James Schoettler • September 26, 2020 Summary: Modern Streetcar will not work in Riverview Corridor On December 14, 2017, the Policy Advisory Committee (PAC, governing body) of the Riverview Corridor project (RC) adopted its Locally Preferred Alternative (LPA). See Policy Advisory Committee (PAC) Final Report LPA 02.2018 and Riverview Corridor Pre-Project Development Study, Final, Feb 2018. One of the provisions of […]
Monte Castleman • September 14, 2020 Nationwide Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) Interoperability has been an elusive goal for some time. In practical terms that would mean you’d be able to use your MnPASS transponder to pay tolls on a road trip to Chicago or in your rental car in Florida, and in turn, residents of those states would be able to […]
Aaron Isaacs • August 17, 2020 When Hennepin County prevented the BNSF and Canadian Pacific railroads from building a freight connection where their lines crossed in Crystal, that killed any chance of light rail sharing the BNSF right of way for seven miles through Golden Valley, Robbinsdale, Crystal and Brooklyn Park. That alignment is no longer available, so what now? I’d […]
Monte Castleman • August 13, 2020 This is Part Four in a loosely-related series of the evolution of retail and parking issues. Part One covered the alleged dislike of people for parking ramps and why it’s causing problems for the Shops of West End. Part Two covered the evolution of regional retail from downtown to lifestyle centers. Part Three compared several […]
Yesterday, we received the dismal news that the promised route for the Bottineau Blue Line light rail extension was only a dream, and that dream is now officially scuttled. What is more troubling is that $129 million in local, county, metro, and state funds were spent on engineering and planning the project when rail company […]
The City of Minneapolis recently approved agreements with two electric scooter operators, Bird and Lyft, under the Nice Ride nonprofit banner. Under the agreements, the two operators can each deploy 1,250 scooters, with a cap on scooters in Downtown. They also require a minimum number of scooters to be available in areas lacking last-mile transit […]
This year, prior to COVID-19, Nice Ride Minnesota promised to release 2,000 new electric-assist bikes. Those bikes arrived a few weeks ago, and we got a chance to test ride them. The new blue-wheeled bikes are on a promotional pricing right now, so all of my rides have been less than a dollar. During the […]
Metro Transit staff have penned an open letter to Metropolitan Council leadership demanding action in response to the killing of George Floyd and the series of subsequent protests. The letter, which was signed by 198 current and former Metro Transit employees and sent on June 26, points out that both its riders and its operators […]
This is the final entry of a three-part series detailing the rapid transit and regional rail requirements for the Twin Cities to become a transit-oriented, climate-neutral metropolitan region. The prior two weeks looked at rail rapid transit and bus rapid transit, respectively. This article will focus on regional rail in the Twin Cities and Greater […]
This is the second of a three-part series detailing the rapid transit and regional rail requirements for the Twin Cities to become a transit-oriented, climate-neutral metropolitan region. Last week covered rail rapid transit. Today’s entry focuses on bus rapid transit, while next week the final article will look at regional rail. The previous rapid transit and […]