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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.

Tonight it took me over two hours to get home.

As most know, I usually take the MetroTransit Hiawatha Light Rail line to and from work. Today was no exception, although I was very disconcerted when no trains showed up between 5:20 and 5:40 at my stop (not even going in the other direction).

Finally, about then, they said that the trains were not travelling down the middle section of the line. I’ve seen trains be shutdown before, and usually they are fairly quick to bring buses in to reroute people, but for some reason the official word on the platform is terribly slow to get out. I mean, whenever there is a problem, I always have to wait at least 20 minutes before they even tell me why a train isn’t coming.

After a train finally came and took us northbound, we got to the part where the buses were to come. And sure enough, there were three buses there within 10 minutes, which was a great response. The MetroTransit employee who was there told us that someone had been killed while trying to cross in front of a train. That’s too bad. Twenty minutes later, the bus drove by the scene of the accident, and there was certainly a ton of emergency vehicles. If i could see better, I would tell you about the scene, and although I couldn’t see anything terribly wrong (just all blocked off), most of the other passengers could.

Now that I’m home, I now read that a 30-something man on a bike was hit by the train while trying to cross the intersection. As the MetroTransit employee said to us a Fort Snelling, it’s another reminder not to try to race the train. This is the third fatal accident on MetroTransit’s only light rail line, the first one not involving a motor vehicle, I believe.

So this evening I had a bit of a disappointment with MetroTransit and their test run of the GoTo Card. So here’s the e-mail letter I sent to them.

Dear MetroTransit,

I was really excited when I saw the flyer last week saying that the GoTo Card was going to be test run and that I could join. After work at the 28th St. Station in Bloomington, I went up to the people enrolling us in the test. I’ve heard a lot about the GoTo Card and would love to try it out.

But when I showed the volunteers that I was currently using a Monthly Mobility Pass (the $21 version), they said, “That might be cheaper,” and urged me to stick with that. I left shortly thereafter because the train was coming. For the record, I hope that is not the long-term solution, because we need the convenience of the GoTo Card too.

I suspect, though, that it was the fact that the volunteers did not know all the details. I know for a fact that I could get .50 per ride, at least on the light rail, because I’ve played around with the buttons on the GoTo Card Reader machine.

So could I enroll in the test? If so, is there a place to sign up? Please, if possible, get back to me soon so that I don’t start a new monthly pass on the 26th.

Thanks,

Dan Ficker

I’ll update this post if I recieve a reply or any new information.

UPDATE: I just talked to somebody at the Mall of America Transit Station that seemed to know a bunch more than the volunteers yesterday. He said that right now the GoTo Cards only support the functionality of the SuperSaver Stored Value cards. Right now, the GoTo Cards will not do a monthly pass thing. Since that’s currently what I use, I opted to stick with the SuperSavers. He did say they’d be running a monthly pass test group in November or December.

He also made it sound like you’d have to get a separate card to do the monthly pass. I’d originally heard that you could have a monthly pass and some stored value on the same card, for example if you’re paying for yourself and a friend. So who knows.

So tonight I went to a meeting of Transit for Livable Communities at the nice Goowill building just off University and Fairview. The meeting was mostly about the Central Corridor project, and since it’s hard to get information on the web, I decided the best way to find out about developments is by going to the meeting.

As usual, there were a decent share of those passionate, “I hate government” and “Our bus system sucks” people. I always sympathize with those people (because they’re right), but they seem to be incapable of figuring out that following the political process is the only way to get this to change. And yelling at the choir rarely does any of that.

It was definitely better than the last community-related Metro Transit meeting. Of course, that’s because the meeting last year was to complain about proposed budget cuts. Unlike last year’s meeting, though, it was nice to see the concerned citizens for public transportation working on it instead of just the disabled and poor who cannot afford a car.

So what happened at the meeting? Well, they went over the fact that they have an Environmental Impact Study results or something and are looking for the public’s reaction to that. Oh wait, the study was about the Central Corridor project, which is a stretch between downtown Minneapolis and downtown St. Paul. The results seem to be that a Light Rail system down the streets of University Ave. (and hopefully a tunnel under the U of M) is the best option to improve transportation in the area.

After a couple of short presentations, we broke into small groups of 10 or so and talked through the issues we found. Of course, a main issue was the money. Where the money is not the problem, it was more the idea of what else we could do with that money. I brought up the idea that I find it hard to believe that they’d find room for light rail and keep the 4 lanes of traffic on the road, but it seemed pretty well known among the rest of the group that it’s one of the widest roads in the area. That’s probably true, but still, the current Light Rail line on Hiawatha is in much more spacious areas, for the most part.

Apprently the big news of the area is that public transportation is attached to a current tax bill in the state legislature. The Star Tribune has coverage of it, but apparently the word from the meeting is that this half-cent regional sales tax would bring in about $110 million per year for the next couple years, and after the stadiums get paid off, all $220 million would go to public transit. This is the money that mass transit in Minnesota needs, but everyone at TLC was realistically not expecting the legislation to go through. (Plus, our insane governor will most certainly veto it.)

All in all, it was a great meeting to attend. Although I’m still a bit scared of all these political people who just sit around thinking about how to improve the city. They’re just too social and weird.

I hope last year’s rather weak winter weather doesn’t hinder our new Light Rail system. For those who don’t know, about a year ago Minneapolis opened a light rail line. I ride it every day home from work (and sometimes to work).

Today and yesterday we’ve had a decent amount of snow, and it seems to have caught MetroTransit off guard. You see, going home usually goes pretty smooth because the trains run every 7 minutes during rush hour. But with all the snow, the schedule seems very sporadic.

I left at 5:10 and therefore just missed the 5:12 train. But the next train came at 5:26! Not cool. Plus, while waiting for the train, 3 or 4 trains went by on the southbound track! It was very annoying.

Of course, it would probably help if the government actually supported our publil transit instead of pretending it’s nonexistent.

Recently to get to work I’ve been taking the Hiawatha Light Rail tran to work. It’s a lot of fun.

Recently a couple trains were wrapped in iPod ads. They look great:

As far as I can tell, there’s that train and one that’s in yellow and green. Only two trains are covered in the ads. And don’t worry, they’re not permanent or anything. They’re just a vinyl wrapping.

This morning I biked downtown. It was fun biking down there, becuase I got to go downhill most of the way and along the river so it looked nice. The green’s starting to come back too, so it was looking pretty good.

The reason I went down was for the Metropolitan Council hearing on proposed MetroTransit fare and service changes. I guess it’s kinda the first of my community activism career, even though I didn’t do or say anything. They had a short presentation to outline the changes, which include cutting weekend and evening service on many bus routes here in the Twin Cities, plus raising the fares 25¢ across the board.

It was then followed by over two hours of people giving their opinion on the changes. Naturally, most of the community is against the changes. There were many people there, mostly disabled persons, who gave concrete examples of how the changes will significantly impair their life. It was also refreshing to see some professional businesspeople (non-disabled) complaining about the cuts, mostly becuase I believe that bus transit is for more people than just the disabled.

Unfortunately, there’s not much that the Metropolitan Council can do about it. What needs to happen is that Governor Pawlenty and the State Legislature needs to know that we need better transit. I think that right now we should not be cutting back, but be overspending on mass transit in order to make a world-class system. It’s amazing to me that some well-reputed sources can claim Minneapolis one of the best places in the world to live when you have to drive your car almost everywhere. I think we need to spend lots of money on transit to make a system with bus and rail integrated and covering more. Too bad the frickin’ politicans in office just like all the traffic.

Some of the facts presented by citizens were questionable, but one sounded interesting. They claimed that the most subsidized form of transit is your car or truck. I believe it. If Detroit had their way, there’d be no public transit and just lots and lots of highways. Fifty years ago, Minnapolis/St. Paul had a world-class streetcar system, but the automobile industry managed to somehow put them out of business. Only now are we recovering from that. I fear that if we don’t do something about Minnesota’s transit, it’ll be another fifty years of medocre transit. I hope that doesn’t happen.

The bike ride back was a bit more hectic, but I liked it. I had to bike through downtown and decided to go up the big hill, but I made it pretty well. Plus, I like workin’ out.

Yeah, I’m published! Yeah, that’s my opinion letter in the St. Paul, MN newspaper.

EDIT: The site no longer has the content, and I don’t really have a digital copy of their edited content anymore, but this is the full e-mail I sent them. I think they did edit it down a bit for their Opinion section.

We have a problem. Unless this administration changes its policy, we will not have a mass transit system in five years, we will have an international joke. According to Charles Laszewski’s story in the Friday paper, Pawlenty’s administration is not giving any more funding to Metro Transit and fares are going to be raised. How can this happen? For the first time in 50 years, the Twin Cities has the beginnings of a solid mass transit system. Even since my mother was young, buses were considered to be for those who were poor or disabled. With the advent of light rail, we may actually have a transit system that regular middle-class workers might use to get to work. However, raising fares and cutting funding is not going to help. If anything we need to channel more state money into MetroTransit so that it can expand its services. Cutting routes and services are not going to encourage new ridership. If the state fails to do this now, Minnesotans are going to be clogging up the freeways for the rest of my lifetime. How about conserving energy and getting to work a little cheaper for a change?
- Dan Ficker, St. Paul, MN

I now officially hate Governor Pawlenty. If anybody else is marching on the capitol, I’m there.

For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s an issue very close to my heart: Public transportation. This past year has found the introduction of the Hiawatha Light Rail line to the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. It’s a bunch faster than taking a bus and is lots of fun. It’s almost as cool as a subway. But one stretch of track from downtown to the airport and the Mall of America hardly consists of a public transportation system, even when that system includes hundreds of bus routes.

In recent news, the system is under budget. Today it was announced that the proposed plans to put it on budget is to cut at least some part of 70% of the bus system. Some routes will be completely canceled, but some will be reduced.

This is no good at all. With the introduction of the our new rail line, people besides those without cars are finding that MetroTransit may actually be a viable way of getting around. If buses are running less often, that’s not going to help. Plus, fares are probably going to be raised across the board, which is also no good.

Most of this is because of the fact that our stupid governor is getting paid off by Detroit or Iraq oil or something. He wants us to have to all drive around in our cars and pay outrageous prices for gas. If anything, right now the amount of money allotted to MetroTransit should go up so that they can expand their services. It would encourage ridership instead of discourage it. It’s the only way that people besides the disabled and really poor are going to think about using buses for everyday tasks.