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Arterial Transitways Public Meetings

Fri, 09/30/2011 - 9:53am | by apbauman
A system someday

Metro Transit is holding three public meetings in October to discuss/present/solicit comment on their study of concepts for Arterial Transitways.  Mark your Calendar for these dates:

Tuesday, Oct. 11 - 6 to 8 p.m.

Metro State University, Founders Hall
700 E. 7th St., St. Paul

Nearby bus routes: 61, 63 and 74

Wednesday, Oct. 12, 6 to 8 p.m.

Midtown Global Market, basement meeting room920 E. Lake St., Suite G10, Minneapolis

Nearby bus routes: 5, 21, 27, 39  and 53

Thursday, Oct. 13, 11 a.m. to 12:45 p.m.

Central Library, Doty Board Room, N-280
300 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis

The library is served by many local and express bus routes. Find your route with the Trip Planner.

They also have a nice summary pdf on their website, and an email address if you can't wait for the meetings to comment.

What is an Arterial Transitway?  Finding an answer to that question is actually what Metro Transit is doing with this study.  It will probably be more like the existing bus system than the Cedar BRT, but they also appear to have enlarged their subject of study to include the streetcars being studied by Minneapolis.  It will almost certainly involve wider stop spacing, upgraded stations with maps and ticket machines, and signal priority. 

For more info about Arterial Transitways, check out chapter 7 of the Met Council's 2030 Transporation Policy Plan (25 MB!), or else Human Transit is a great source of info on the topic.

 

 

 

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Comments

by mhicks | Fri, 09/30/2011 - 1:38pm

Thanks, Alex.  I saw a note

Thanks, Alex.  I saw a note about this yesterday but hadn't come across Metro Transit's page (Wow, they have a page on it on their own website!  Too bad such things tend to disappear during the occasional redesign...).  Interesting to see the overlap between these study routes and others that have been bandied about for streetcars.  Good to see the "American" corridor included, though I feel that there are a few important spots which aren't on this map.  Am I being selfish to want to see at least part of the 3 (Como Ave) on here?  Or how about Grand Ave?  They also really ought to (re)connect the 84 (Snelling) to the West 7th line somehow.

by mhicks | Fri, 09/30/2011 - 1:45pm

Oh, and I should say that I

Oh, and I should say that I really hope there's some coordination going on here between Metro Transit, Minneapolis, and any other relevant entities.  Since these ideas have taken so long to percolate, I don't want any of the coordination to slow anything down, but it is important to avoid duplication of effort and prevent things from being built that will only get torn out a few years later.  What can be done quickly that won't interfere with future projects?  How can we build stuff that can either be reused in future projects -- or at least, how can things be built cheap enough to balance being good improvements now and yet not become a big loss if they do need to be ripped out later.

by apbauman | Fri, 09/30/2011 - 3:14pm

St Paul gaps

I got the sense from MTC's summary pdf that they're trying to coordinate their study with Mpls' streetcar planning efforts.  Because the segments being considered for streetcar in the short-term are so, um, short, I don't see them as necessarily conflicting if MTC decides to upgrade the same corridor. We'll learn the details at the public meetings hopefully.

It's funny how imbalanced the Arterial network looks when you separate it from the "rapid" transitways.  I for one would prefer that the 84 be extended to the south rather than the west, then I'd think it would be fairly simple to extend one of the lines that terminates in Highland Park to the east.  Regarding the 3, I've been toying with the idea of splitting off the Front leg into a segment of a new Fairview line, and then tying the rest of the 3 to the 64 for a mega-crosstown.  I would think the 3-64 would definitely justify enhanced bus treatments.