The critical strategy of Cincinnati's subway was to move the center of downtown to Central Parkway, the big street that was built in place of the canal.  This is why the big money conspired to kill it.  Rochester's appears to have traveled directly through the center of downtown and so it was probably killed in order to keep the city or county from spending money on it and rather spend it prepping some site for some bigwig's company. 

 

In Cincinnati one of the big companies keeps harassing the streetcar because it takes public money into neighborhoods that they want spent on and around sites that they control. 

^Once again, the politics favoring the few kills a major benefit for the many.  Such is pure capitalism here in America.

 

One note: Rochester's heavy 3-wire catenary, insulators and lattice-type catenary support bridges, echo what exists on portions of Cleveland's close-in ROW developed by Van Swerningen interests. 

 

 

In Cincinnati one of the big companies keeps harassing the streetcar because it takes public money into neighborhoods that they want spent on and around sites that they control. 

 

That was also a big factor in the death of Cleveland's voter-approved subway. May Company, Higbee's and other Public Square real estate interests bribed the county commissioners to place such undue burdens on the subway that it couldn't be built. Had it, Playhouse Square would have become more wealthy, including Halle's, Sterling-Linder and other retailers. Albert Porter's engineering and political expertise was similarly invaluable as an accomplice in this caper.

Interesting.  Too bad that wasn't investigated.  It may have dwarfed Jimmy DiMora, esp. given the extreme negative impact it had on downtown... Playhouse Sq. has survived and is growing nicely.  But I sometime think of how bustling it would have been, with mid/high rise apts and retail, had there been a subway stop under it.

Red Line project passes a key federal hurdle

The proposed federal share of the light-rail project has dropped to 34%, requiring some creative financial planning for the $2.6 billion project

Mark Reutter  March 17, 2014 at 2:17 pm

 

The price is trending upward and proposed federal funding is down, but the biggest public works project in Baltimore’s history, the 14-mile Red Line, is still on track to start construction in 2015, the project’s chief planner tells The Brew.

 

Henry M. Kay, deputy administrator for planning and engineering at the Maryland Transit Administration, expressed optimism that the financial pieces of the $2.64 billion light-rail project are coming together.

 

This comes in the face of skepticism by critics that the Red Line has become prohibitively expensive as a result of a 3.4-mile tunnel proposed through downtown Baltimore and Fells Point.  The five underground stations proposed at Poppleton, Howard Street, Inner Harbor, Harbor East and Fells Point have added tens of millions of dollars to the line’s costs.

 

http://www.baltimorebrew.com/2014/03/17/red-line-project-passes-a-key-federal-hurdle/

^Wow, what a nice system and what a shame it went to waste. It just shows what some cities could, and did, do to develop a full-scale rapid transit system ... even as small as Rochester.  The fact this used and drained an unused canal reminds me of Cincinnati’s failed project, although unlike Cincy, Rochester actually saw their subway to term ... only to throw away just 3 decades later ... by Republicans, if memory serves from an article I once read.  And also like Cincy, the powers that be built a freeway on top of part of the ROW.  Damn shame…

 

It would interesting to catalog all of these missed opportunities and consider what these cities would be like if these had survived or come to fruition.

^Buckeye B, as frustrated as I get with RTA's not extending the Rapid, I sometimes need to remember the Cleveland could have easily been one of THOSE cities.  In fact, I believe the Shaker lines were once threatened with closure in the 1930s or 40s after the Van’s died.  That we built the rapid transit that we did, rescued and expanded on it, is a tribute to Cleveland’s foresight…This country's obviously had an ugly history w/r to transit that we've fortunately fought to overcome in recent history, with all the new LRT built/being built.

 

Anyone ever see the movie Silver Streak? (first PG movie I saw in the theater!)

 

Could take day or more to remove train cars from O'Hare station platform

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-ohare-train-crash-20140324,0,1750012.story

^This caught my eye:

 

Unlike other American rail lines, the CTA does not have an automated system in place to stop trains as they approach a station or other points along the track. DePaepe, however, said he did not fault the city for failing to have the upgraded service. “Transits are strapped,” he said. “There are systems that do stop trains, but usually it’s about money. The transit agencies do the best they can with what they have.”

Proposed taxing district for streetcar extensions shrinks

March 25

By LYNN HORSLEY

The Kansas City Star

 

 

The next round of Kansas City streetcar tracks probably will not reach all the way south to Brookside after all.

 

Vocal opposition to that extension flared up in recent months, and on Tuesday an advisory committee recommended that a proposed streetcar taxing district not include Brookside or Waldo.

 

http://www.kansascity.com/2014/03/25/4914711/proposed-taxing-district-shrinks.html

Here is an interesting article regarding the block-by-block return of automobile traffic to Main Street in downtown Buffalo. This summer, the 600 block will become the first where trains will share a single lane of traffic in each direction with cars, and construction is now starting on the 500 block. I think it will be good for the street and, in most ways, also good for Metro Rail. I have never liked the festival marketplace-era decorations that accompanied the opening of the transit mall in the mid-1980s and am glad that they are being removed.

 

The construction work is very disruptive to rail service, with headways increased to 20 minutes at all times and an unwieldy single-tracking arrangement in downtown.

 

http://buffalorising.com/2014/04/construction-watch-main-street-retraffic-project/

Great to hear that they're redoing all of that.  I'm not betting that Main St. will come roaring back in a year's time, but that pedestrian mall was a lesson illustrating that pedestrian streets don't work in mid-sized American cities. 

Great to hear that they're redoing all of that.  I'm not betting that Main St. will come roaring back in a year's time, but that pedestrian mall was a lesson illustrating that pedestrian streets don't work in mid-sized American cities. 

 

I don't think this is correct as a blanket statement. They are successful when short and well designed. Such as East 4th in Cleveland.

 

Even in smaller cities like Cuyahoga Falls they remain. The Front Street pedestrian mall is still ticking after 30+ years (I used to go to the movie theater there in the 80s to see Rocky Horror Picture Show).

This is more heavy rail, not light rail. But this is probably the best place to put this....

 

Chicago's $20 billion rail transit vision:

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/04/05/this-is-what-fantasy-plans-for-21st-century-public-transit-should-look-like/

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/21/arts/design/imagining-a-streetcar-line-along-the-waterfront.html?_r=0

Brooklyn to Queens, but Not by Subway

Imagining a Streetcar Line Along the Waterfront

 

here’s a wonderful term for the dirt trails that people leave behind in parks: desire lines.

 

Cities also have desire lines, marked by economic development and evolving patterns of travel. In New York, Manhattan was once the destination for nearly all such paths, expressed by subway tracks that linked Midtown with what Manhattanites liked to call the outer boroughs.

 

But there is a new desire line, which avoids Manhattan altogether.

 

It hugs the waterfronts of Brooklyn and Queens, stretching from Sunset Park past the piers of Red Hook, to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, through Greenpoint and across Newtown Creek, which separates the two boroughs, running all the way up to the Triborough Bridge in Astoria.

 

The desire line is now poorly served by public transit, even as millennials are colonizing Astoria, working in Red Hook, then going out in Williamsburg and Bushwick — or working at the Navy Yard, visiting friends in Long Island City and sleeping in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

 

They have helped drive housing developments approved or built along the Brooklyn waterfront, like the one by Two Trees at the former Domino Sugar Refinery. But this corridor isn’t only for millennials. It’s also home to thousands of less affluent New Yorkers struggling to get to jobs and join the work force.

 

 

 

 

For future streetcars, do transit agencies do any "lessons learned" assesments from other cities?

 

I live in New Orleans, and the street car is SO SLOW.  I literally walk 3 miles to downtown from my house faster than the streetcar travels the same path.  The main 3 things that slow it down are traffic lights (they do not have prioritized signaling), the time it takes to pay the fare, and the number of stops, like every 3 blocks.

 

During special events like Mardi Gras, they replace the streetcars with busses.  It is amazing how much quicker they are.  One of my friends who rides transit religiously calls it a tourist Merry-Go-Round. 

 

I know that just because the NOLA Canal streetcar is not managed well (not sure about the uptown line) does not mean that streetcars are fundamentally flawed.  What I hope is that when building new systems, we don't make the mistakes of other cities

For future streetcars, do transit agencies do any "lessons learned" assesments from other cities?

 

I live in New Orleans, and the street car is SO SLOW.  I literally walk 3 miles to downtown from my house faster than the streetcar travels the same path.  The main 3 things that slow it down are traffic lights (they do not have prioritized signaling), the time it takes to pay the fare, and the number of stops, like every 3 blocks.

 

During special events like Mardi Gras, they replace the streetcars with busses.  It is amazing how much quicker they are.  One of my friends who rides transit religiously calls it a tourist Merry-Go-Round. 

 

I know that just because the NOLA Canal streetcar is not managed well (not sure about the uptown line) does not mean that streetcars are fundamentally flawed.  What I hope is that when building new systems, we don't make the mistakes of other cities

 

seeks to identify best practices in regards to procurement, development and operation.

 

http://modernstreetcar.org/

 

Most of issues are operational issues signal preemption, POP proof of payment, and Traffic enforcement.

 

 

^Awesome, thanks!

The SunRail  opened to day. Orlando's Commuter rail system. I heard there was 40 min delays between trains, because of a huge turn out. It is free for the next 2 weeks.

 

http://www.wesh.com/news/sunrail-train-service-begins-in-central-florida/25751498#!G6mPL

My hometown Cedar Rapids, IA and Iowa City, Iowa are looking into the possibility of light rail connecting the two.  I doubt it will be happen anytime in the near future but it could.  I believe there is already a rail line between the two that isn't in use, called the CRANDIC (Cedar Rapids and Iowa City) Railway that could be converted.  There is about 5-8 miles of farm land, depending on where you are coming and going from, between the two areas. 

 

The 1-80 Interstate runs through Iowa City and I-380 runs from Cedar Rapids to Iowa City.  It is a 4 lane for from South Cedar Rapids by the Airport down to I-80 in Iowa City and is heavily traveled.  They are looking into adding another lane into each side between the two, but it would be very expensive, so light rail could be a much cheaper alternative.  About 420k people in the CSA. :

 

http://gaedit.cdr.dc.publicus.com/subject/news/state-to-study-public-transit-in-cedar-rapids-iowa-city-corridor-20140514

 

 

The "Green Line" urban light rail line connecting Minneapolis and St Paul opens tomorrow.

 

 

http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/263073721.html

Minny/St. Paul's Green Line has way to many street crossings to be effective for my tastes… It’s really a streetcar as opposed to true LRT.

(Based on viewing the video...)

 

The only area I felt there are excessive street crossings is while still inside downtown St. Paul.

Since the alternative would be to stop the line at the Capitol area instead of going all the way into downtown, I prefer the method they chose, even if it is heavy on stoppage time.

I can't believe they don't have full canopies for the stations in a city where temperatures regularly plunge below zero for four or five months out of the year.  This is a place with weather that is  about as nasty as Montreal but Montreal built a completely underground rapid transit system (including the maintenance facility) back in the 60s.   

I mean, look at this.  And they have the same station canopies as Los Angeles:

^-make sure to look at the historical averages there, last winter was particularly cold.

I'm still baffled as to why they didn't build full canopies in order to help break the wind.  If you have a car (and it starts) when it's -10 out, are you going to walk past your parked car a few blocks to one of these open stations?  I visited Montreal in January about 10 years ago and while the subway stations certainly weren't warm, it beat the hell out of what was going up on the surface. 

(Based on viewing the video...)

 

The only area I felt there are excessive street crossings is while still inside downtown St. Paul.

Since the alternative would be to stop the line at the Capitol area instead of going all the way into downtown, I prefer the method they chose, even if it is heavy on stoppage time.

 

Per the video: even in Minneapolis, it seemed like there were a lot of grade crossings, and stops for traffic lights... I recently was in LA and rode the Expo and Gold lines, and both those lines rode at street level a lot, and on a few occasions stopped for traffic lights.  But in LA many/most grade crossings had typical railroad electric train protected crossings with the red flashing lights and crossing gates which, of course, gave LRV's priority and allowed pretty high speeds.  At other portions, trains either elevated on concrete viaducts or went through depressed portions below street level in open cuts to avoid traffic ... It just seemed more of this should have been employed for the Twin Cities' Green Line, even though I recognize that even the just-opened Green line cost a whopping $1B even in its existing surface form.

 

I'm still baffled as to why they didn't build full canopies in order to help break the wind.  If you have a car (and it starts) when it's -10 out, are you going to walk past your parked car a few blocks to one of these open stations?  I visited Montreal in January about 10 years ago and while the subway stations certainly weren't warm, it beat the hell out of what was going up on the surface. 

 

Chicago has the exact same problem.  All we have are small "Heat Lamps" that barely work half the time.  Winter on an EL station sucks and only a few are enclosed.  The winds are probably worse here than in Montreal or Minneapolis too.

I'm still baffled as to why they didn't build full canopies in order to help break the wind.  If you have a car (and it starts) when it's -10 out, are you going to walk past your parked car a few blocks to one of these open stations?  I visited Montreal in January about 10 years ago and while the subway stations certainly weren't warm, it beat the hell out of what was going up on the surface. 

 

Chicago has the exact same problem.  All we have are small "Heat Lamps" that barely work half the time.  Winter on an EL station sucks and only a few are enclosed.  The winds are probably worse here than in Montreal or Minneapolis too.

 

I agree.  The El stations in Chicago are definitely worse.  They're elevated in the middle of the wind tunnel streets and the walls of the heat lamp areas are metal mesh.

 

MSP actually uses glass which helps cut down the wind and a few of the higher use stops actually have glass enclosed rooms you can stand in.  It's not optimal, but it seems to work. 

 

I was frustrated to see all of the stops at stoplights in the video too.  I thought they had signal priority...so maybe the system wasn't operating at the time of the video filming?  If it really has to stop twice at every stop, that's a major deficiency.  I'll be going to Minneapolis later this summer and I'll have to give a full inspection then.

 

 

^^^ There is signal priority.  That was filmed from a test train before the line opened. 

Minny/St. Paul's Green Line has way to many street crossings to be effective for my tastes… It’s really a streetcar as opposed to true LRT.

 

It Downtown, either go around it, under it over it, or through it.

 

they went througt it, the other alternatvies would have drastically increased cost and resulted in a shortened Line.

 

I think the proper choice was made.

 

(Based on viewing the video...)

 

The only area I felt there are excessive street crossings is while still inside downtown St. Paul.

Since the alternative would be to stop the line at the Capitol area instead of going all the way into downtown, I prefer the method they chose, even if it is heavy on stoppage time.

 

agreed, can't let perfect be the enemy of good.

 

 

I can't believe they don't have full canopies for the stations in a city where temperatures regularly plunge below zero for four or five months out of the year.  This is a place with weather that is  about as nasty as Montreal but Montreal built a completely underground rapid transit system (including the maintenance facility) back in the 60s.   

 

This route is shared with exsiting hiawatha Line, which they use heated stops in the winter.  the point I want to makes is that if you have frequent service ( and they do) you aren't expected to spend much time at the station, use the money for something important like more trains.

on a simlar note

 

City lab: Austin Wants to Build a Light Rail-Streetcar Hybrid

 

Austin Urban Rail couples the best part of streetcar and light-rail transit to connect urban and suburban commuters.

 

It could be the teaser for a sweet new Ford pickup: Tighter turning for city driving. Faster speeds for country commuting. But Austin's new hybrid project is meant to get drivers out of their vehicles.

 

Last month, Austinites got a first look at Austin Urban Rail, the light-rail project at the heart of a high-capacity transit vision for Central Texas. The 9.5-mile track extends from East Riverside Drive north over Lady Bird Lake (via a new, to-be-constructed bridge) through east downtown to Highland Mall north of the city.

 

The project is expected to cost $1.4 billion (in 2020 dollars). That figure includes estimated costs for design services as well as vehicle and right-of-way acquisitions. The vehicles that Austin will get are something new, according to Kyle Keahey, vice president for HNTB and urban rail project lead.

 

"Light-rail manufacturers want to improve their vehicles to compete in the streetcar arena," Keahey says.

 

Austin's urban-rail cars will be designed to accommodate the tighter turning radii of a streetcar as well as the higher speeds of light rail. Keahey, who headed up the Project Connect effort responsible for the plan, says that the hybrid characteristic is crucial to "address some of the congestion elements that are anathema to Austin."

 

 

This type of thinking can make it possible to extend the Blue line to university Circle.

 

on a simlar note

 

City lab: Austin Wants to Build a Light Rail-Streetcar Hybrid

 

Austin Urban Rail couples the best part of streetcar and light-rail transit to connect urban and suburban commuters.

 

It could be the teaser for a sweet new Ford pickup: Tighter turning for city driving. Faster speeds for country commuting. But Austin's new hybrid project is meant to get drivers out of their vehicles.

 

Last month, Austinites got a first look at Austin Urban Rail, the light-rail project at the heart of a high-capacity transit vision for Central Texas. The 9.5-mile track extends from East Riverside Drive north over Lady Bird Lake (via a new, to-be-constructed bridge) through east downtown to Highland Mall north of the city.

 

The project is expected to cost $1.4 billion (in 2020 dollars). That figure includes estimated costs for design services as well as vehicle and right-of-way acquisitions. The vehicles that Austin will get are something new, according to Kyle Keahey, vice president for HNTB and urban rail project lead.

 

"Light-rail manufacturers want to improve their vehicles to compete in the streetcar arena," Keahey says.

 

Austin's urban-rail cars will be designed to accommodate the tighter turning radii of a streetcar as well as the higher speeds of light rail. Keahey, who headed up the Project Connect effort responsible for the plan, says that the hybrid characteristic is crucial to "address some of the congestion elements that are anathema to Austin."

 

 

This type of thinking can make it possible to extend the Blue line to university Circle.

 

 

Are you at all familiar with the Shaker Square area?

 

This route is shared with exsiting hiawatha Line, which they use heated stops in the winter.  the point I want to makes is that if you have frequent service ( and they do) you aren't expected to spend much time at the station, use the money for something important like more trains.

 

So the multi-lined section, with the most service of all, will have heaters but not the area with less service?

 

 

Every single station in the system has heaters.  Even most of the bus shelters have heaters.  According to Metro Transit, they install heat lamps when a shelter regularly meets 80 boardings per day.

Yikes!! 1.4B for 9.5 miles of rail in a small market?? I though Honolulu's system was expensive. lol It just goes to show. Build these system now while they are cheap.

I wouldn't say Austin is a small market.  It is more than double Honolulu's population (856K city, 1.9M metro area) and is Cleveland sized in metro pop., which actually justifies an even larger system than they're planning.  And that includes the diesel commuter LRT line they already have... 

 

Honolulu's new rail system is somewhat extravagant for it's size -- by American standards, anyway.  The Hawaiian capital of 953,000 residents (metro area) is spending $5.16 billion for a 20-mile fully elevated, high-platform, 3rd-rail rapid transit network... But Honolulu is hilly, has tight geographical constrictions and pockets of high density (and horrible traffic)... I say more power to them.  Their rail system is a gutsy move imho...

 

 

This route is shared with existing hiawatha Line, which they use heated stops in the winter.  the point I want to makes is that if you have frequent service ( and they do) you aren't expected to spend much time at the station, use the money for something important like more trains.

 

So the multi-lined section, with the most service of all, will have heaters but not the area with less service?

 

AFAIK they have a simple formula for all bus and rails stations, if greater than X number of people use A stop, it would/should get a heater. 

 

GCRTA uses something similar when determining where shelters go.

 

Every single station in the system has heaters.  Even most of the bus shelters have heaters.  According to Metro Transit, they install heat lamps when a shelter regularly meets 80 boardings per day.

 

what he said.

 

I wouldn't say Austin is a small market.  It is more than double Honolulu's population (856K city, 1.9M metro area) and is Cleveland sized in metro pop., which actually justifies an even larger system than they're planning.  And that includes the diesel commuter LRT line they already have... 

 

For the record that DMU is not light rail, it is commuter rail. I want to highlight the differences.

operates every 30 minutes

32 mile route

9 stations

only operates on weekdays

operates between 7am to~7pm

 

Ridership of 2,400 per day

 

In contrast: The Green line in the Twin cities

peak frequencies of 10 minutes

18 stations

9.8 mile route

operates weekdays and weekends

operates between 4am to~3am

 

Ridership of 40,000 per day by 2030

 

Honolulu's new rail system is somewhat extravagant for it's size -- by American standards, anyway.  The Hawaiian capital of 953,000 residents (metro area) is spending $5.16 billion for a 20-mile fully elevated, high-platform, 3rd-rail rapid transit network... But Honolulu is hilly, has tight geographical constrictions and pockets of high density (and horrible traffic)... I say more power to them.  Their rail system is a gutsy move imho...

 

the intresting thing about honolulu is the system is completley automated, with POP and Driver-less trains, once built should be really inexpensive to operate.

Yikes!! 1.4B for 9.5 miles of rail in a small market?? I though Honolulu's system was expensive. lol It just goes to show. Build these system now while they are cheap.

 

our 6 mile red line extension looks to cost about a 1 billion dollars too.

on a simlar note

 

City lab: Austin Wants to Build a Light Rail-Streetcar Hybrid

 

Austin Urban Rail couples the best part of streetcar and light-rail transit to connect urban and suburban commuters.

 

It could be the teaser for a sweet new Ford pickup: Tighter turning for city driving. Faster speeds for country commuting. But Austin's new hybrid project is meant to get drivers out of their vehicles.

 

Last month, Austinites got a first look at Austin Urban Rail, the light-rail project at the heart of a high-capacity transit vision for Central Texas. The 9.5-mile track extends from East Riverside Drive north over Lady Bird Lake (via a new, to-be-constructed bridge) through east downtown to Highland Mall north of the city.

 

The project is expected to cost $1.4 billion (in 2020 dollars). That figure includes estimated costs for design services as well as vehicle and right-of-way acquisitions. The vehicles that Austin will get are something new, according to Kyle Keahey, vice president for HNTB and urban rail project lead.

 

"Light-rail manufacturers want to improve their vehicles to compete in the streetcar arena," Keahey says.

 

Austin's urban-rail cars will be designed to accommodate the tighter turning radii of a streetcar as well as the higher speeds of light rail. Keahey, who headed up the Project Connect effort responsible for the plan, says that the hybrid characteristic is crucial to "address some of the congestion elements that are anathema to Austin."

 

This type of thinking can make it possible to extend the Blue line to university Circle.

 

 

Are you at all familiar with the Shaker Square area?

 

yes, I am.

 

Thus the use of a streetcar hybrid makes sense there, while conventional LRT doesn't.

 

mini vehcle specs

top speed of 50Mph

minimum curve radius of 18m vs 25m today

maximum gradient of 8.%

 

change the specs and you can relax the infrastructure required for the vehicle to operate

I wouldn't say Austin is a small market.  It is more than double Honolulu's population (856K city, 1.9M metro area) and is Cleveland sized in metro pop., which actually justifies an even larger system than they're planning.  And that includes the diesel commuter LRT line they already have... 

 

For the record that DMU is not light rail, it is commuter rail. I want to highlight the differences.

operates every 30 minutes

32 mile route

9 stations

only operates on weekdays

operates between 7am to~7pm

 

Ridership of 2,400 per day

 

In contrast: The Green line in the Twin cities

peak frequencies of 10 minutes

18 stations

9.8 mile route

operates weekdays and weekends

operates between 4am to~3am

 

Ridership of 40,000 per day by 2030

 

Honolulu's new rail system is somewhat extravagant for it's size -- by American standards, anyway.  The Hawaiian capital of 953,000 residents (metro area) is spending $5.16 billion for a 20-mile fully elevated, high-platform, 3rd-rail rapid transit network... But Honolulu is hilly, has tight geographical constrictions and pockets of high density (and horrible traffic)... I say more power to them.  Their rail system is a gutsy move imho...

 

the intresting thing about honolulu is the system is completley automated, with POP and Driver-less trains, once built should be really inexpensive to operate.

 

Then I guess Honolulu's system will be similar to Vancouver's SkyTrain, which is also 3rd rail, high-platform and driver-less, but uses the linear induction traction process, which I don't completely understand technically.  If I'm not mistaken, Detroit's People Mover uses similar technology but on a smaller scale.

I'm sure being elevated brings the costs up considerably. Cheaper than underground though.

I'm sure being elevated brings the costs up considerably. Cheaper than underground though.

 

you cannot operate "robot" trains with at grade intersections, it has to be Completely grade separated.

 

 

All Aboard Ohio ‏@AllAboardOhio  2m

Commonwealth of Virginia commits $65 million for Columbia Pike streetcar; avoids federal $$ & saves construction time http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/23556/virginia-commits-to-fund-the-columbia-pike-streetcar/

http://www.twincities.com/transportation/ci_26182761/green-lines-first-month-ridership-beats-estimates

 

Green Line's first-month ridership beats estimates

By Frederick Melo

 

[email protected]

POSTED:  07/19/2014

After a month in operation, ridership on Metro Transit's new Green Line continues to beat projections.

 

Across four weeks, the average weekday ridership on the state's second light-rail line was 30,264 passengers, putting it almost on par with the Blue Line.

 

The numbers are considered preliminary until an official monthly audit is complete.

 

The Green Line, which debuted June 14, travels 11 miles across 23 stations between downtown St. Paul and downtown Minneapolis. Planners with the Metropolitan Council predicted it would carry 27,500 weekday riders in 2015.

 

In 2013, daily weekday ridership on the Blue Line, which connects Minneapolis to the Mall of America in Bloomington, averaged 30,585 rides. The Blue Line began service in 2004.

 

Not including opening weekend, when rides were free, the Green Line's average weekend ridership was 24,269 for the month. A free July 12 concert at the University of Minnesota boosted turnout.

 

"We had a great response to the Imagine Dragons concert at TCF Bank Stadium during all-star week," said John Siqveland, a spokesman for Metro Transit. "We counted 1,500 people per hour getting on trains between 4:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., when the concert got underway."

Tucson streetcar up and running:

 

 

Seems like it has a lot more turns that Cincinnati's.

^ Looks like it has some dedicated right-of-way too.

Tucson streetcar up and running:

 

 

Seems like it has a lot more turns that Cincinnati's.

 

That line is beautiful and huge.  Bravo Tucson!  It sounds like they built the deluxe version of a Maintenance and Operations Facility too.  Where didi all of their funding come from?