It's not just happening here, folks!

The severe winter weather which has become December, 2010, has not just affected transportation in the USA & Canada. While during the first two recent 'Snow-namis' both the Northstar and Hiawatha Light Rail lines ran nearly normally (Northstar ran on time throughout, thanks to BNSF Railway) the MSP Airport closed, buses (transit and intercity) stopped, and Amtrak's Empire Builder ran late, but it was still running, although once passengers arrived in St. Paul, they were stranded if they did not have a ride already, as the taxi companies pulled their taxis off the streets due to too much snow.

Europe has been affected as well. The system that hit Minnesota last weekend hit Europe this weekend, with equally devastating results. Eurostar services between London and Paris/Brussels as well as all high-speed services in France have had a 170-KPH (105 MPH)
speed restriction slapped on them, adding as much as two hours on London-Paris Eurostar runs. Trains are being turned back at their endpoints and are being sent out immediately, with lines of holiday travellers at London's St. Pancras International Terminal, supposedly out the doors and into the streets of London. Eurostar has requested that passengers who do not need to travel between Britain and the Continent, postpone their trip until after the Christmas holiday.

Eurostar is not scheduled to operate any trains on Christmas day.

Northstar Changes; Route 889 dropped

Metro Transit quietly dropped the Route 889 mid-day Northstar substitute bus on October 28th. The next day, a Friday-only thru bus (operating between St. Cloud and Downtown Minneapolis, stopping at all Northstar and Northstar Link stations) began operation. Dubbed Route 887F, the bus (operated by St. Cloud MetroBus) operates Fridays ONLY, allowing for mid-day service to all stations on the last day of most people's workweeks.

In other Northstar news, Nov. 16th and 17th (Tuesday and Wednesday) Northstar is FREE for all passengers, as Metro Transit celebrates Northstar's first anniversary and tries to attract more riders just ahead of the winter road aggravation season. Now, if there's snow either of those days, those free rides to and from Downtown Minneapolis, without the plethora of traffic accidents, are going to look mighty good...

Skol Northstar! Vikings game trains schedule announced

OK, Vikings faithful. Your team is playing 'exhibition' football. Soon, you all will begin your annual treks to the 'Dome, and you'll wait for-ever to get out of the parking lots/ramps after the game...

...unless you ride Northstar, in which case, the train will wait for YOU. For one hour after the final gun.

Metro Transit has released the train schedule for the first full season of Vikings' football, available at: http://www.metrotransit.org/ride-northstar-to-the-metrodome.aspx .

Soon, your pre-game parking worries will be over. Now remember, there is NO TAILGATING in Northstar parking lots. No liquor may be consumed (or, for that matter, poured) in them, either, nor on the trains (or any Metro Transit property) themselves.

You've been told. And, warned. So behave yourselves, folks.

Oh, and for those of you who are Gopher football fans: This service will NOT be available for Gopher football games.

Our condolences on your team's predicted fortune, this upcoming college football season.

Northstar catches 'Twins' fever', Becker added as commuter bus stop

Just briefly: Northstar commuter buses from St. Cloud to Big Lake will operate for designated Minnesota Twins home games, primarily on Saturdays, the rest of the 2010 MLB season. Catch the details at metrotransit.org. Look for Route 887 or go to the 'Northstar' tab.

In addition, St. Cloud-Big Lake buses now also stop at Becker en route, both directions, for all trips.

WRT

Aboard the Northstar Twins Special

Sunday evening, I happened to be coming back from a family function, where earlier in the day I used Northstar to go between Coon Rapids and Big Lake, where my wife met me for the rest of the afternoon. I had to get back to my car, so I availed myself of the Northstar Twins' special train from Big Lake back to Riverdale (and my car).

What I saw was what Metro Transit (and the naysayers about Northstar) would want to see: an eight-car, two-locomotive behemoth -- the largest train I've seen in person from Northstar -- and hundreds of Twins fans (if there were any Texas Rangers' fans on this train, they were in hiding) boarding at each of the five Northstar stations, happy not to have to hassle with I-94, the atrocious (and expensive) parking around Target Field (despite it being a Sunday night) and the fact there was actually a train that would wait for them, even after the completion of the Twins' 6-3 win and a three-game sweep of the bankrupt Rangers.

In fact, the train was standing room only as it departed Coon Rapids -- Riverdale. Which meant over 1200 passengers were aboard, as the train roared off into the late afternoon gloom towards Target Field.

There will be trains after every game from now until the end of August. Trainloads of happy fans, safely, efficiently traveling to and from what everyone said would be a 'boondoggle' -- Target Field -- as Minnesota finally joins the 'big leagues' 0f transportation, shortly after they finally joined the 'big leagues' of baseball stadia.

There was only one passenger wanting not to go to Target Field last night. One passenger willing to trade the comforts of the new stadium for the comfort of his own recliner. One passenger who didn't want to go all the way Downtown last night.

Meet that one passenger. Me.

Metro Transit 1, Northstar-riding Twins fans 0, Final

Well, the apocalypse happened Saturday night. And it only took less than six weeks of baseball for that to happen.

Northstar commuter train-riding Twins fans who attended Saturday's 12-inning marathon of bad pitching vs. the Milwaukee Brewers were faced with this situation as the 11th inning approached:

Either they had to:

a) Stay to the end of the game and be stranded in Downtown Minneapolis, or:

b) Run like hell to catch the train (it's just outside Gate 6) and make the 7:00 PM departure, missing the last two innings of the ball game.

Metro Transit's dogged insistence on one operating crew (only) on weekend days is not making friends of Twins baseball fans. The unbelieveable short-sightedness of Metro Transit underestimating the popularity of Northstar for Twins baseball games is yet another reason the schedule for Northstar needs to be expanded.

Now.

New Schedule for Northstar, Route 889 Blues

Northstar commuter trains are on a new, more 'Twins-friendly' schedule, as the baseball season plods on, and the trains arrive Target Field standing-room-only, for nearly every game they run for. The ridership figures for days when there are Twins home games, as opposed to days when they do not run are way, way up. Now if they would only do something to encourage more off-peak, non-game-day ridership?

They have, in part. No longer are some (not all) Northstar riders stranded all day weekdays downtown, as the No. 889 'Northstar replacement' bus has changed its' schedule to a much more useful 1:05PM departure from Downtown Minneapolis, as the public had spoken -- LOUDLY -- about operating a mid-day trip to Coon Rapids (Riverdale) and Anoka stations.

Now, could we get this same 889 bus to continue to Elk River and Big Lake, in order to serve ALL Northstar patrons? (Fridley station is already also served by Metro Transit bus route No. 852). As long as the bus is deadheading back anyhow (another mistake,) you might as well make it available for all potential Northstar patrons to use.

If you make the train service at least palatable to use one direction, you would draw more passengers to the afternoon trains outbound from Downtown (and the 5 PM 'turnback' inbound) if you had another way to get there at times outside of the rush hours.

But what do we consumers, who use the service (and want to use it more) know?

Target Field opens, Northstar trains arrive SRO

Needless to say, the Twins baseball plan worked TOO well.

Trains packed with baseball fans pushed ridership on Northstar commuter trains up over 75% last week, according to Metro Transit, the service's operator. In fact, the first baseball special train on Opening Day was so popular, the train was discharge only after the stop at Coon Rapids - Riverdale, meaning the over 100 passengers at the Fridley station were left to ride dedicated buses fron Fridley station to Target Field. This also caused the normal last train outbound on Monday to leave with an estimated 1,000 riders, as the baseball special train operated behind the normal 6:15 PM departure.

Special trains will operate for 53 of the 81 Twins games this season; other weekend games will be covered by Northstar's regular service, the schedule of which has been tweaked to serve home games at Target Field. The new schedule is available now online only; the printed schedules will not appear until early May.

The new schedule will also have a major change to the bus route #889 schedule, the 'Northstar replacement' bus which operates to Coon Rapids-Riverdale and Anoka stations. The new schedule will fill the 'mid-day gap' for those patrons who work only half-days, and beginning May 15th, will leave Downtown Minneapolis at 1:10 PM, as opposed to the current 7:10 PM.

Now, if they'd only run that bus to Elk River and Big Lake...

Think you'd try transit to a Twins' game?

Good luck to you if you do.

The lack of transit access to Target Field, the Twins' new, half-billion-dollar bet on Downtown Minneapolis, is going to be a major factor in the gridlock that will result, as the spring approaches and baseball season starts. In fact, the lack of transit for about 1/3rd of the Twins' schedule will eventually affect the Twins, as well as other Target Field events.

The lack of any extra transit operating for afternoon day games on weekdays (you'd only need a bus, one-way, from Northstar stations, as an example) will hamper fans from accessing what should be the region's newest jewel in the region's core -- Downtown Minneapolis -- and the fact that most of the connections (except light-rail) are primarily a shanks'-mare connection at best -- and that the area immediately to the south of the stadium, is one of the primary areas for the homeless -- will make it that much more doubtful that fans will attend, once the newness of the stadium wears off.

It is the hope of this blogger that Twins fans will indeed leave their cars at home and try transit into the stadium area. That is the Twins' hope as well. Is it the hope of Metro Transit that fans will leave their cars at home and use transit? Or will it be like everything else they are forced to provide service for? The 'well, we'll do it, but only because we have to, not because we WANT to' attitude?

We'll have to wait and see.

Northstar Twins' schedule announced

Metro Transit, operator of the Northstar commuter trains, have announced their schedule for extra trains for the Minnesota Twins' inaugural season at Target Field.

The schedule will include extra trains for:

Opening series vs. Boston (April 12, 14, 15)
All weekend (Saturday/Sunday) games
All weeknight games in June, July and August

In total, 53 of the Twins' 81 games will have extra Northstar service.

--WRT

Ever wonder why...?

OK, now I'm perplexed.

Ever wonder why our Government does things sometimes the way they do? Well, here's one for you in that department...

Recently, during a 3-inch snowfall, I came up alongside a MnDOT snowplow working on US Highway 10 in suburban Coon Rapids. This was mid-afternoon, prior to the afternoon rush hour, so I was surprised when I came up to the plow, that although it was dropping the usual car-eating mixture of sand and salt, the blades were in the UP position, and not clearing the roadway of the quickly accumulating snow which was falling.

I thought that when snow accumulates on the roadway, that the resulting accumulation would be enough to warrant snow removal to begin, not just sand/salt distribution. Any car that tried to change lanes in that particular stretch would have been a great candidate for winding up in either the ditch, nose first, or into one of those oh-so-close wire barriers which the State installed last summer.

In either case, when the plows come out, shouldn't the blades be down when snow is present?

One would think so.

Cities vs Suburbs for Transit Funds

Well, Minnesota has indeed joined the 'big leagues' of transportation. There's infighting amogst the populace on who's transit ox is being gored.

On one hand, we have the outer suburbs, many of whom split off from the rest of the Twin Cities Metro area in order to start up their own transit services, which would more closely adhere to the needs of their own communities, as opposed to the 'one size fits all' Metro Transit, which is operated by the Metropolitan Council.

On the other hand, there are the core cities and inner-ring, older suburbs, who have the needs and the lack of resources of most large-city transit systems, despite the 2006 constitutional amendment dedicated the sales tax from the purchase of automobiles to the transit funding pool.

The outer suburbs, mushrooming with growth, want to expand their services, but say the needs of the core cities are stunting their growth. The inner cities are saying that any decrease in their funding will mean service cuts for people who, for whatever reason, are more transit-dependent than their suburban neighbors.

'Making do' has been a mantra for Minnesota transit for about 40 years. When the Met Council took over the old Twin City Lines in the early 1970's, most of the bus fleet dated from 1954, when they discontinued streetcar service. It took the better part of 10 years to upgrade the fleet with buses (not all of which were air-conditioned) which actually had parts available. The bus fleet now inclues transit versions of motor coaches for longer-haul routes, as the suburban operators do. To screw all of this up over a 'he said, they said' arguement would be transit suicide. The future of transit is in alternative modes (read: rail) not the local, all-stops on every corner bus route.

It is hoped that some semblance of order could be made out of this chaos; look at cities which finally got it (Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas/Fort Worth) and who have flourishing transit systems. They understood that cooperation is the key. They cooperated. And everyone benefits because of it.

Get it?