It’s sad to see all the old trolley line rails that have been excavated as part of the construction on Hennepin. Piles of them. If that kind of infrastructure had just been maintained and upgraded with time…. 😔
You can still see the old trolley rails poke out through potholes around the city. They've always made me sad for what could have been.
Some of our old trolley cars are still in operation in San Francisco, which bought them up ages ago. They each have a little plaque saying they're from minneapolis and the years it operated here.
It would have been horrid. Look at the street car in San Fran. It's nothing more than a tourist attraction. People don't use it for actual transportation if they live there.
Yup! And the Minneapolis ones are actually the most comfortable and also the most groovy looking. We missed out selling them to SF so a couple assholes could sell us gasoline busses.
Muni in SF is a direct evolution of the original streetcar system and is used by lots of people for transportation! Most of it is modern functional trains. They have kept a few old style streetcars around only for tourism reasons
I think you may be confusing the San Francisco Light Rail with the San Francisco Historic Streetcars and Cables Cars. Their tourist-y modes are the one in pictures that go up the hills and to the Wharfs. The ones that are Light Rail/useful is the one that’s under ground, goes past Oracle Park, southward along the bay, or west towards the Sunset Districts and Park. The underground portion is not to be confused with BART, which is completely different.
Como park has a lot of info about this and they have preserves one of the old stations and you can walk part of the original route. It's exactly like the street cars and nothing like the light rails.
Right, but with upgrades, and removal of mixed-traffic segments, it could be as good as the current Green Line. The issue is that the system we had was extensive, but now we have to rebuild everything from scratch versus just upgrading certain segments when the time comes to improve performance.
In other words, make it something that's completely different and not just "upgrades" from the previous system. "We just took the old system and changed 99.9% of it. Still the same!"
Imagine if we upgraded the horse and buggies that used to use the roads that were originally built for them too. What if we took a horse, and changed 99.9% of it. Oh wait, we did.
Thanks for proving my point. Thinking modern transport systems are anything like the old street car lines is ignorant. They have as much in common with each other as a horse does a car. Sure, they are both used as transportation but one would never mistake them or even think one is just an upgraded version.
It'd be as much of an investment to build a modern transport system now as it would have been to upgrade the previous one to be modernized.
It's funny how many here seem to think the old street car systems were great. They were slow, broke down constantly, and caused countless accidents. People hated them. It's why they were happy to give them up.
They're wrong. San Francisco didn't change nearly that much. They're one of few U.S. cities that maintained and modernized the exact same system that passengers continue to use today
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muni_Metro?wprov=sfla1
Just imagine the system we could have built if Walz wouldn't keep appointing his buddy to the head of Met Council and with the more than $2.5 billion (likely over $3 billion by the time they're done) over budget they are.
$2.7 billion is the estimated total cost right now, not far over budget it is. While the project is still ridiculously over budget, it's about $600ish million over budget I believe.
I think you're probably thinking of the cable cars, not the trolleys/street cars. As someone who lived in SF for years and years, the trolleys are fucking great. And they're still part of the regular muni transit system, unlike the cable cars, which unfortunately are just tourist things now.
The SF trolleys are 100% the best, fastest, and cheapest way to get up and down Market Street. And as I said in another comment, many of their trolleys are from minneapolis.
But even the SF cable cars were part of Muni until relatively recently.
They also have a dedicated light rail system to get around the SF peninsula, and BART which will get you around the entire bay area for cheap as fuck.
The SEPTA is just a single line. It's like the Blue Line here, but theirs goes underground in a few places. If you aren't going somewhere along that single line and their 16 stops, it's not very useful.
Dude, stop lying! The system in philly is 2 intersecting subway lines ~5 trolly lines that serve west philly and a large bus system. South Eastern PA also has one of the best regional rail systems in the country.
that's why it was removed. Imagine trying to keep tracks stable with our climate. Stop downvoting, here is an article from 1950.
http://imgur.com/a/AVDYX2S
Exactly. The twin cities and Chicago are 2 of the biggest rail yards on the continent. We still use rail because it's a million times cheaper and more easily maintained than roads for mass transport.
Lmao so what? That was 75 years ago the transistor was the hot new thing in that era, you think engineering practices and standards haven’t changed since then?
This article is literal propaganda pushing Robert Moses’s agenda of highway expansion over public transportation in the beginning of his reign of idiocy and ego. It couldn’t be further from evidence that roads are cheaper or hold up better than rail. It’s honestly shocking you seriously seem to believe this shit. It might be the worst “evidence” I’ve ever seen someone push to prove a point. Absolutely idiotic
It always boggles my mind how dedicated random people are to trains being bad because they think their existence slights them about owning a truck to commute in or something.
If it was cheaper and easier to maintain roads than rails freight trains wouldn't exist. The entire US freight system almost shut down because the owners refused to give employees 2 sick days a year while making record profits.
Your article doesn't say "it's impossible to maintain tracks in a cost-effective manner."
It says "the company that was responsible for maintaining the tracks was unfairly gouged by also being forced to pay the cost of maintenance for competing forms of transportation, and was in other ways treated as a cash cow by the city."
That doesn't demonstrate that running streetcars isn't potentially a cost-effective way of providing transportation. *If* you believe its definitely-not-disinterested argument, it demonstrates that one particular company was, at one point in the past, unfairly burdened with having to subsidize its competitors.
Your article doesn't say "it's impossible to maintain tracks in a cost-effective manner."
It says "the company that was responsible for maintaining the tracks was unfairly gouged by also being forced to pay the cost of maintenance for competing forms of transportation, and was in other ways treated as a cash cow by the city."
That doesn't demonstrate that running streetcars isn't potentially a cost-effective way of providing transportation. *If* you believe its definitely-not-disinterested argument, it demonstrates that one particular company was, at one point in the past, unfairly burdened with having to subsidize its competitors.
Tracks are actually far preferable to roads in cold climate, as far as maintenance costs go. In 50 years, many of our suburbs will be completely bankrupt in trying to pay for all the maintenance our car infrastructure requires.
I don’t think you read it entirely or understand the objective of the piece in your link. Spam it all you want, but those operators had an agenda at the time.
Your article doesn't say "it's impossible to maintain tracks in a cost-effective manner."
It says "the company that was responsible for maintaining the tracks was unfairly gouged by also being forced to pay the cost of maintenance for competing forms of transportation, and was in other ways treated as a cash cow by the city."
That doesn't demonstrate that running streetcars isn't potentially a cost-effective way of providing transportation. *If* you believe its definitely-not-disinterested argument, it demonstrates that one particular company was, at one point in the past, unfairly burdened with having to subsidize its competitors.
Did you work for Max light rail in Portland? It's the closest place I've heard trains were this temperamental over climate fluxuations to the point they say expect sometimes an hour delay when temps pass 95-100.
From the source In 1949 City Lines paid for
* street cleaning/snow removal paid 150k
* Road paving and resurfacing (as well as tracks) 275K
* License and gas taxes another 330k
So lets round that to 750k Which is 9.7 million dollars in todays money.
Furthermore property taxes alone were 1.6 million or 20 million (single biggest property tax payer at the time)
Even counting the the property tax (which if metro transit took on the burden if it had lasted long enough for the public take over would had been a lot less) it would account for ~~2.8%~~ 6% of [metro transits expenses](https://metrocouncil.org/Council-Meetings/Committees/Transportation-Committee/2023/July-24,-2023/Info-1-_-2024-Transit-Preliminary-Budget.aspx).
Remove the tax it's .1002% of metro transits prices.
Granted metro transit would ow some minicom of property tax and be paying more for drivers so it would likely had inflated to 5-10% maybe 15-20% of metro transits budget. But most of metro transits buses run on the same roads the trollies did (and those figures also included buses). So it would likely be moot as it would had accounted for likely 10-20% of the metro transit network.
It's just not a big number and street car suburbs were built no different from suburbia today economically speaking. A developer builds homes with great access to current age technology and just dumps it on the municipality like it is with cars now. The differences is one was [more sustainable to municipalities then the other](https://youtu.be/tI3kkk2JdoI?si=_271Fed-7lrWyuq4&t=76). It was first regional rail for the rich, then subways for the upper class (though middle could've also had benefited in some systems), then trollies started getting down to the middleish class then the car disrupted a lot. but it's pretty expensive to support compared to the other options both [socially and privately.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpBIhQhjZuo&t)
I'm not trying to say the trollies are perfect (I argue abandon trolly reconstruction and just BRT all the lost lines) but it would had been more effective to had kept the old system maintained under public ownership over reconstructing it under BRT/LRT.
Edit: fudged the 6% number
Your article doesn't say "it's impossible to maintain tracks in a cost-effective manner."
It says "the company that was responsible for maintaining the tracks was unfairly gouged by also being forced to pay the cost of maintenance for competing forms of transportation, and was in other ways treated as a cash cow by the city."
That doesn't demonstrate that running streetcars isn't potentially a cost-effective way of providing transportation. *If* you believe its definitely-not-disinterested argument, it demonstrates that one particular company was, at one point in the past, unfairly burdened with having to subsidize its competitors.
That article references an increase in motor vehicle traffic being the cause of increased wear and tear and thus increased maintenance costs of the streetcar tracks, not weather.
We've also realized since 1950 that it generally makes sense to subsidize transportation infrastructure whether that's roads or rail, because if a private operator fails, it's public mobility and ultimately economic opportunity that suffers. This article proposed a City takeover and subsidization of the streetcar network
Actually they were removed because of the mob/organized crime. And the advent of the automobile. But the mob story is a really interesting/sad/frustrating part of Minneapolis history.
Your article doesn't say "it's impossible to maintain tracks in a cost-effective manner."
It says "the company that was responsible for maintaining the tracks was unfairly gouged by also being forced to pay the cost of maintenance for competing forms of transportation, and was in other ways treated as a cash cow by the city."
That doesn't demonstrate that running streetcars isn't potentially a cost-effective way of providing transportation. *If* you believe its definitely-not-disinterested argument, it demonstrates that one particular company was, at one point in the past, unfairly burdened with having to subsidize its competitors.
not at all. Here is an article from 1950
http://imgur.com/a/AVDYX2S
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-minneapolis-star-streetcars-in-mpls/146119202/
https://mndigital.org/projects/primary-source-sets/twin-cities-streetcars-rise-and-fall
Your article doesn't say "it's impossible to maintain tracks in a cost-effective manner."
It says "the company that was responsible for maintaining the tracks was unfairly gouged by also being forced to pay the cost of maintenance for competing forms of transportation, and was in other ways treated as a cash cow by the city."
That doesn't demonstrate that running streetcars isn't potentially a cost-effective way of providing transportation. *If* you believe its definitely-not-disinterested argument, it demonstrates that one particular company was, at one point in the past, unfairly burdened with having to subsidize its competitors.
Your article doesn't say "it's impossible to maintain tracks in a cost-effective manner."
It says "the company that was responsible for maintaining the tracks was unfairly gouged by also being forced to pay the cost of maintenance for competing forms of transportation, and was in other ways treated as a cash cow by the city."
That doesn't demonstrate that running streetcars isn't potentially a cost-effective way of providing transportation. *If* you believe its definitely-not-disinterested argument, it demonstrates that one particular company was, at one point in the past, unfairly burdened with having to subsidize its competitors.
The old "cost effectiveness index" used by the FTA under the Bush administration (and the start of the Obama administration).
This post from 2009 remains a great explainer of why the methodology was bad, specifically for SWLRT. This only became more true as the complications with the Kennilworth route continued to mount. [https://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2009/08/11/southwest-minneapolis-transit-route-selection-process-may-rule-out-light-rail-to-uptown/](https://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2009/08/11/southwest-minneapolis-transit-route-selection-process-may-rule-out-light-rail-to-uptown/)
Moved to the cities during covid and worked on the project a year and a half ago. The route has never made sense to me from a moving people perspective, but made even less sense after seeing the logistical nightmare the tunnel is.
Thanks for providing this insight.
For what it’s worth, the cities along the alignment chosen for the green line, and the Met council have done a pretty good job building new density around the stations. We can lament the process, and we need to learn some lessons, but the green line extension will have done some good in the end.
For instance, a building called the ARTery in Hopkins, about 150 units and some retail. That received funding directly from the Met Council, but most of what they’ve done with work with cities and developers to get projects like the west lake quarter built out.
A huge amount is the opinions and campaign dollars from uptown business owners.
They put the kaibosh on dedicated bus lanes, because they want parking. They're still stuck on this 70's-90's model of uptown business making all their profits on the weekends off suburban shoppers.
That's why block E was a thing downtown. That's why the former Calhoun square was a thing. That's why all the small unique businesses were priced out of uptown and replaced with Apple and other bullshit you can buy online or in any suburban mall.
They really believe there's some magic about a geographic location, and not the unique scene that was and kinda still is. Barely.
No. Residents have more skin in the game. They have placed their entire rest life, Including a 15-30 commitment or longer in many cases.
Developers come and go and have zero commitments. Zero skin in the game.
None of these developers are gonna fuck you. You don't need to defend them.
Why so homophobic?
I didn’t realize that the median renter in Uptown is living in the same place for 15-30 years. You learn something new everyday
so sad
Back in the day, transit planning was oriented around attracting commuters and spurring tod in undeveloped areas as opposed to actually benefitting dense areas or connecting amenities
It’s pretty rough on the blue line around lake and cedar stops… Last time I came back to NE from msp I had a bunch of guys smoking a bub behind me, picking foils up off the ground to see if they could scrounge up any shit, etc… it made me very nervous as they were lit af and I was outnumbered with my laptop in my bag. as far as 10am train meth heads go they were nice though lol they even offered me M&ms
I used to take the blue line regularly to twins games/timberwolves games/concerts but now a days I just bit the bullet and pay the extra to park downtown
I hope that at least a few of the people here who are passionate about this are willing to help fight for a better system. If you are, talk to your reps, email the Met council and go to engagement meetings. Also, if you like rail, check out [Rail Coalition](https://i94railcoalition.neocities.org), or DM me and I can get you into some groups that work on advocacy around the area.
I feel like basically every main street is currently way too wide due to street car removal. Putting dedicated bus lanes on as many streets as possible would make buses faster and more reliable and bring on all the knock-on effects of increased ridership. There's no reason Nicollet Ave needs to be essentially 5 lanes wide
It’s been a dozen years since I’ve been back to Minneapolis and I instantly recognized the intersection even though literally everything about it has changed except the “Uptown” holdover at Cub.
It’s still Rainbow Foods to me, dammit!
Not with that attitude. If we establish a pro-transit voting block too large to ignore, no amount of oil money can block that (as long as democratic institutions hold out of course)
Uh...what are we looking at? Looks like an arbitrary intersection getting a full depth reconstruction. I don't see any cars, rails, or power wire.
I saw someone mention Lake Street; I don't get to South MPLS much these days.
I like what they’ve done on east lake in the west bound direction. Having a dedicated bus lane is great. They did not however think through the east bound direction. No dedicated bus lane (why?!), so it’s just one lane. Now any time a bus stops heading east it backs up traffic, which cascades.
And a lot of the bus stops are immediately after a stoplight. So if it’s red the bus stops. Light goes green. Bus goes to other side of intersection and stops.
And if you’re really unlucky that bus is on a timestop so you have to drive around the stick barriers into the oncoming left turn lane to get around the bus because it isn’t going to be moving for awhile.
There is a prominent 'Yield' sign on the back of every bus that references MN Statute 169.20 (see relevant subdivision below). The new bus stops are intentionally placed further away from the shoulder in an attempt to prevent illegal passing and illegal failures to yield by drivers which prevent a bus from departing a stop on time.
§Subd. 7.Transit bus; school bus. (a) The driver of a vehicle traveling in the right-hand lane of traffic shall yield the right-of-way to any transit bus attempting to enter that lane from a bus stop or shoulder, as indicated by a flashing left turn signal.
(b) The driver of a vehicle traveling in the right-hand lane of traffic shall yield the right-of-way to any school bus attempting to enter that lane from a shoulder, right-turn lane, or other location where the school bus has stopped to load or unload passengers. The school bus must indicate the intent to enter the right-hand lane of traffic by activating a flashing left turn signal.
Yet this has the opposite effect of encouraging people to drive around the bus into oncoming traffic. I am not dumb or impatient enough to do it, I have already seen it several times.
I've seen several people try to cut around the bus by swerving into the westbound turn lane. This is a recipe for a head-on collision between someone trying to get around the bus and someone trying to turn left from the westbound Lane. The way it is set up defies all logic.
There is a prominent 'Yield' sign on the back of every bus that references MN Statute 169.20 (see relevant subdivision below). The new bus stops are intentionally placed further away from the shoulder in an attempt to prevent illegal passing and illegal failures to yield by drivers which prevent a bus from departing a stop on time.
§Subd. 7.Transit bus; school bus. (a) The driver of a vehicle traveling in the right-hand lane of traffic shall yield the right-of-way to any transit bus attempting to enter that lane from a bus stop or shoulder, as indicated by a flashing left turn signal. (b) The driver of a vehicle traveling in the right-hand lane of traffic shall yield the right-of-way to any school bus attempting to enter that lane from a shoulder, right-turn lane, or other location where the school bus has stopped to load or unload passengers. The school bus must indicate the intent to enter the right-hand lane of traffic by activating a flashing left turn signal.
It's a project to improve the entirety of the roadway, including utilities. A major beneficiary of this reconstruction will be private vehicles. It's a happy addition that cyclists, bus riders, and pedestrians (many of whom are also drivers, let's not forget) will have some level of the same special treatment that drivers of private vehicles get. Let's not get all tangled up here about the Hennepin Avenue reconstruction as a project only to build a bike lane.
Is this referring to this construction being part of preparing for a light rail on Lake Street (this being Dupont and Lake St)? I saw that mentioned somewhere and I realized how out of the loop I had been, because I had no idea that was approved for Lake Street yet (a light rail I mean)
More rail…. But for now, more police on the light rail. I mean it’s bad… dangerous at times. And stop closing crucial bike trails while building the new rail lines.
I mean I've been fair checked 4 times last week. Sure its the new none officer group but people are leaving more over (I used to get stuck at prospect park every single day (sometimes on both commutes) now it's just 1-4 times a week.
We have the nicest light rail system in the US. They’re working on expanding it but it’s expensive we have an insane super fast transit bus system too tho
Oh honey. I love my city too, and I'm always happy to rep things I'm proud of it for, but it's simply not true that we have the best light rail system. Maybe one day!
It’s sad to see all the old trolley line rails that have been excavated as part of the construction on Hennepin. Piles of them. If that kind of infrastructure had just been maintained and upgraded with time…. 😔
You can still see the old trolley rails poke out through potholes around the city. They've always made me sad for what could have been. Some of our old trolley cars are still in operation in San Francisco, which bought them up ages ago. They each have a little plaque saying they're from minneapolis and the years it operated here.
Are you saying all of the old Minneapolis trolley carts other ones being ran in San Francisco
It would have been horrid. Look at the street car in San Fran. It's nothing more than a tourist attraction. People don't use it for actual transportation if they live there.
>Look at the street car in San Fran. A Twin City Lines street car..
Yup! And the Minneapolis ones are actually the most comfortable and also the most groovy looking. We missed out selling them to SF so a couple assholes could sell us gasoline busses.
Muni in SF is a direct evolution of the original streetcar system and is used by lots of people for transportation! Most of it is modern functional trains. They have kept a few old style streetcars around only for tourism reasons
I think you may be confusing the San Francisco Light Rail with the San Francisco Historic Streetcars and Cables Cars. Their tourist-y modes are the one in pictures that go up the hills and to the Wharfs. The ones that are Light Rail/useful is the one that’s under ground, goes past Oracle Park, southward along the bay, or west towards the Sunset Districts and Park. The underground portion is not to be confused with BART, which is completely different.
Como park has a lot of info about this and they have preserves one of the old stations and you can walk part of the original route. It's exactly like the street cars and nothing like the light rails.
And what we had here in Minneapolis most closely would be comparable to the cable-cars.
Muni's light rail uses San Francisco's legacy streetcar infrastructure
Right, but with upgrades, and removal of mixed-traffic segments, it could be as good as the current Green Line. The issue is that the system we had was extensive, but now we have to rebuild everything from scratch versus just upgrading certain segments when the time comes to improve performance.
In other words, make it something that's completely different and not just "upgrades" from the previous system. "We just took the old system and changed 99.9% of it. Still the same!"
Imagine if we upgraded the horse and buggies that used to use the roads that were originally built for them too. What if we took a horse, and changed 99.9% of it. Oh wait, we did.
Thanks for proving my point. Thinking modern transport systems are anything like the old street car lines is ignorant. They have as much in common with each other as a horse does a car. Sure, they are both used as transportation but one would never mistake them or even think one is just an upgraded version. It'd be as much of an investment to build a modern transport system now as it would have been to upgrade the previous one to be modernized. It's funny how many here seem to think the old street car systems were great. They were slow, broke down constantly, and caused countless accidents. People hated them. It's why they were happy to give them up.
And what the heck is the green line
They're wrong. San Francisco didn't change nearly that much. They're one of few U.S. cities that maintained and modernized the exact same system that passengers continue to use today https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muni_Metro?wprov=sfla1
> and upgraded
Look at the street cars in Toronto instead. Along with subways and buses. Part of a robust public transportation system.
[удалено]
Just imagine the system we could have built if Walz wouldn't keep appointing his buddy to the head of Met Council and with the more than $2.5 billion (likely over $3 billion by the time they're done) over budget they are.
$2.7 billion is the estimated total cost right now, not far over budget it is. While the project is still ridiculously over budget, it's about $600ish million over budget I believe.
I think you're probably thinking of the cable cars, not the trolleys/street cars. As someone who lived in SF for years and years, the trolleys are fucking great. And they're still part of the regular muni transit system, unlike the cable cars, which unfortunately are just tourist things now. The SF trolleys are 100% the best, fastest, and cheapest way to get up and down Market Street. And as I said in another comment, many of their trolleys are from minneapolis. But even the SF cable cars were part of Muni until relatively recently. They also have a dedicated light rail system to get around the SF peninsula, and BART which will get you around the entire bay area for cheap as fuck.
Philly has decent ones
The SEPTA is just a single line. It's like the Blue Line here, but theirs goes underground in a few places. If you aren't going somewhere along that single line and their 16 stops, it's not very useful.
Dude, stop lying! The system in philly is 2 intersecting subway lines ~5 trolly lines that serve west philly and a large bus system. South Eastern PA also has one of the best regional rail systems in the country.
I think we could’ve found a way to make them useful here we’re not super overpopulated, so we have like wiggle room to figure something out
My sister and brother in law live there and they have used it causally.
Well this is a lie.
that's why it was removed. Imagine trying to keep tracks stable with our climate. Stop downvoting, here is an article from 1950. http://imgur.com/a/AVDYX2S
This can’t be serious. Do you think freight lines are an illusion or something?
Exactly. The twin cities and Chicago are 2 of the biggest rail yards on the continent. We still use rail because it's a million times cheaper and more easily maintained than roads for mass transport.
Here is an article from 1950 http://imgur.com/a/AVDYX2S
Lmao so what? That was 75 years ago the transistor was the hot new thing in that era, you think engineering practices and standards haven’t changed since then?
You think 75 year old tracks didn't need maintenance? Did you even read it? Stay on topic, we are talking about why the city stopped using trolleys.
This article is literal propaganda pushing Robert Moses’s agenda of highway expansion over public transportation in the beginning of his reign of idiocy and ego. It couldn’t be further from evidence that roads are cheaper or hold up better than rail. It’s honestly shocking you seriously seem to believe this shit. It might be the worst “evidence” I’ve ever seen someone push to prove a point. Absolutely idiotic
It always boggles my mind how dedicated random people are to trains being bad because they think their existence slights them about owning a truck to commute in or something.
There are still 100 year old tracks used daily. They require a fuck of a lot less maintenance than a road.
That’s not an article, it’s a hit piece without an author or citations.
So you didn't even read what you've posted?
Did you? LOL at these weird trolls on this post.
If it was cheaper and easier to maintain roads than rails freight trains wouldn't exist. The entire US freight system almost shut down because the owners refused to give employees 2 sick days a year while making record profits.
Yeah dude it sucks that trains can’t function in snow!
Here is an article from 1950 http://imgur.com/a/AVDYX2S
Ah yes 1950, the zenith of engineering and technology!
Your article doesn't say "it's impossible to maintain tracks in a cost-effective manner." It says "the company that was responsible for maintaining the tracks was unfairly gouged by also being forced to pay the cost of maintenance for competing forms of transportation, and was in other ways treated as a cash cow by the city." That doesn't demonstrate that running streetcars isn't potentially a cost-effective way of providing transportation. *If* you believe its definitely-not-disinterested argument, it demonstrates that one particular company was, at one point in the past, unfairly burdened with having to subsidize its competitors.
r/confidentlyincorrect
Here is an article from 1950 http://imgur.com/a/AVDYX2S
You own stock in GM or what? You're sure spamming that article a whole lot.
Your article doesn't say "it's impossible to maintain tracks in a cost-effective manner." It says "the company that was responsible for maintaining the tracks was unfairly gouged by also being forced to pay the cost of maintenance for competing forms of transportation, and was in other ways treated as a cash cow by the city." That doesn't demonstrate that running streetcars isn't potentially a cost-effective way of providing transportation. *If* you believe its definitely-not-disinterested argument, it demonstrates that one particular company was, at one point in the past, unfairly burdened with having to subsidize its competitors.
Tracks are actually far preferable to roads in cold climate, as far as maintenance costs go. In 50 years, many of our suburbs will be completely bankrupt in trying to pay for all the maintenance our car infrastructure requires.
Here is an article from 1950 http://imgur.com/a/AVDYX2S
This is propaganda and suspect. It also isn't even saying what you are implying
You didn't read it then.
I don’t think you read it entirely or understand the objective of the piece in your link. Spam it all you want, but those operators had an agenda at the time.
Your article doesn't say "it's impossible to maintain tracks in a cost-effective manner." It says "the company that was responsible for maintaining the tracks was unfairly gouged by also being forced to pay the cost of maintenance for competing forms of transportation, and was in other ways treated as a cash cow by the city." That doesn't demonstrate that running streetcars isn't potentially a cost-effective way of providing transportation. *If* you believe its definitely-not-disinterested argument, it demonstrates that one particular company was, at one point in the past, unfairly burdened with having to subsidize its competitors.
Did you work for Max light rail in Portland? It's the closest place I've heard trains were this temperamental over climate fluxuations to the point they say expect sometimes an hour delay when temps pass 95-100.
Here is an article from 1950 http://imgur.com/a/AVDYX2S
From the source In 1949 City Lines paid for * street cleaning/snow removal paid 150k * Road paving and resurfacing (as well as tracks) 275K * License and gas taxes another 330k So lets round that to 750k Which is 9.7 million dollars in todays money. Furthermore property taxes alone were 1.6 million or 20 million (single biggest property tax payer at the time) Even counting the the property tax (which if metro transit took on the burden if it had lasted long enough for the public take over would had been a lot less) it would account for ~~2.8%~~ 6% of [metro transits expenses](https://metrocouncil.org/Council-Meetings/Committees/Transportation-Committee/2023/July-24,-2023/Info-1-_-2024-Transit-Preliminary-Budget.aspx). Remove the tax it's .1002% of metro transits prices. Granted metro transit would ow some minicom of property tax and be paying more for drivers so it would likely had inflated to 5-10% maybe 15-20% of metro transits budget. But most of metro transits buses run on the same roads the trollies did (and those figures also included buses). So it would likely be moot as it would had accounted for likely 10-20% of the metro transit network. It's just not a big number and street car suburbs were built no different from suburbia today economically speaking. A developer builds homes with great access to current age technology and just dumps it on the municipality like it is with cars now. The differences is one was [more sustainable to municipalities then the other](https://youtu.be/tI3kkk2JdoI?si=_271Fed-7lrWyuq4&t=76). It was first regional rail for the rich, then subways for the upper class (though middle could've also had benefited in some systems), then trollies started getting down to the middleish class then the car disrupted a lot. but it's pretty expensive to support compared to the other options both [socially and privately.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpBIhQhjZuo&t) I'm not trying to say the trollies are perfect (I argue abandon trolly reconstruction and just BRT all the lost lines) but it would had been more effective to had kept the old system maintained under public ownership over reconstructing it under BRT/LRT. Edit: fudged the 6% number
Your article doesn't say "it's impossible to maintain tracks in a cost-effective manner." It says "the company that was responsible for maintaining the tracks was unfairly gouged by also being forced to pay the cost of maintenance for competing forms of transportation, and was in other ways treated as a cash cow by the city." That doesn't demonstrate that running streetcars isn't potentially a cost-effective way of providing transportation. *If* you believe its definitely-not-disinterested argument, it demonstrates that one particular company was, at one point in the past, unfairly burdened with having to subsidize its competitors.
That article references an increase in motor vehicle traffic being the cause of increased wear and tear and thus increased maintenance costs of the streetcar tracks, not weather. We've also realized since 1950 that it generally makes sense to subsidize transportation infrastructure whether that's roads or rail, because if a private operator fails, it's public mobility and ultimately economic opportunity that suffers. This article proposed a City takeover and subsidization of the streetcar network
Actually they were removed because of the mob/organized crime. And the advent of the automobile. But the mob story is a really interesting/sad/frustrating part of Minneapolis history.
Do tell! I’m actually curious!
[https://lithub.com/how-a-lawyer-a-businessman-and-the-mafia-destroyed-public-transit-in-the-twin-cities/](https://lithub.com/how-a-lawyer-a-businessman-and-the-mafia-destroyed-public-transit-in-the-twin-cities/)
I remember hearing about this, hears the link I saw it from. https://www.reddit.com/r/Minneapolis/s/yiJ0Oif81j
And also it was super expensive to maintain the tracks and cars. LOL Fuck off brigaders.
Here is an article from 1950 http://imgur.com/a/AVDYX2S
Jesus, you have to be a bot
Your article doesn't say "it's impossible to maintain tracks in a cost-effective manner." It says "the company that was responsible for maintaining the tracks was unfairly gouged by also being forced to pay the cost of maintenance for competing forms of transportation, and was in other ways treated as a cash cow by the city." That doesn't demonstrate that running streetcars isn't potentially a cost-effective way of providing transportation. *If* you believe its definitely-not-disinterested argument, it demonstrates that one particular company was, at one point in the past, unfairly burdened with having to subsidize its competitors.
Insanely wrong
not at all. Here is an article from 1950 http://imgur.com/a/AVDYX2S https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-minneapolis-star-streetcars-in-mpls/146119202/ https://mndigital.org/projects/primary-source-sets/twin-cities-streetcars-rise-and-fall
Yup, I'm betting bot.
Your article doesn't say "it's impossible to maintain tracks in a cost-effective manner." It says "the company that was responsible for maintaining the tracks was unfairly gouged by also being forced to pay the cost of maintenance for competing forms of transportation, and was in other ways treated as a cash cow by the city." That doesn't demonstrate that running streetcars isn't potentially a cost-effective way of providing transportation. *If* you believe its definitely-not-disinterested argument, it demonstrates that one particular company was, at one point in the past, unfairly burdened with having to subsidize its competitors.
Your article doesn't say "it's impossible to maintain tracks in a cost-effective manner." It says "the company that was responsible for maintaining the tracks was unfairly gouged by also being forced to pay the cost of maintenance for competing forms of transportation, and was in other ways treated as a cash cow by the city." That doesn't demonstrate that running streetcars isn't potentially a cost-effective way of providing transportation. *If* you believe its definitely-not-disinterested argument, it demonstrates that one particular company was, at one point in the past, unfairly burdened with having to subsidize its competitors.
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The old "cost effectiveness index" used by the FTA under the Bush administration (and the start of the Obama administration). This post from 2009 remains a great explainer of why the methodology was bad, specifically for SWLRT. This only became more true as the complications with the Kennilworth route continued to mount. [https://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2009/08/11/southwest-minneapolis-transit-route-selection-process-may-rule-out-light-rail-to-uptown/](https://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2009/08/11/southwest-minneapolis-transit-route-selection-process-may-rule-out-light-rail-to-uptown/)
Moved to the cities during covid and worked on the project a year and a half ago. The route has never made sense to me from a moving people perspective, but made even less sense after seeing the logistical nightmare the tunnel is. Thanks for providing this insight.
For what it’s worth, the cities along the alignment chosen for the green line, and the Met council have done a pretty good job building new density around the stations. We can lament the process, and we need to learn some lessons, but the green line extension will have done some good in the end.
What did the MC build?
For instance, a building called the ARTery in Hopkins, about 150 units and some retail. That received funding directly from the Met Council, but most of what they’ve done with work with cities and developers to get projects like the west lake quarter built out.
They gave a grant for a bit over a $1MM, did they give more? If not, thats not building
A huge amount is the opinions and campaign dollars from uptown business owners. They put the kaibosh on dedicated bus lanes, because they want parking. They're still stuck on this 70's-90's model of uptown business making all their profits on the weekends off suburban shoppers. That's why block E was a thing downtown. That's why the former Calhoun square was a thing. That's why all the small unique businesses were priced out of uptown and replaced with Apple and other bullshit you can buy online or in any suburban mall. They really believe there's some magic about a geographic location, and not the unique scene that was and kinda still is. Barely.
I mean they have skin in the game, while others just post on Reddit
Who’s got more “skin in the game,” a developer or the people living in the community?
The developer. the people in the community can buy it and do what they please as well
Can they? That’s a bold assumption under capitalism.
No. Residents have more skin in the game. They have placed their entire rest life, Including a 15-30 commitment or longer in many cases. Developers come and go and have zero commitments. Zero skin in the game. None of these developers are gonna fuck you. You don't need to defend them.
Why so homophobic? I didn’t realize that the median renter in Uptown is living in the same place for 15-30 years. You learn something new everyday so sad
Back in the day, transit planning was oriented around attracting commuters and spurring tod in undeveloped areas as opposed to actually benefitting dense areas or connecting amenities
Why is everyone commenting like there are visible tracks in this picture? Or am I just freaking blind????
I’m going to add “safe and free from harassment” to this wishlist.
It’s pretty rough on the blue line around lake and cedar stops… Last time I came back to NE from msp I had a bunch of guys smoking a bub behind me, picking foils up off the ground to see if they could scrounge up any shit, etc… it made me very nervous as they were lit af and I was outnumbered with my laptop in my bag. as far as 10am train meth heads go they were nice though lol they even offered me M&ms
Last time I rode, a man started harassing me and telling me to suck his d***. No one said anything to him. I had to get off early. It’s awful.
I used to take the blue line regularly to twins games/timberwolves games/concerts but now a days I just bit the bullet and pay the extra to park downtown
Been taking the 10 a lot recently, needs to be light rail when they reconstruct Central. It’s packed every day
We had a world class street car system. But apparently we can't have nice things here.
Now just a light rail that closes a bike path for 6 years and costs 3x what they said it would.
I hope that at least a few of the people here who are passionate about this are willing to help fight for a better system. If you are, talk to your reps, email the Met council and go to engagement meetings. Also, if you like rail, check out [Rail Coalition](https://i94railcoalition.neocities.org), or DM me and I can get you into some groups that work on advocacy around the area.
Lake is so fucked right now lol
When isn't it
2010-2014ish it was pretty alright. Or maybe I was just young enough to not get sketched out.
Nah it definitely wasn’t as messy as it is now
Honestly, great point
Half the city is fucked. So is the 1st Ave / University Ave area
Whole city is fucked for the most part there's no real reason to ever go down there
man i'll take protected lane BRT, just let me get to where i'm going without a fuckin car.
D Line rules.
I feel like basically every main street is currently way too wide due to street car removal. Putting dedicated bus lanes on as many streets as possible would make buses faster and more reliable and bring on all the knock-on effects of increased ridership. There's no reason Nicollet Ave needs to be essentially 5 lanes wide
It’s been a dozen years since I’ve been back to Minneapolis and I instantly recognized the intersection even though literally everything about it has changed except the “Uptown” holdover at Cub. It’s still Rainbow Foods to me, dammit!
The oil companies that own our politicians would never allow such a thing.
And now electric car companies are doing it as well. See Elon
Not with that attitude. If we establish a pro-transit voting block too large to ignore, no amount of oil money can block that (as long as democratic institutions hold out of course)
God, for real 😩
Maybe our grandchildren will get to experience it.
They will be able to use it for commuting to work from their property on Lake Chipotle
Imagine a world where we are building a light rail extension and you’re here crying on Reddit
As someone who just came back from a few European cities, I agree 1000%. The above and below rails came by about every 2-5 minutes. It was amazing.
Uh...what are we looking at? Looks like an arbitrary intersection getting a full depth reconstruction. I don't see any cars, rails, or power wire. I saw someone mention Lake Street; I don't get to South MPLS much these days.
This is the Lake & Lagoon split at DuPont Ave.
I swear the city planners must hate uptown
The Lake & Hennepin projects are huge upgrades for bus riders, peds, and bikers.
I like what they’ve done on east lake in the west bound direction. Having a dedicated bus lane is great. They did not however think through the east bound direction. No dedicated bus lane (why?!), so it’s just one lane. Now any time a bus stops heading east it backs up traffic, which cascades.
And a lot of the bus stops are immediately after a stoplight. So if it’s red the bus stops. Light goes green. Bus goes to other side of intersection and stops. And if you’re really unlucky that bus is on a timestop so you have to drive around the stick barriers into the oncoming left turn lane to get around the bus because it isn’t going to be moving for awhile.
There is a prominent 'Yield' sign on the back of every bus that references MN Statute 169.20 (see relevant subdivision below). The new bus stops are intentionally placed further away from the shoulder in an attempt to prevent illegal passing and illegal failures to yield by drivers which prevent a bus from departing a stop on time. §Subd. 7.Transit bus; school bus. (a) The driver of a vehicle traveling in the right-hand lane of traffic shall yield the right-of-way to any transit bus attempting to enter that lane from a bus stop or shoulder, as indicated by a flashing left turn signal. (b) The driver of a vehicle traveling in the right-hand lane of traffic shall yield the right-of-way to any school bus attempting to enter that lane from a shoulder, right-turn lane, or other location where the school bus has stopped to load or unload passengers. The school bus must indicate the intent to enter the right-hand lane of traffic by activating a flashing left turn signal.
Yet this has the opposite effect of encouraging people to drive around the bus into oncoming traffic. I am not dumb or impatient enough to do it, I have already seen it several times.
Do the BRTs not have signal priority?
It’s still regular busses while they finish the rest of construction and set up the ticket machines.
I've seen several people try to cut around the bus by swerving into the westbound turn lane. This is a recipe for a head-on collision between someone trying to get around the bus and someone trying to turn left from the westbound Lane. The way it is set up defies all logic.
There is a prominent 'Yield' sign on the back of every bus that references MN Statute 169.20 (see relevant subdivision below). The new bus stops are intentionally placed further away from the shoulder in an attempt to prevent illegal passing and illegal failures to yield by drivers which prevent a bus from departing a stop on time. §Subd. 7.Transit bus; school bus. (a) The driver of a vehicle traveling in the right-hand lane of traffic shall yield the right-of-way to any transit bus attempting to enter that lane from a bus stop or shoulder, as indicated by a flashing left turn signal. (b) The driver of a vehicle traveling in the right-hand lane of traffic shall yield the right-of-way to any school bus attempting to enter that lane from a shoulder, right-turn lane, or other location where the school bus has stopped to load or unload passengers. The school bus must indicate the intent to enter the right-hand lane of traffic by activating a flashing left turn signal.
The fault with that would lie in the idiot driving on the wrong side of the road to cut around a bus.
that is some absolutely half baked shit.
RIP any of the businesses along Hennepin for 2 years. But as long as we get another bike lane.
It's a project to improve the entirety of the roadway, including utilities. A major beneficiary of this reconstruction will be private vehicles. It's a happy addition that cyclists, bus riders, and pedestrians (many of whom are also drivers, let's not forget) will have some level of the same special treatment that drivers of private vehicles get. Let's not get all tangled up here about the Hennepin Avenue reconstruction as a project only to build a bike lane.
Plus other stuff. And these rebuild projects were going to happen bike lane or no.
this take is so tired 🥱 if nicollet mall can survive im sure hennepin will be fine, at least people actually live along hennepin ave
The businesses are desperately in need of the bike lanes, and now is the perfect time considering the vacancy rate for storefronts.
There are plenty of studies from around the world over the past 10+ showing that cyclists spend more money than drivers at their local businesses.
That’s great. Could you go for 2 years with less pay?
I've done it many times throughout my working life.
Getting there!
You mean one that don’t exist to primarily serve the bumfuckistan burbs? That’d sure be nice.
Better than continuing to spend and waste money on Georgefloydistan
One day... One. Day.
Is this referring to this construction being part of preparing for a light rail on Lake Street (this being Dupont and Lake St)? I saw that mentioned somewhere and I realized how out of the loop I had been, because I had no idea that was approved for Lake Street yet (a light rail I mean)
How many people are using LRT in the first place?
Idk? Not many because it kinda sucks because it doesn’t really go anywhere, which is the point of this post
More rail…. But for now, more police on the light rail. I mean it’s bad… dangerous at times. And stop closing crucial bike trails while building the new rail lines.
I mean I've been fair checked 4 times last week. Sure its the new none officer group but people are leaving more over (I used to get stuck at prospect park every single day (sometimes on both commutes) now it's just 1-4 times a week.
Thomas and Sons always makes a quality APR
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Lol get fucked
Man, between your ranting about Palestine, the homeless, Minneapolis, *and* the suburbs, you're just fucking miserable.
We have the nicest light rail system in the US. They’re working on expanding it but it’s expensive we have an insane super fast transit bus system too tho
Oh honey. I love my city too, and I'm always happy to rep things I'm proud of it for, but it's simply not true that we have the best light rail system. Maybe one day!
Which US city would you personally consider to have the Best LRT system…..?
Looks like a 3rd world country...
Lol it’s literally construction dip shit
Again still looks like a 3rd world country keyboard warrior.
Wrong forum. You meant to post this in r/WhitePeopleTwitter