the stations and their shelters appear to be very high quality. Apart from the strange station location on 96th Street (all those lefts and rights made me dizzy!) it seems like this is a decent line. Hopefully down the road it can be straightened out a bit. I also really like the seats and the layout within the articulated bus, that padding is definitely welcome after riding so many hard plastic seats in buses and trains. Not a big deal on shorter trips on the subway or a local bus taking you down the street, but this line is quite a bit longer and appears to be catered towards commuters. These buses look clean and well taken care of as well. Hopefully someday this could be converted to rail transit, although I think some serious thought will need to go into station relocation and realignment of the route given how all over the place some of those stations are already. Plus getting the stations enclosed would be a necessity... those highway median platforms are BRUTALLY unfun to be on.
Having grown up at the BBY complex, this would have been a great option for getting downtown (I took the 4 along Penn/Lyndale the whole way)-obviously very different conditions then! I’m impressed with the effort to implement the Knox transitway! I would have never expected such a significant effort! Hopefully that can continue to push Kraus-Anderson to redevelop Southtown into a real neighborhood amenity, even more people oriented than the development south of American Blvd! My dream has always been to redevelop Nicollet Ave as a multimodal corridor from downtown to Burnsville Center, with rail & self-powered mobility lanes, on a dedicated bridge over the MN River Valley, something that otherwise requires a vehicle between Hwy77 & Bloomington Ferry Trail Bridge, over 8 miles away! This Orange line will certainly be required for decades as my dream isn’t even on the radar, as far as I can tell.
The orange line corridor has a lot of real estate obstacles that are on the verge of becoming anything more practical than they have been as parking lots for closed retail acreages.
Does the bus get any dedicated on ramps or lanes on the freeway? If not, seems hardly like BRT - not much different than the highway express buses I used to ride in my hometown in California.
The present BRT lines have shoulder running capability, but mostly utilize lanes for all traffic. The next highway bus line, the Gold Line to the east metro, will run on dedicated lanes for a majority of its route. That line opens within a couple years.
From entering 35W until 66th st, it runs in the HOV lanes with median bus stations. Post-covid, they're still pretty underutilized by motor traffic during rush hour, so it's pretty good at keeping the schedule
The Knox Ave Tunnel is a dedicated busway, there's dedicated bus on/off ramps for getting from downtown Minneapolis into I-35W, there's bus lanes on the Knox Ave & American Boulevard intersection, and bus only shoulders+HOV lanes along much of the corridor.
Loved this and your Northstar video! Great content!
Thank you for watching! I appreciate it.
the stations and their shelters appear to be very high quality. Apart from the strange station location on 96th Street (all those lefts and rights made me dizzy!) it seems like this is a decent line. Hopefully down the road it can be straightened out a bit. I also really like the seats and the layout within the articulated bus, that padding is definitely welcome after riding so many hard plastic seats in buses and trains. Not a big deal on shorter trips on the subway or a local bus taking you down the street, but this line is quite a bit longer and appears to be catered towards commuters. These buses look clean and well taken care of as well. Hopefully someday this could be converted to rail transit, although I think some serious thought will need to go into station relocation and realignment of the route given how all over the place some of those stations are already. Plus getting the stations enclosed would be a necessity... those highway median platforms are BRUTALLY unfun to be on.
The Nicollet and Highway 13 intersection is soon to be grade separated, to make crossing safer.
That's great news, it was needed well before BRT!
@@StevesWanderlust completely agreed, I'm glad that this grade separation is gonna happen. Got funding from MN state too
This is very interesting. I like the narration. I wish more people would do that.
Thanks for saying so!
Saying two thousand nine as twenty o nine feels like a crime but good video!
Having grown up at the BBY complex, this would have been a great option for getting downtown (I took the 4 along Penn/Lyndale the whole way)-obviously very different conditions then! I’m impressed with the effort to implement the Knox transitway! I would have never expected such a significant effort! Hopefully that can continue to push Kraus-Anderson to redevelop Southtown into a real neighborhood amenity, even more people oriented than the development south of American Blvd!
My dream has always been to redevelop Nicollet Ave as a multimodal corridor from downtown to Burnsville Center, with rail & self-powered mobility lanes, on a dedicated bridge over the MN River Valley, something that otherwise requires a vehicle between Hwy77 & Bloomington Ferry Trail Bridge, over 8 miles away! This Orange line will certainly be required for decades as my dream isn’t even on the radar, as far as I can tell.
The orange line corridor has a lot of real estate obstacles that are on the verge of becoming anything more practical than they have been as parking lots for closed retail acreages.
Does the bus get any dedicated on ramps or lanes on the freeway? If not, seems hardly like BRT - not much different than the highway express buses I used to ride in my hometown in California.
The present BRT lines have shoulder running capability, but mostly utilize lanes for all traffic. The next highway bus line, the Gold Line to the east metro, will run on dedicated lanes for a majority of its route. That line opens within a couple years.
From entering 35W until 66th st, it runs in the HOV lanes with median bus stations. Post-covid, they're still pretty underutilized by motor traffic during rush hour, so it's pretty good at keeping the schedule
The Knox Ave Tunnel is a dedicated busway, there's dedicated bus on/off ramps for getting from downtown Minneapolis into I-35W, there's bus lanes on the Knox Ave & American Boulevard intersection, and bus only shoulders+HOV lanes along much of the corridor.