Meet Minnesota’s $500-Million... 🚍 BUS???
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 มิ.ย. 2024
- Half a billion dollars sounds a little crazy when you hear it's for a BUS route. Join me on a trip to the Twin Cities, and let's look at all the BUS RAPID TRANSIT routes (Minnesota has a lot of them!) And see how this might end up being a really good deal for Minnesota financially.
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Sources and additional reading:
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"Gold Line Project," Metro Transit
www.metrotransit.org/gold-lin...
www.metrotransit.org/gold-lin...
www.metrotransit.org/gold-lin...
www.metrotransit.org/gold-lin...
www.metrotransit.org/gold-lin...
"D Line Project: Frequently Asked Questions," Metro Transit
www.metrotransit.org/d-line-faqs
"Ramsey County Rail Right-of-Way Design Guide," Rush Line BRT, 2020
www.metrotransit.org/Data/Sit...
"METRO Green Line, Minnesota," Railway Technology, 2016
www.railway-technology.com/pr...
"Gateway Corridor: Alternatives Analysis Final Report," Regional Railroad Authorities of Washington and Ramsey Counties, 2013
www.metrotransit.org/Data/Sit...
"Future Rapid Transit Network," Metro Transit
www.metrotransit.org/Data/Sit...
"METRO Green Line Fact Sheet," Metro Transit, 2014
www.metrotransit.org/data/sit...
"Minnesota Wants to Be the 'Bus Rapid Transit Capital of North America," Governing, 2022
www.governing.com/community/m...
"Renovated transit station opens at Mall of America," Minneapolis Star Tribune, 15 Oct 2019
www.startribune.com/renovated...
"Orange Line plans ready for comment," Finance and Commerce, 30 Apr 2014 via Metro Transit
www.metrotransit.org/Data/Sit...
"Mall of America: By the Numbers," Mall of America, 2016
www.mallofamerica.com/upload/...
"The Scorecard," Institute for Transportation & Development Policy
www.itdp.org/library/standard...
"Mall of America Transit Station," City of Bloomington
assets.senate.mn/committees/2...
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Time sections:
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Introduction (0:00)
Light Rail is Expensive (0:33)
BRT is Cheaper to Build (2:13)
Arterial BRT (3:10)
Freeway BRT (7:57)
Mall of America (9:14)
Guideway BRT (9:59)
Good Doesn't Have to Be Expensive (10:52) - ยานยนต์และพาหนะ
Your 0 degrees Celsius/Fahrenheit/Kelvin joke was highly appreciated.
Yeah and school will only delay once we reach 0K
The best thing about heated bus stops is that it gives the homeless somewhere to flock when it's cold.
of course the true Minnesota joke is that -40 does not need to specify C of F.
I legitimately laughed at that.
The degree symbol before the kelvin was a miss, but beside that is was indeed nice.
You know why this is a good idea?
Because you're basically building light rail infrastructure in advance. In a few decades when the economic growth helped by your bus services enables the municipality to afford it, you can just replace those "arterial buses" with trams and light rail without having to fuck about with routing.
Yeah, I was hoping he might bring up that fact.
I wonder if the roads and bridges are being built in such a way as to allow easy transition to rail - already having accounted for load bearing, etc?
@@Quidisibridges nowadays are way overly designed so I’m pretty sure they thought about that, they’ll be able to screw the railway sleepers into the concrete and they’d be done, only the parts that have asphalt would need to be removed for track laying.
If you're overbuilding the infrastructure to support later use by rail, you don't realize the cost savings that caused them to go with BRT to begin with. I seriously doubt those overpasses could really support any type of rail.
as long as bus service is properly funded... the city I live in (Ottawa, Ontario) has had a system very similar to what they're building for decades. I was riding light rail & taking transitway bus routes (dedicated bus-only roads like they're building in this video) when I was in university 20 years ago. Today through constant fare increases and an absolute refusal from council to actually use tax dollars to fund the transit system, our bus system has become a national embarrassment that anybody who has the option actively avoids taking. I've got a choice, now, between a 45-minute bus ride to work or a 20-minute drive. parking's only $5 more than taking the bus both ways, and they've got free charging for my EV. I *really* want more people to take the bus, but it's a really hard case to make here
@@major__kongLIght rail is likely not much more weight per square foot than buses. Most BRTs are there to be the first step for a LRT
Here in Minnesota we have 3 seasons: winter, skeeter, and construction
You forgot mud.
Two seasons: snow removal and road repair.
And the guy who visited last May ... that's right between the two seasons, so the roads are at their very worst. We can get frosts and freezes into May, so the road crews don't start until late May or June.
@@ShelterDogs take a trip down I-494 near Bloomington or I-94 North of the cities
It was darn near perfect when I was filming last September. Sounds like I lucked out!
Meanwhile Chicago only has winter and construction.
The true "magic" of a BRT is really the option to combine "being fast" and "being everywhere" with the same vehicle: You can circle though the suburb and then take the fastest route into the city.
YES. That combined with the fact it's cheaper and faster to train bus drivers, it's easier to find and hire diesel mechanics, busses are cheaper to buy up front the railway equipment. Busses often share mechanical parts with other commercial vehicles. BRT is very smart. Plus the infrastructure can be used by other city services like garbage, fire/ems, police etc without specialty equipment.
The eye-watering cost per mile figures for rail projects are mostly because of a few extremely expensive segments (eg. through a downtown). BRT can just operate as a normal bus over those segments and have dedicated lanes everywhere else.
The dream (which might eventually come true) in a lot of those places is to reduce car traffic lanes, so more folks using the buses actually enables converting to bus lanes and maybe even more space for pedestrian and cycle infrastructure.
Bruh. "We only have hammers, let's turn transit into nails". Sigh. (Pulls out an Engineering 101 manual). Let's take it from the top.
@@joeblow5214 As you said: Cheaper to buy up front, a Light rail vehicle is over all cheaper though. And you can also run them on normal streets as a tram.
On top of that, you have a much smoother ride with light-rail and trams, which increases the acceptance of it a lot more, and does in fact increase ridership.
@@germanmosca In my experience, running in mixed traffic is a *huge* drawback, and most of the advantages in reliability and frequency of BRT comes from separating out transit from other modes as much as possible.
Bro, they let you film that drone footage in downtown Minneapolis?!
You must be very good - the wind tunnel effect is intense.
He did say it was the scariest drone flight he'd ever done.
It's such a great shot, he did an awesome job!
under 400ft?
My city runs what they call "open BRT". That means they have BRT trunks built to the highest standard shown in the video. But all along this trunk BRT line, "arterial BRT" lines branch off the main trunk. The end result is about fifty different BRT lines, each with "arterial BRT" for part of the route and "guide way BRT" for the remainder. And with so many lines sharing the trunk route, it gets a bus every 10-15 seconds in peak.
Because all the buses serve a significant amount of the trunk, it means that passengers just travelling along the trunk will catch whatever line comes along first - meaning they have almost no wait. However, because quite a few passengers want to continue on to one of the branch lines, plenty of passengers will wait for a particular line instead of catching the first bus. This really helps alleviate bunching.
Wow, what city is this?
@@meowtherainbowx4163 sounds like São Paulo or Jakarta, two of the more successful BRT systems worldwide
@@PrograErrorBogota as well
Where I'm from it's known as "Bus at high level of service" .
Seems very inefficient. Encouraging transfers allows better suburban service and saves operators which is a much needed thing with many agencies operator shortage.
The last comment of "Don't let your tool mold your service needs" should be echoed across not just the region but the nation (United States). In my neck of the woods the city has not been looking at multiple types of busses beyond the express and "local" routes. The Twin cities have learned from their initial outing and worked to improve their infrastructure and that is a breath of fresh air.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again,
Road guy rob could make drying paint entertaining and engaging. Thanks for what you do!!
You're kind, Jared. Thank you!
@@RoadGuyRob i find myself eagerly awaiting each video, and what should i care about road design? but man your production quality is top tier, and every subject you seem to make interesting. Just saying great job, keep doing what your doing man!
I was a skeptic of BRT before I moved to Minneapolis, but I got on board pretty quick. The Twin Cities are seriously building out an impressive network of BRT and it allows folks to easily live cheaply car-free, all while still putting many suburban destinations within reach.
Soon you will be broke and happy 🙃
@@carlmorgan8452we already are in minnesota
As a fellow Twin Cities resident, skeptical about living easily car free but good to hear it's working for you! Still think NYC is the only city I would be content to live in car free in North America, we've got a big gap to close vs the rest of the world.
@@carlmorgan8452 you can actually save loads by not owning a car, no insurance, payment, or gas cost, just transit passes and maybe a bike.
@@carlmorgan8452 Freedom is when the closest Walmart is a 20 minute drive away
I passed the information to my neighbor here in Québec city, Canada. We are at this cross-road. Half the population wants a fancy Tramway at ANY cost, the other half wants more roads for their vehicules and cry 'War on Cars!" if we take a single parking space in the city-center.
A tram would be a better option if done right, as it costs much less than a BRT in the long term and would act as a transit anchor for the city.
Plus, BRT projects often suffer from what’s known as “BRT creep” where as the project progresses, more and more BRT features (level boarding, signal priority, off-board fare payment, dedicated lanes, etc.) are removed to cut costs until you end up with a bus with a slightly fancier paint job and slightly more spaced out stations.
A tramway is not only fancy but more useful to have cars in the historic city everywhere.
Just look at Ottawa, Ont. They built a BRT network decades ago, including fancy "Transitways". Now almost all has been converted to light-rail - the O-Train. The BRT just was not future-proof enough to handle population and traffic growth.
Besides, Quebec City already has BRT. It is called the Metro-bus. The reason they want to build a tramway network is because the Metro-bus system is at or even beyond capacity. While improvements are and can be done to help increase the QUALITY of the service (ie: bus lanes, priority traffic signals, etc.), there is very little more that can be done to improve the QUANTITY of service -- they can never add enough buses to meet future demand.
Far better to build the light-rail/tramway network now than in 20 years when costs will be double or triple.
Also, when it comes to labour costs, the light-rail is cheaper per passenger. While a bus might carry upwards of 80-90+ passengers (depending to the type); a light-rail train can carry several times that many. (see the video by RM Transit on Light-rail vs bus)
BTW, I live in the Quebec City area and I have family in Ottawa so I am quite familiar with both cities.
@@cycloid2326 a BRT can be a stepping stone, if done right. But I agree, in the long term, LRT is better, or in certain cases, regional rail (frankly, I'm not 100% convinced the green line is the best mode between Minneapolis and St Paul, this should have been a higher level of rail service.) That said, if the choice is between something imperfect or nothing, I'll probably choose the imperfect solution.
@@barvdw considering that the current plan is to build the French-style modern tram, I’d say just stick with that and don’t downgrade it to a BRT
Biggest problem with BRT is they suffer from the success of emulating a train but lack the capacity and ease of adding more capacity trains have. Not easy to drive a 8 cab long bus, and it costs lots of money to hire more bus drivers
For the Guideway BRT they could just slap on the rail tracks since all of the bridges and paths have been already built, the existing bus stations would just need to be upgraded. For the other 2 options maybe a street car system since they know that it's a profitable route. They can just add the rails onto the roads.
Minneapolis will never have that kind of ridership. Even the light rail runs mostly empty
@@Notabot1310 are you from the UK? I almost never hear anyone mention this from the urbanist/transportation YT channel.
I think the Guided busways are awesome. What I like about them is that they're kind of good in between a light rail and the flexibility of a bus.
If anyone talks about guided bus ways, it's usually the autonomous trackless ones.
Unless you have a fully automated metro (not possible on street running trams), the driver cost is kind of moot. To maintain the best frequency you would need to hire as many drivers anyway. Longer trains are for if the city is truly planning to lineify and really build up the density along a key corridor.
@@bend8353 Because it's so short and doesn't have many drop off points. Why take the light rail when a bus can drop you off with in a block of your destination? The light rail is superior Yes but very expensive
Fun fact (pedantic note): You don't use º with Kelvin.
That was fun😊
It's okay. It doesn't _quite_ get to 0 K or 0°R in Minneapolis, either.
@@jovetj well… 0 K is −273.15 °C / −459.67 °F.
We'd be in an ice age, like in Snowpiecer… freezing our butts off even on the Equator.
@@PrograError That... was the joke.
@@jovetjyeah, you have to get outside the Cities for that
My city has the best busses in the UK outside of London. A large part of that is the experience of not having to worry about being late if you miss _one_ specific bus, a ‘once every 5/10/15 minutes’ bus service is invaluable to getting people riding.
Let me take a guess, one with a lot of maroon in its branding? If so, we used to live there and I can concur its bus network is absolutely fantastic, and with the rider numbers especially during peak months and inability to add something like subway stops, utterly invaluable.
@@Shelleloch nope, Nottingham City Transport
Wow, a bus every ten minutes you say! Surely this is an unheard of frequency!
Yours from the UK.
I'm a Minnesota native who traveled to Boston recently. The silver line that services Logan Int'l has BRTs as well, and they work! It felt cleaner and safer than riding a normal community bus. I'm excited for the prospect of them being built at home.
saying the silver line works is a bit of an overstatement. Often times between busses is 30-45 minutes, and to get from downtown to the airport often takes 45 minutes (it's like 3 miles)
HA a bus in Boston working. Thank you I needed the laugh.
@@InternetKilledTV21 the silver line tends to be about as reliable as the rest of the regular rail subway lines.
I don't doubt the rest of the regular bus lines are quite laughable; I don't ever take them, though, since the subway has been enough for me to commute through Boston on.
Yes, I was going to post about that, as well. I believe the Silver Line was put in as part of the Big Dig. It was originally planned to be a regular subway line, but was switched to BRT as the Big Dig costs exploded. It originally had a weird mix of dedicated and shared roadways, and it switches from electric with overhead wires to diesel in the middle of the trip between the airport and South Station, but in the last few years, they've switched to diesel-electric hybrids with enough battery range to run electric-only through the tunnels.
As a traveller, it's quite convenient that there's no toll to board at the airport, and then you can go by subway anywhere in the system.
When done right with leading to a decrease in car dependency and thus less traffic and a more environmentally-friendly alternative with walkable, bike-friendly, and transit-oriented communities, then a light-rail or tram system can be a wonderful thing for cities! My favorite North American light-rail system is the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail because it has been so successful for several reasons. Much of the HBLR is grade-separated, even in downtown Jersey City except for street-running on Essex Street. Much of the HBLR is repurposed ROW (which saves money), though the downtown JC segment was built brand-new. At-grade crossings are equipped with transit-signal priority signals to automatically change traffic lights in favor of the light rail! The HBLR has several connections to other services whether it's NJ Transit commuter rail at Hoboken Terminal, PATH, dollar van/jitneys, NJT buses, or NY Waterway ferries!
The HBLR goes where people want to go whether it's the Newport Centre shopping mall downtown, Hoboken, Liberty Science Center at Liberty State Park, or the New Jersey City University campus by West Side Ave! And more importantly, the HBLR has been a catalyst for both residential and commercial development along its route and has played a significant role in the revitalization of Hudson County. In what were once vacant and underutilized areas have transformed with intense residential and mixed-use development thanks to HBLR stops being built. The PATH system which connects NYC with Hoboken, Jersey City, Harrison, and Newark have also played a role. Both leading to lots of TOD and pedestrianization in downtown JC and Hoboken, not to mention Citi Bike infrastructure by HBLR and PATH stations too! And the West Side Ave portion being extended to the new Bayfront development complex revives the ROW further, with new TOD, with much of it affordable housing!
4:00 - Poor Mary is about to get a bunch of phone calls LOL
I guess you also say poor cops/fire fighters/paramedics is about to get a bunch of phone calls when you see 911 on police cars/fire trucks/ambulances.
@@automation7295 Little bit of a different situation, but thanks for your insight there.
Great to see a city built public transit and build proper stations
And thinking about how to make busses not get stuck in the same traffic you'd be in if you drove anyway
True, but maintenance is essential as well. Mechanical failure and vandalism are persistent problems.
@@jgood005 that is bound to happen to light rail and busses to none is truly safe from vandalism
This drone view is beautiful. 6:50
Well done.
I do feel like a lot of the cost concerns also come down to more US specific issues, since even BRT projects in the US are much more expensive than in other countries. I mean here in Denmark, the city of Odense (pop. 181k) opened a brand new 9 mile long light rail line across the city in 2022, for around the same price tag that a BRT line would cost in the US. And for another comparison, both New York City and Copenhagen are working on light rail routes across their respective city's suburbs. And the one on New York is slated to be 5 times more expensive than the one in Copenhagen, despite being nearly 5 miles shorter! Its everything from ability to aqquire land, to the way construction is tendered, to infrastructure design, to the influence of consultancy groups, and many more.
_Anything_ the government pays for in the United States tends to be much more expensive because everyone loves to fleece the taxpayer. This is the single reason why healthcare is so expensive here as well.
@jovetj It's called union labor. No matter what, any project paid for by the government comes down to bids, and said bids encounter union memberships who will squeeze every dollar & time to build it.
A blessing & curse 🤷🏾
@@MarloSoBalJr Buddy most of the labour pool over here is unionized and we still get much cheaper bids and construction costs, so you cant blame Unions on this bucko.
@@drdewott9154 In the U.S. you can. Plenty of political relationships with city leadership and lots of scandals to bare this out.
@joeblow5214 10% of the US workforce is in a union, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2023. Down from 20% in the 1983. 10.7% of Construction Industry employees are unionized.
Even though these scandals are true, are Unions really the largest bearers of blame for the high cost of major infrastructure projects in the US, or is there more going on than that?
My city is building out its first BRT lines right now. I didn't really understand them so this was really helpful to watch! I feel much more favorable about them now.
I live in MPLS and I honestly had no idea about how all this worked!!
Thanx Rob!!
The video production quality with all the drone shots and zooming in and out of the location shots is really great on this video
All his vids
Thanks Scott!
As others have stated, the great thing about building the BRT this way is that it's easy to convert to a light-rail line when they're ready! It's not the first time bus infrastructure was future-proofed for light-rail conversion! Seattle did the same thing with the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel. Before they built the tunnel, there were different proposals for a rapid transit line, with the most significant in the 1960s. For the first attempt in February 1968 when voters were asked to provide 385 million, it narrowly passed by 50.8 percent but fell short of the required 60 percent supermajority. A second attempt in May 1970 when voters were asked for 440 million, it failed with 46 percent, and the federal money was instead given to Atlanta for MARTA. Despite this, they still planned for a bus tunnel in 1974 that could potentially become a light-rail line.
When the bus tunnel was opened in 1990, they already installed light rail tracks in anticipation, however they had to be replaced when the tracks were later found to be poorly insulated and unusable. And there was a scandal during the tunnel's construction when it was discovered in 1989 that the granite was quarried in South Africa despite a boycott of South African goods by the King County Metro Council at the time. For several years, service in the tunnel was provided exclusively by dual-mode buses, which ran as trolleybuses in the tunnel and diesel buses on city streets. Putting buses in the tunnel meant less traffic on city streets! The dual-mode trolleybuses were replaced by hybrid electric buses to prepare for the light-rail. And when the light-rail opened in 2009, the tunnel had unique operations where buses and the light-rail shared it (Pittsburgh's Mount Washington Tunnel still has shared bus/light-rail operations)! That is until 2019 when Convention Place station was sold to the Washington State Convention Center for redevelopment, closing the tunnel to buses two years earlier than the scheduled closure of 2021 (which was meant to coincide with the Northgate Link expansion). Making the tunnel light-rail only.
It doesn't actually sound like it's "easy" to convert if the only place that has successfully done it is the crazy progressive (complimentary) capital of the US, and even then it took 30 years to barely happen.
Welcome to the Twin Cities! I'd always hoped you'd come here and do a video on the Gold Line.
Is the high end BRT system only cheaper because of more companies that know how to build roads? Isn't that potentially self-defeating in the long term given they have some light rail?
It's easier to create the service from ground up, but a lot harder to upgrade later on to light rail or subway since BRT is only good for medium capacity & frequency services unless they play some tricks it wouldn't last when it has subway crunch load.
Not only that, but you also can use the buses elsewhere in the system, the mechanical parts for busses are often the same as other commercial vehicles and there are a lot of people trained in maintenance of those compared to rail ROW and rail locomotives. Bus drivers can also be trained faster and are cheaper. (High turnover job) and the infrastructure can easily be used by other city services without specialized equipment.
We are also working on two rail expansion projects right now. Perhaps they were concerned about capacity with the contractors available in the area. Additionally, since much of the route is on exclusive roadway, we might be able to retrofit some light rail in the future. A lack of ability to build more additional rail at the moment, while certainly disappointing, does not seem entirely implausible to me.
If you build a light rail line only to have 20m long vehicles on it, then BRT is a better idea.
The added value of rail is leveraging the ability to have vehicles longer than buses : 30, 40, 60m and even multiple units coupled.
@@veryrealpersonwhoisrealSt paul is also considering a pretty big street car line connecting Union Depot to MSP, and MOA along 7th street
BRT just feels like an excuse to lay the groundwork for an actual rail line without having to convince NIMBYs to pay for it all at once. But I can appreciate it for that.
I think they want to upgrade them to proper LRT in the future and are using this to get the foundation there
Oh snap that is super exciting! As much as I would love to see more rail being built It definitely makes more sense to build what transit makes the most sense economically and serve the people now with what you can build rather than trying to force something that isn't supported. Signal priority and dedicated lanes go a long way in making this more viable, especially during rush hour!
I love this. Since if this has proven success, we might see this kind of thing expand into other major cities. It provides reduced traffic, encourages the growth of public transit, and might even be able to provide the city with a bit of money in the long run
In Seattle, after losing funding for heavy rail in the 70's (that went to build MARTA), they built tunnel beneath the downtown core for busses. 30 years later, it was converted to handle busses and Light Rail. Hopefully the bridges will be designed for future LRT.
I completely understand why you were scared during that drone flight. You are the real one for risking it. Underrated af.
Ottawa was a big user of BRT with dedicated transit ways many years ago. now they have the funds and are able to upgrade everything to LRT
they close a entire station because the elevators don't work? wtf clearly there are stairs people can use too
What impresses me as an outsider is that the early drawbacks (including cost) of light rail have not stopped the work for an expanded rapid transit, even if by another mode.
You make me love public transport so much. I don't know why but man I need this content in my life.
Why does a broken elevator close the station? Aren't there stairs??
I'd assume it has to be accessible for everyone which would bring forth the question, why is there no ramp?
@@attackofthelumbie9029 Ramps require a lot of space, a large footprint. They probably didn't have the space.
@qwertyfff Yes, but I-35W & Lake Station is NOT accessible to the street (Lake Street) below the expressway, so the busses deploying a W/C patron is redundant cos where are they gonna go?
@@attackofthelumbie9029 In germany, ramps in public spaces are only allowed to be a maxium of 6%, so 6 cm heightgain over 1 meter of length. If the ramp is longer than 6 meters, there needs to be a rest area of 150 cm by 150 cm. Good luck trying to get a ramp going up to that station with that in mind.
Metro Transit didn't want a disabled rider marooned on the upper deck on the station with no way down to the street. So they made the bus exit the freeway and use a street-level station.
Which worked out well for me, so I could have video to show you that.
4:50 When you said running a lot of busses, i thought you were going to say something like every 1-5 minutes, 10 minutes is really not uniquely frequent lol
My thoughts too! 'Very frequent service' -> SOMETIMES as often as TEN minutes
I'm not saying they should just run more busses if those lines don't need them, but it's certainly not very frequent.
Ehh, Reliable 10 minute intervals is at the low end of 'frequent enough that you don't have to plan your schedule around the time table if the bus is your main method of transport'.
15-30 minutes is 'quite usable, but the bus timetable is going to be dictating most of your schedule any day you need to travel'.
Less frequently... well, up to every couple of hours can be all right if you're headed to the next town over or the like and it's a trip you make maybe once a week and are going to be there for a large chunk of the day.
Once or twice a day? ... yeah, that better be at least an all day trip to a completely different city where you're going to be Staying for a few days before you come back... ... ... and should really probably be a train.
A bus showing up every 10 minutes seems pretty fast
@@lukasg4807 10 minutes is just an average baseline functional bus frequency, its certainly nothing impressive or special
@@MonEyRuLess yeah, its ok frequency, just not anything special or something to advertise, its just the baseline normal frequency
Nice to see more info on these projects than I could dig up for a while
Rob I love your content one of the best youtubers for sure. Highly informative but entertaining at the same time.
Rochester, MN will be installing a BRT in the next few years. Come visit!
The brt in Pittsburgh is better than it's train, coming from someone that used both daily. Hopefully though, if they are building new bridges and roads for their gold line, they are also adding a separated bike lane to it
no one ever talks about highways costing money. why is this criticism only reserved for mass transit projects?
Maybe because highways are paid for by the fuel cars consume? Instead of tolls, the gas tax funds the roads.
@@travisminneapolis i understand your point, but that is still tax dollars. I just think its weird no one complains about the tax dollars spent on roads. Just because i buy gas doesnt mean i endorse spending tax money on highway widening. i buy gas because i live in oklahoma and the only way to get around is by car.
@@travisminneapolisyou are aware that oil is heavily subsidized in the US, correct?
Because a highway can handle millions of travelers per day while costing about 1 million per mile, instead of thousands of travelers while costing 20 million per mile, so the price per user is about 0.001% as high.
Meaning the cost of road infrastructure is relatively insignificant compared to nearly all other forms.
@@operator8014 made up numbers
Such a great concept. Thanks for sharing Rob!
absolutely amazing video, as a Twin cities metro resident I didn't even know about this project. I'm so glad you covered it.
Im baffled you’re only at 150k subs. Your content is so informative and fun! 🎉
Road Guy Bob doing transit videos! Amazing stuff. I personally think a mistake most American cities do with transitways is only running one line on it. In other countries, they build a transit way and run 10 - 15 routes on it to speed up normal bus journeys with 1 - 2 minute headways. That way you're making the best use out of expensive concrete and really getting those ridership numbers from bus numbers (20 - 50k riders) to rail numbers (100k - 150k)
Very inefficient to have so many routes duplicating each other, especially with the operator shortages that most agencies are experiencing. No thanks
Wow!!!
Wonderful vid, good editing, good shots with drone. Best damn subtitle editing I’ve seen!!
Definitely subbed
Thanks for the thorough guide on bus routes!
I love seeing anything about Light Rail, Commuter Rail, nature crossings, High Speed Rail, BRT with bus lanes, different types of intersections (like Diverging Diamond Interchanges, Single Point Urban Interchanges, Continuous Flow Intersections, J turn Intersections, roundabouts, Dogbone Interchanges, new highways, traffic lights, bike lanes, infrastructure, etc. And hopefully one day, teleportation. I love hearing about anything new that can affect us while driving and anything that can help us get anywhere faster. Whether that means teleportation or High Speed Rail.
SO GLAD you added that in about the blue Light Rail line's railroad crossing, even though that isn't indoors.
The really sad part is, the Twin Cities used to have an amazing network of street cars. They got torn out because of lobbyists well before the 1970s.
Seems to be the story in most cities. Imagine if we just never tore out all the street car infrastructure.
EXCELLENT VIDEO! I live not far from where they are building the new BRT in Rancho Cucamonga CA, this enlightened me to hopefully what our service could be. Thanks!
As always, the production value in your videos rivals that of people who have been doing it for many more years. Proud to be a Patron.
Sick drone shot!
"which puts BRT right in front of the houses of people who'd ride BRT"... shot of house with boarded up windows behind the bus stop @5:25 So cheeky haha :)
Well designed transit services easily drive up desiribilty. Someone will flip that house for a pretty penny in the future.
@@rylove001 Forget the house, somehow turn it into a medium sized apartment block, with the convenience of transit right outside, it's perfect
@@mundylunes7755 And they can, because we took out the restrictive single family zoning laws!
I am definitely subscribing! This was great, wish we had more of this type of transit up here in NH.
That freeway BRT is why having grade separation and space for extra lanes is so important. It becomes super easy, both in terms of construction and politically to deliver high quality regional service.
I'm glad to hear of a major metropolis catching up to my provincial city of around 200.000 people
Transit in Minneapolis when I lived there was significantly worse than transit in Trollhättan when I lived there, which has 60k people ;_;
So people get mad when america doesn’t fund transit, then when we shell out millions, people still make fun of us? Jesus, it’s impossible to win with europeans.
They should color their busses accordingly to the line color. If not, then make the strips along the busses colored accordingly.l
That is discriminatory towards colorblind people. 😏
@@jovetj the design and policy people can always make adjustments
If all they color their buses or make the strips along the buses accordingly to the line color, you realize that buses on the other lines can break down?
Let's say two buses on the Green line breaks down, then you'll see two blue colored buses on the Green line.
Do Americans forget that buses can break down?
Color changing leds exist people
THE ALGORYTHM! Another great video and excellent BRT primer. Thank you.
Where I'm from, and pretty much everywhere in Europe, BRT is only the highest option with guideway.
The rest is just basic bus, even if it uses a bendy one and has nice stops equipped with shelters, canopies, etc.
Basic bus already has greenlight priority and-or activation, bus lanes, etc.
To reach BRT level you need proper busway dedicated right-of-way and nicer faater busses, with real schedule conformity, often increased station spacing, and almost tram-like stations.
In my city, Paris, the latest BRT lines use vehicles that are more trambus than bus : double articulated, 24 meter long, electrically powered via ground recharge infrastructure. They look like trams without pantograph (the wheels and tyres are mostly hidden).
The ones that drive on freeways and-or bus lanes are just simple busses.
The cost mentioned in the video is the one for a tram line in Europe...
AND you fly/get your own drone shots.. theres no reason not to love this channel
MSP's light rail is excellent within its limitations. when we were there, i was $2.00 for 4 hours, or $4.00 until midnight. no train schedule, the next train is due within 10 minutes.
Was your experience pre-covid? The safety of the lrt system really declined over the past few years, especially when they removed many of the transit cops. You couldn’t pay me to take the green line at night anymore.
Don't forget your 2 dollar ride is more like 60 dollars
@@daytch9485 which makes it an excellent value for the money.
First time I've found your channel, love the humor - b-roll and interviews.
Love how our Adopt-a-Stop was featured in your video. Great presentation about Twin Cities transit.
When it comes to North American light-rail systems, a pretty great one is the St. Louis MetroLink! Serves both the Illinois and Missouri sides! Serves places like St. Louis Lambert International Airport, IKEA at Cortex, Scott Air Force Base in Illinois, Busch Stadium at Stadium station, Amtrak and the Enterprise Center arena at Civic Center, and of course the Gateway Arch (which you can get an amazing view of from Laclede's Landing station). Much of MetroLink is a reused rail right of way, like the Eads Bridge which is the oldest bridge on the whole Mississippi River! When they were constructing the underground stations downtown, the tunnel was already there, using the St Louis Freight Tunnel. So with a lot of grade-separation, the Blue and Red Lines of MetroLink is basically a light metro, or a light-rail that acts like a subway!
On the Red Line, trains use the former Wabash/Norfolk & Western Railroad's Union Depot line that once brought passenger trains from Ferguson to Union Station. When the Red Line makes a stop at the Delmar Loop station, it is located just below the original Wabash Railroad's Delmar Station building! On the Blue Line, it follows a former Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis (TRRA)/Rock Island railroad right of way. When they were constructing Skinker and University City-Big Bend stations, they faced opposition because that section was gonna be street-running, so they opted to build them underground! So thanks to NIMBYs, they ironically made the Blue Line a better and quicker service through no street-running!
That's great, progress ,
Thanks. Very informational.
Great video as always!
“Don’t let your tool mold your service needs, it’s the other way around. Find the tool that really works for you to meet your exact need.”
Words of wisdom here.
Mall of America is managed by the Triple Five Group, which in turn is owned by the Ghermezian family. They also own the West Edmonton Mall and the American Dream Meadowlands mall in New Jersey. The Mall of America is located on the site of the former Metropolitan Stadium where the Vikings and Twins once played. A plaque in Nickelodeon Universe commemorates the former location of home plate, and if you look carefully, there is a chair from the stadium hanging on the theme park's walls to mark the longest home run in the history of Metropolitan Stadium, a revised estimate puts it at 522 feet, by Harmon Killebrew in 1967. The American Dream Mall is notable for having an indoor ski slope which sounds dumb at first, but when you realize they're targeting those in NYC who don't or can't travel far to go skiing, it makes a lot of sense. Not to mention Mall of the Emirates in Dubai has an indoor ski slope too, but they have one because of Dubai's climate!
I think it is important not to let perfect be the enemy of good enough. Fake BRT may not be ideal, it will get stuck in traffic sometimes, but giving it signal priority, dedicated lanes in even part of its route, high frequency and comfortable and safe stops, it is dramatically better than a regular bus. A regular bus is serviceable transit, lots of cities and lots of people get a lot of utility of regular busses every day, so a step up in quality from that is a really good thing.
I grew up in St. Paul. The BRT was...decent. I took it to the gym every day during the summer as a transfer off my local route (Route 3--a go-between for the two cities and one of the most-used non-BRT services in the Cities, itself soon to be converted to BRT). Just wish they had made it 10-minute intervals before I left for college 😂
Excellent video and topic. Minneapolis-Saint Paul is way ahead of the curve.
The curve of stupidity. Yes. Way ahead.
@@jameswhipp3221 In what way is this stupid?
@@quantum_vortex_ you have to ask? Obviously you are a child so I hope you learn about scarcity and resource allocation decisions at some time in the near future.
@@jameswhipp3221 Hopefully you learn that public transport is more beneficial than any car infrastructure and more sustainable.
9:48 dallas has a railroad crossing kind of similar to this one in the mall of america, where the DART red and blue line go under the convention center and crosses with botham jean blvd that is also under the building too
came here from the Practical Engineering channel to say hi, but this video caught me and I watched the whole thing!
Great video! I ride the aBRT A Line every day for work and I love it. One minor correction though: the Green Line opened in 2014. Construction started in 2010.
I've advocated for Guideway BRT over light rail for years, even before anyone was doing it. I love the flexibility coupled with lower cost that it provides. If a portion of the guideway becomes impassible, it doesn't shut down the system because the buses can move to surface streets. As demand changes, service levels can be rapidly and dynamically adjusted simply by putting more buses on (or off) a route. That's much harder to do with light rail.
Yes, dynamic service requires hiring more drivers for buses than for trains. But it's more responsive (easier to add buses than train cars) and the added cost of drivers is offset by not paying for moving empty train cars around or the infrastructure they require.
tree grates, ticket machines, schedule monitors etc. don't make the bus "rapid". "BRT" is cheaper because corners get cut.
Cleveland has one of these long boye buses with their own bus lanes. Loved them! Can get to the historic east side with relatively no pain. Never needed a car when I lived downtown.
I live in Dayton's Bluff (E St Paul) and the construction is coming along for sure. I love the Twin Cities!!! Always a few cranes in the sky...progress baby!
BRT is stop gap...you're just hiding your capital outlay by moving it to operations....bus drivers every 10 minutes ain't cheap, including long term pension requirement's. A LRT is going to carry more passengers per hour at significantly less labour cost, especially on dedicated lines where driverless LRT can be used. Build the BRT but make sure you've done the infrastructure in such a way to convert to LRT without undue captial outlay. There is a reason cities that have had BRT for 20 or 30 years are now converting them to rail.
Build grade separated rail that's automated and hire a team of ticket inspectors. Big capital outlay, big long term gains.
And sometimes your light rail line gets so crowded you need to bury it underground, and you get a subway!
That's true, but to be fair time value of money is a real thing. Spending a billion dollars today is very different from spending 500m today and 500m over the next 10 years. It may be costlier in the long run but it gets your transportation up and working sooner and the difference isn't as big as it looks. I think you make a good point about planning ahead to convert it in the future as the next step in efficiency.
This is true but Metro Light rail lines usually don’t meet the crush capacity and ridership threshold for this to be an immediate issue so the service improvements are still desirable
For the most part being mode agnostic when it comes to the kind of service improvements you’re looking to make (speed, frequency, reliability) up until capacity must be considered is pretty ok for the most part
Buses like the Vancouver 99-B line I think show the upper limit of service frequency and ridership possible for a regular bus line and if metro ever had such a similar bus line it would indeed be extremely advantageous to replace it with higher capacity rapid transit
If you run your BRT program well, it can be very efficient and great. I have seen a few excellently BRT lines.
The City of London, Ontario has chosen option #3. As it is incomplete, it's hard to judge. However, if the point of the BRT is to see how long a construction project can be milked by contractors, it's already a resounding success.
When I moved to the Twin Cities, apart from the bus network, it was just the Blue "Hiawatha" line from MOA to Target Field. Now they have the green line that bridges Minneapolis and Saint Paul, and the existing 54 that completes the loop from Saint Paul to MOA. With the A-Line and the BRT network, the Twin Cities can have a good transit network, … but we more drivers need to find public transit a better option than driving.
There is currently a multi year project on the 494 corridor from Eden Prairie to the MSP airport.
I work at a restaurant nearby with staff - Delivery Drivers - that see and experience the transformation.
Your such an amazing Chanel on TH-cam! I always look forward to seeing you and your videos. You do amazing work and it's educational I love it and, public transportation and urban engineering so Cool!!!
Thank you so much!
A 10 minute frequency is nothing to get excited about in a city.
It’s pretty good for the US
10 is ok for a BRT and leaves some room until you need trains. Hamburg, Germany has it's M5 line with more than 60,000 passengers per day, where they are running out of ideas: 21 meter busses with 5 doors (modified Mercedes CapaCity L) every three to five minutes…
More frequency than the light rail in Phoenix
@@sammymarrco47 you need to surpass expectations to get people out of their cars, a 10 minute wait is too long for turn-up-and-ride. Every 3 mins during peak times and 5 mins off-peak is normal where buses are successful.
I guess the lack of experience in the US makes sense. If you were doing the same thing in central Europe where tram systems are a dime a dozen, you'd have no problem finding construction and maintenance companies who could build you a new tram line and maintain your trams. Plus most of the popular tram/LRV manufacturers (Alstom, Stadler, Siemens) are European.
It is not about a lack of experience. It's that experience costs a lot of money, and all the overhead is much higher.
@@jovetj But that's exactly what was said in the video, it's more expensive to build a light rail line in the US because there aren't a plethora of companies who can do it.
@@Croz89 TBH reading this far down I'm confident he's a troll of sorts...
@@Croz89 _Relative_ to roadways/highways, yes. But the trade experience itself exists here. It's not as if it's completely absent.
@PrograError He's commenting frequently in disagreement. He's a Troll! Is such a disingenuous argument born of the internet.
I am so extremely disappointed that monorail didn't beat lightrail. It's so much cheaper to maintain and actually turns a profit, unlike light rail (or any other pubmic transit); a constant money pit. This allots more funding for more lines. It's also only a little more expensive to build, its out of the way (no crossings, also means less to maintain), safer (no crossings) and amd way quieter. Disney had theirs running through an entire hotel building! You can run it in cities without any noise problems.
To my understanding also, elevated monorail is cheaper than elevator heavy or light rail. To this day I still do not understand why politicians made their huge [____] up of devoting themselves to lightrail instead. We can't have nice things...
Living in the twin cities and I didn’t even realize all the construction on the freeway east of St. Paul was for the gold line, that’s awesome! Love everything my city is doing for transit, for from perfect but I’ll take improving
Man, as a Twin Cities resident, it is SO disappointing how slow light rail progresses here. I just really hope with a few successful BRT lines, we can silence the NIMBYs. They made the Green Line extension SUCH a mess! Super-elaborate, high bridges, tunnels.... none of that stuff should have been necessary. Building lines once a decade is excruciating!
"as often as once every 10 minutes" ahahahahaha I love how low the standards are in the US.
Don't even start this nonsense. Everywhere has busses running infrequently. You see 8 busses 2 minutes from each other and assume every line is every 2 minutes bus a "specific" route is probably every 15-30 minutes.
You just so happened to be on a frequent corridor with multiple lines
@@MarloSoBalJrpeople would rather hate on a scapegoat.
Keep these videos coming!
Another good thing with bus lanes and bus ways are that other busses (read local busses) can use them too and it's easier to adapt routes if demand changes
"As often as one ever 10 minutes" is NOT frequent, by world standards. 😅
Depends on what specific route...
I see comments all the time gloating about "Muy city runs busses every 3 minutes blah blah blah," but that is, IF you're on a frequent corridor. Yet, that particular line is probably every 20 minutes.
Pretty sure on average 10 mins is pretty common, in Singapore the peak hour frequency fastest is only down to a 1-3 min depending where on the line and when.
yea but by US standards, 10 minutes is a godsend. in my city, over half of the bus routes have just a 60-minute frequency, and only five have a frequency higher than 20 minutes.
I miss the 3 minute headways when I was in Taiwan.
Or even the skytrain in Vancouver at times
@@MarloSoBalJr If Rob had put it in context, sure -- and I expected him to add, "I know that by standards of some cities, buses every 10 minutes would be horrible, but this route used to be every 30 minutes." He didn't.
I think what we learned today is that Minneapolis can make any form of transit extremely expensive.
Any metropolitan area can. When "government pays for it" it's always expensive.
That drone shot was AMAZING!
The editing is incredible
As someone who lives in North Minneapolis and has an arterial BRT stop in my front yard, I would never dream of riding it. It would take three times longer than driving to get to MOA. The 4 times I've gotten on the bus, there is always people getting into fights. Our metro transit is just for people who can't afford a car or can't drive. And those BRT project managers are the problem. You would think it would be simple enough to transfer from one station to another or at least connect to the skyway.
"...run a lot of buses. Sometimes as often as every 10 minutes!" - I know we Europeans are spoiled brats but... I giggled a bit.
In Budapest, Hungary we have a tramway with 2 tram line services on it (Line 4 and Line 6) and on workdays they can come as often as every 4 minutes... each. So with 2 tram lines that's a vehicle every 2 minutes - it's crazy. Of course it's during the rush hour and not sustained all day, but it's still crazy.
During the night they "slow down" to a tram every 10 minutes. And also, they are some of the highest capacity trams around.
Ah, I love our public transport. I'm glad USA finally started developing these kind of projects, they benefit everybody.
I grew up in the cities and didnt have license in the late 00's & rode the blue line all the time (thank god they kinda fixed minnehaha, you could get stuck at the intersection light for up to 15 minutes in the beginning) not sure if they still do it but you used to be able to ride the bus for free if you had a bike, that combo got me everywhere. glad to see our transit improving, if only we kept the streetcar's instead of selling them to san fran
Bro I absolutely hated that intersection, haven't been up there to see if it still does that.
Only 150 mil/mile for light rail? Here on Oahu our rail project is 526 MILLION / mile. We’re never gonna be able to pay for this shit
Yeah it’s a project I’ve followed for a while but Oahus is 99% grade separated and is actually considered a light metro. Most at grade light rail is insanely cheaper due to the fact they usually own the right of way already so there are no purchases or lawsuits, less environmental review, and they don’t need to pay for the cost of elevating the rail. So it’s on a nearly completely different level, however it’s unfortunate that it did end up costing a half billion per mile. Seattle has been averaging an even higher cost per mile. Whats even more concerning is whether Oahu will be able to fully expand the metro into the urban environment effectively where the density of people actually is. They’re still under lawsuit with Howard Hughes in Kakaako and they’re spending over half a billion just to relocate the utilities on Dillingham. Building in urban areas is way more difficult than dense urban areas but hopefully they’ll be able to get it done.
But it's expensive to build rail because in America, you guys don't build rail. If it were commonplace, and lots of track miles needed maintenance and refurbishment, it would be far cheaper, and you'd see the benefits in lower operating costs and higher operating flexibility too.
It's expensive because "the government" pays for it, and everyone loves to fleece the taxpayer. Rail requires more-specialized equipment and such, so it costs even more. Then there are all the regulations and impact studies etcetera that drive the costs up even more, especially in some places (e.g. California).
We don't build rail? We have one of the largest, if not the largest, freight rail network. Most of the building is done by private companies for freight.
@@joeblow5214 Lol you need to take a look at the cannibalization thats happening with freight rail, constantly differing maintenance in favor of high stock prices because investors hate companies spending money, downgrading rail corridors to save money and to justify their terrible longer train policies to reduce labor costs, making trains too long to use their own sidings causing all kinds of issues for freight and travel alike while refusing to extend the sidings.
The truth is we really dont build rail we BUILT rail, now we're just expanding a bit every now and then at exorbitant costs because we gutted them in favor of cars and trucks and what we do have is being run into the ground by greedy stockholders.
@@CaptainBlueTech Ahhh PSR, yeah, I know. New construction is happening as is expansion of existing routes. It's also heavily subsidized by grants, low interest loans, etc. Some things really haven't changed since Credit Mobilier.