, but even more important are the connections to the existing Blue Line and Green Line. The connections aren’t very convenient today and they could be much better. Even after Southwest is built, there will be more north siders […]
I live a block from Lake Calhoun, so I’m on the lake’s bike and walking paths almost every day. When the weather is nice, these have to be the most congested recreational bike and ped facilities in the state, and probably several states in any direction. People clearly love Calhoun, but small discourtesies and thoughtless behavior mar […]
Following a resounding rejection of the recent cost estimate, Metro Transit staff has offered up a menu of options to trim $341 million from the cost of the Green Line Extension in the Southwest Corridor to keep the budget at $1.653 billion. The options were evaluated against these criteria: Follow SWLRT Design Criteria, including criteria […]
This week’s New York Times Sunday magazine is devoted to the subject of walking in New York City. While most of the articles are personal narratives or think pieces, “How Do We Protect New York City’s Pedestrians?” is the best thing I’ve ever read on ped-auto conflict and how a shift in engineering philosophy can […]
The March 7 schedule change is pretty quiet, mostly small schedule adjustments by Metro Transit. The most noticeable was faster running time on both light rail lines. The Blue and the Green Lines are now 3 minutes faster each way and more reliably on time, thanks primarily to better traffic signal timing. The Green Line’s […]
Since Metro Transit purchased the privately-owned Twin City Lines in 1970, it has begun serving some of the many transit travel markets neglected by TCL’s downtown-oriented network of local bus routes. The first step was to extend those local routes to suburban shopping centers and residential areas. Simultaneously a very large system of rush hour expresses for […]
There was a time when buses and trains connected the Twin Cities with every corner of Greater Minnesota. The trains are gone except for Amtrak’s Empire Builder, which has become quite unreliable and inconveniently runs west of Minneapolis in the wee hours. Except for its express link to Chicago via Eau Claire and Madison, Greyhound […]
Who doesn’t long for a neighborhood store — or three — within walking distance of their home? Classic corner stores are all over Minneapolis, so support them!