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I just noticed that, a week or two ago, MetroTransit announced that route and trip information for their buses and trains throughout the Minneapolis/St. Paul area is now available via Google Maps.  The program, dubbed Google Transit, has been active for a year or two in such major markets as Portland and Chicago, among many others.  Here’s a trip I just queued up:

On the right side of your trip, you have a map that shows the transfer points and the routes taken, as well as any parts that need to include walking.  On the left side, there are three options of similar trips leaving at the time, but notice that only the first one (which is selected) uses the light rail - the others route you down University Ave. and down Snelling Ave.  Below the trip you’ve selected it gives you details of each leg of the trip as well and most locations even include a Street View of the corner.

Why use Google Transit? First of all, with MetroTransit’s website, you had to look up the address and then route it.  Google Maps is smart enough to figure out the address for you so that saves a step.  The map details are much better and gives you a road view as well as a sattelite view, which gives you much more data about where you are going.  And many say that MetroTransit’s website is terrible, but after visiting some other sites for other services, I’ve found it to be fairly competent.  Still, though, the Google Maps interface for the exact same data gives you all of the route information that you can get at MetroTransit and a bit more in an easier-to-use package.

On my way home from work today, I was walking to the platform and I saw this:

I knew I had to get on the Chipotle Light Rail train! Unfortunately, the train was packed full of sports fans for the Twins opener. It was almost as crowded as during a Vikings game.

This past week has been a historic week for people who leave their houses on a regular basis in Minnesota. This week, Governor Tim Pawlenty’s often overused veto power was overruled by state legislators. This is a major win for the state, as Gov. Pawlenty has consistently vetoed every transportation bill to pass his desk in the last six years as well as worked to cut transportation funding in favor of balancing the state budget without raising taxes. (Some politicians who have not supported Pawlenty’s transportation plans even blamed the governor’s policies on the collapse of the I-35W bridge this past fall.)

The transportation bill will raise the state gas tax 5.5 cents per gallon. This is the first gas tax increase in 20 years, and will generate billions of dollars for transportation-related projects, of course mostly roads and bridges. Also, the seven-county Metro Area will add a quarter-percent sales tax that will raise approximately $1.1 billion over the next 10 years for public transportation projects such as light rail, improving bus service, and providing more options for bicyclists and pedestrians.

Under Pawlenty’s terms as governor, I’ve seen transportation, especially public transportation, suffer. When I started using the buses about 6 or 7 years ago, the buses ran more often and many routes ran all night. But since then, almost no buses run after 1 am (thus negating the idea of using the bus after the bar) and only a handful of routes run more often than every 20 to 30 minutes. The Metropolitan Council has often been blamed for putting too much money into light rail at the expense of bus service, but the truth is that the Met Council was doing what they could with the limited finances they’ve been given.

I, for one, am very excited about the potential for this extra funding. There’s no doubt that our roads and bridges can use the funding, unless we want to to turn more of our roads into private toll roads or something. Also, I’m excited about the potential for improvements in other forms of transportation such as buses and light rail, which have been sorely underfunded in the past couple years. Like I said in an opinion letter in a local newspaper, we need to promote mass transit and make it a robust system, otherwise no one will use it. I still think that is true after three years, and I am glad that the state legislators are willing to fight for it.

In other Twin Cities transportation news, MetroTransit recently updated their Trip Planner to have a better user interface and maps of the locations (although it should be using Google Maps). Also, I will be posting more on the current plans for the Central Corridor Light Rail in the next week and how it is progressing, so stay tuned.

This past week, Mn/DOT announced the plans for a new bridge to span the Mississippi River in the place where the 35W bridge collapsed. Below is probably the most pleasing design due to the rounded support pillars at each end of the river. There are other slight variations to the lighting and supports of the bridge that are still being decided.

A quick Google News search to find the plans of the bridge found a lot of complaining about the design, which, of course, is what crowds do best, especially after a tragedy like this. Here’s my thoughts (mostly taken from reading the Mn/DOT Press Release and this Pioneer Press article):

• The bridge looks nice. The subtle curves make it just a bit nicer than the usual freeway bridge. Plus, of course, that’s also a structural benefit.
• The bridge complements the surrounding area well, including the neighboring 10th St./Cedar Ave. Bridge.
• Of course, all the plans stress safety, including sensors built into the bridge to warn of problems as well as a design that will keep the bridge standing if one part fails.

According to a New York Times article, news/talk pundit Don Shelby says, “It almost looks like a causeway to me. It’s just a way to get from one side to the other.” Excuse me? Of course it is! Did you ever look at the old bridge and go, “That’s one fine work of art.” It looks twice as good as the old bridge, so why all that complaining? According to a number of other articles, the vocal populace seems to have many concerns whether Mn/DOT and the design firm are doing their jobs well enough. If you ask me, the handling of the collapse proves the agencies responsible can handle it well.

Sure, it’s not an inspiring and standout memorial of the events of the bridge collapse, but is that really such a bad thing? I guess if we want the evening of August 1st, 2007 to be the defining moment of this generation, then we should get someone like Norman Foster to design an inspiring masterpiece. If we did that, I think the Minneapolis downtown river area would be very overcrowded This tragedy, in my opinion, is not the definition of the Twin Cities and who we are. This bridge will serve as a gentle reminder to all of us and will, more importantly, transport thousands of people safely to and from Minneapolis every day.

On a side note, why are people fine with spending to $243 million (or more like $393 million including collapse clean-up and related construction) on this project when they believe that $800+ million is definitely not worth it to connect Minneapolis and Saint Paul with a light rail line. Sure, it’s a more expensive project, but it’s a much bigger project and helps the Twin Cities much more than this bridge ever will. Plus, if we don’t build a light rail line in the next decade, we will be turning 94 into 10 lanes in about a decade.

And people thought that Windows Vista took forever. About four years ago, I saw a green GoTo Card reader on a MetroTransit bus and asked a bus driver what that was. He said they were introducing a new kind of SuperSaver in time for the launch of the Hiawatha Light Rail line. Just this month, the GoTo Card has finally come out for public use, even though I’ve been using one for most of a year.

The system works much better than the flimsy paper SuperSaver passes they’ve been using for a long time. Although they say the GoTo Cards will cost $5, right now they’ll give ‘em to you for free if you put $20 on them. Like the SuperSavers, every $10 you buy comes with $1 of free value on it to encourage use over change and bills. The card just needs a quick swipe over the pad to transfer data, so it’s nice and quick. You can reload the card with value via any Light Rail fare machine or via the GoTo Card Website. Plus, it can also handle monthly passes as well. For the last 9 months or so, I’ve been using the card, and maybe for the past 6 months, I’ve been using the monthly pass without a hitch even though nobody officially said I could as a part of the early test group.

I thought that they spent some money doing some kinda fun ideas of ads to put on the light rail stations. These ads are stuck underfoot on the light rail platform and liken the GoTo Card to other common items. Too bad the website is so boring (and only viewable over an SSL connection for no reason).

As an update to a previous post, I found and snapped a photo of this ad:

Now it makes sense. It’s all about not getting hit by trains. It’s hard for some people not to get hit when they’re on tracks with flashing lights, loud bells, and a train making loud dinging noises as it approaches. I guess it’s comforting to know that you should do your part to make sure the rest of the community is safe too.

I was leaving the light rail platform and noticed for the third time today a new MetroTransit ad affixed to the entrance of the platform. Check it out:

Apparently it’s not marketed at me, because it makes no sense. As much as I can figure, it seems they’re saying that they don’t have bridges that collapse. Or something. If it makes sense to you, maybe you can enlighten me.

UPDATE: Here’s some new information I found.

Well, I went through the last couple days worth of the front page on Digg and couldn’t find any decent stuff to report on. However, I did find something that reminded me of a fun article I found a couple months ago. Check out this page of images of Metro Arts and Architecture. It’s a lot of beautiful places in mostly underground subways. There’s also some fun photos for the world metro traveler all around the Metro Bits site.

Of course, there’s no way they mention everything cool about the subways. In Washington D.C. we went to a station that is a couple hundred feet underground. That was definitely the longest escalator I’ve ever seen! Another article I read via Digg said that every building in Paris is less than 1,600 feet away from a subway station. Crazy!

Also, an interesting thing are underground maps. One my favorites is this poster promoting an art show as well as the London Underground, which is shown in this post. They had a copy of the poster in the business building during college. I loved looking at it.

For the past month or so, I have been testing the MetroTransit’s much-delayed Go-To Card system. I remember over three years ago when I started seeing things about Go-To Cards coming in early 2004 with the opening of the Hiawatha Light Rail line. However, the Go-To Card systems have been sitting idle for the last two years at light rail stations and on buses.

After a month of testing it, I’d have to say it’s a very nice system. Instead of flimsy, disposable paper passes, this is a durable, hard plastic card like a credit card. The card does not need to be stuck in a machine, it just needs to be swiped over the card reader. (Sometimes it has been a bit whiny about it, misreading it if I swipe it over too fast.) It’s much faster and easier to use than the old Stored Value paper cards.

However, the biggest benefit is the reusability. You don’t have to buy new cards every month or two. You just keep using the card and putting more money on it. And putting more money on the card is getting easier and easier. Before you had to go to a MetroTransit outlet to buy a pass. Now you can add money to the Go-To Card at MetroTransit Stores or at any Light Rail station.

I just did it yesterday. I swiped my Go-To Card to the ATM-style ticket machine at the Light Rail station on the way home from work. I told the machine that I wanted to pay $10 for $11 of value on the Go-To Card. (Yes, they still reward people who don’t pay with cash.) I stuck my credit card into the machine and it immediately transferred the money. It took less than a minute, printed me a receipt, and let me pay seconds later with the money I added to my Go-To Card.

Apparently the 2,500-person test has ran out and they will not start selling them to the full public until late January. I recommend you check it out when its available no matter if you just sometimes use the bus or you use it all the time.

My only questions are: when are they going to start testing the monthly pass Go-To Card system? And how does that work with the stored value? Can they be on the same card?

Apparently MetroTransit found some money because there are a handful of new features on the web. The first is a fun new Flash site entitled “Learn A New Way To Move” and located at bustrainrideshare.org. Interesting.

The deisgn is fun and nicely enhanced with Flash. It looks like a well-worn booklet with lots of fun stuff wrote in the margins and hand-written tabs. Fun stuff, and fairly well-deisgned although it could use a non-Flash version.

The other interesting move is a promotion of their busier routes. Routes that come more often then every 15 minutes will be marked as “hi-frequency” routes. The promotional blurbs say that you won’t have to check the schedule because you know the bus is coming soon. Of course, thoes doesn’t actually reflect any changes in the system, just a promotion of their better-traveled routes. Hopefully it will follow that more routes will be moved up to “hi-frequency” status.