‘Transit’ Archives
Transit News: Going Too Slow
by John Charles Wilson (Note: Some concepts in this month”™s column are borrowed from a streets.mn article titled “Metro Transit Service: Chicken or Egg”, posted 6 August 2021 by Andy Lewis, even though the opinions I will state are my own.) Metro Transit is going too slow. By that, I don”™t mean the buses and trains are literally going too slow, or running too infrequently. (In some parts of the country, “fast” and “slow” are used colloquially to refer to frequency of transit service.) What I mean is, Metro Transit is going too slow at responding to changing conditions regarding changing transit needs as pandemic conditions keep changing. We had light at the end of the tunnel, then it got extinguished by the Delta variant. With the even more threatening Lambda variant on the international scene, we may be in for another round of Stay-At-Home Orders. Or we may not, we just don”™t know. Metro Transit [...]
You Can Gamble, Your Kids Can Have Fun
METRO TRANSIT By John Charles Wilson Are you any of the following: A transit dependent parent who wishes to be able to take his/her kids to Valleyfair? A teenager who”™d like to go to Valleyfair by his/herself without being driven there by a parent? An adult who”™d like to check out the races at Canterbury Park without a car? Or an adult who”™d like to go to Mystic Lake without a car and without being beholden to the casino bus schedule? If so, the Minnesota Valley Transit Authority (MVTA) has a solution for you! Route 410, also known as the “4FUN” bus, is a new weekend express bus from the Mall of America to Valleyfair, Canterbury Park, and Mystic Lake. Buses leave the Mall of America every hour from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM, and again from 6:23 to 10:23 PM (though skipping the Valleyfair stop in the evenings). Return buses from Mystic Lake run 9:44 AM to 5:44 PM and again from 7:01 to 11:01 PM (though the last one to pick up at [...]
Transit Waves of the Future
METRO TRANSIT by JOHN CHARLES WILSON With the COVID emergency drawing to a close, and all the new transit coming to the Twin Cities in the near future, I decided it”™s time to write about exciting new concepts in transit that may benefit you someday. Bus Rapid Transit is making headway (pun intended for you transit insiders*) in South Minneapolis and the southern suburbs. The Orange Line is almost ready to start rolling down I-35W, the D Line is coming to Chicago Avenue next year, and the B Line is supposed to come to Lake Street in 2024, and may even have a dedicated bus lane. Another exciting new development for outer suburbs and small towns is called “microtransit”. Microtransit is a modernized version of dial-a-ride service; however, instead of having to call a day in advance, you now only need to use a smartphone app to order your custom ride, often only minutes before you need it. This will make the concept appealing to more people. In [...]
