The problem, as I see it, with the “C” routing (under Nicollet) is that it tries to mix two different scales and needs, and spends a lot of money to do so when other projects could better serve a greater population for, perhaps, less money. That is, it tries to kill two birds with one stone, but the stone costs a few hundred million than two stones would otherwise.

In other words, if the project took the “A” route and was supplemented by a streetcar on Nicollet and/or Hennepin and/or the Greenway it may work better. A routing up through Uptown will not be particularly more or less convenient for people who currently take the bus routes along these corridors (the 6, 4 and 18 on Hennepin, Lyndale and Nicollet, respectively) which are frequent and reliable. It will, however, cost significantly more, impact “Eat Street” on Nicollet and have an adverse impact on the Greenway, which has been a catalyst for new construction along the corridor.

In addition, the Uptown-Nicollet corridor will add time to this route, and doesn’t interface as well with the existing light rail line as the “A” route. The light rail has been extended up 5th Street and part-way around the new Twins Stadium and will host, by 2014 (we can only hope) cars from the airport and Downtown Saint Paul, which could be through-routed.

The proposal here to go along 12th Avenue and then loop around will surely add running time, as will dwell times at additional stations (six on the “C” route, three on the “A” route), a sharp curve and some number of ramps and tunnel portals. Adding five minutes will make the line significantly less desirable to suburban residents commuting downtown; the “A” route follows a flat, straight existing right-of-way and would be relatively high-speed.

Finally, the stops at Kenwood (21st Street), Bryn Mawr (Penn) and Harrison (Van White) serve neighborhoods which are not currently well-served by transit—their only connection to Minneapolis are slow, circuitous, infrequent buses. A resident of Bryn Mawr recently told me that not only does the #9 bus take 20 minute to get downtown—a trip of barely a mile as the crow flies—and it has a one-hour gap in service in the early evening. These neighborhoods are not very dense but they’re not McMansion subdivisions either; they are 1920s-era relatively walkable and if served better would see more transit use. In addition, there is ample possibility along this route for redevelopment, as well as access to lakes and parkland.

Route “C” on the other hand, provides transit to communities which already have good transit (yes, by bus, but frequent and relatively fast). Yes, many more people there already use transit, but routing what is a suburban line—and whether we should spend $1b on a suburban transit line or build an urban streetcar system in the Twin Cities would be a fine debate—through the neighborhood doesn’t really make sense. If we want to build the Southwest Corridor, we should build it for what it is, a suburban commuter corridor. It doesn’t make sense to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to try to serve neighborhoods which already use transit. They’d probably be happier with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of streetcars or newer and more buses.

Finally, operations might be adversely affected by the “C” routing through Uptown. The neighborhood is busy all hours of the day and night. During rush hours, trains would be crowded already from the outer suburbs but would probably get even worse at Uptown, so much so that people might opt for the good, old bus. At other times of day, in the evening especially, however, service to the outer part of the line might not necessitate operation of any more than every 15 or 20 minutes, since most of that traffic is commuter traffic. (Most bus routes which serve the line’s outer reaches are currently strictly peak hour only.) From Uptown to Downtown, however, running trains only every 15 minutes wouldn’t make sense; why take the train when you can get a bus that takes the same amount of time but comes more frequently? You’d have to compromise and either have frequent trains which ran mostly-empty in the outer suburbs or less-frequent trains which, due to long headways, didn’t capture the whole local market. Or, you’d have to have short-turn runs to Uptown or just beyond, which is confusing to riders and necessitates even more construction for switching and storage.

The transit situations in the Uptown area, as I see them, are that the buses along Lake Street are very slow and crowded, and the north-south buses could see more investment, perhaps as fixed-guideway systems. Alternative “C” does nothing to alleviate the Lake Street issue (a Midtown Greenway streetcar or LRT, particularly if properly built with a full dual track alignment, would) and really doesn’t help with much other than the Nicollet bus; it would make no sense to ride from 38th Street to Lake Street and then change to a Light Rail which ran not-much-faster in to the city. The only users of the system in the area would be those who lived within a couple blocks of the stations; if you live at 33rd and Nicollet or 27th and Lyndale, you’d still take the bus.

If we are going to build this corridor—and I think there are more worthy lines in the Twin Cities in which to invest—what I’d propose is the following:

• The Southwest Corridor should follow the current “A” routing through the lakes to connect to the current lines at the Twins Ballpark as planned.

• The Midtown Greenway should be rebuilt with a full, two-track right-of-way for streetcars/light rail, connecting with the Southwest Corridor at a transfer station at Calhoun Commons and the Hiawatha Line on the east end, with the potential to continue east to Saint Paul or south to the Airport. (The current bike path must be maintained in the Greenway.) Stops at Lyndale, Nicollet, Portland, Chicago, Cedar-Bloomington, with a run time of ~12 minutes. In addition, the area between Lake Street and 28th should be rezoned to allow for very dense development and built out, with a requirement that buildings have entrances facing on to the Greenway, which could have transit in the center and walking or biking trails on each side.

• Some investment in major north-south bus lines in Minneapolis, particularly on Chicago (5), Nicollet (18), Lyndale (4) and Hennepin (6). In the long run, these could be rebuilt as streetcar lines, but that is not as important as keeping them as high-frequency, reliable bus routes.

This would allow the Southwest corridor to serve the constituency in question (suburbanites) and better serve the current transit-users in Minneapolis. Trying to twist the Southwest Corridor in to a shape where it will portend to serve everyone will make its utility less for all.

And that brings in one of the under-mentioned items of the 3A vs. 3C debate. Do you route the line to serve infill development (3A-Van White), or promote redevelopment (3C-Uptown).

My biggest beef with 3C is that it provided zero connectivity between the SW line and the Central/Hiawatha lines. That is one major operational advantage of 3A is that it facilitates seamless travel between the Southwest and Central/Hiawatha lines.

The 3C Sub-alternative (which is what Yonah calls “3C” in his maps…the main 3C alternative continues up Nicollet into downtown) was created in part because of this issue. And while I prefer 3A from an operational and future-flexibility standpoint (i.e. streetcars and/or additional LRT through south Minneapolis and the Midtown corridor), I could accept the 3C sub-alternative as a compromise.

Cite. Everything I’ve seen indicates open stations and portals across the entire Nicollet Avenue street ROW.

Either the FTA guidelines are incredibly, fundamentally flawed, or the Metropolitan Council, as staffed by the Governor of Minnesota, are liars. Must be a combinaion of the two.

My understanding is that in Washington DC, the approved model consistently underpredicts transit ridership (rail and, even more, bus) in denser, more walkable inner areas and overpredicts ridership in outer less dense areas. Perhaps the Minneapolis model has the same problems? Given the data displayed in the maps, it is surprising to me that both routes have the same ridership.

For that matter, if total trips on both routes are the same, there really is a strong argument that 3A is more cost-effective, because the average trip length on 3A is going to be much longer than on 3C. If the conclusion that 3C is more cost-effective is really wrong, there has got to be something wrong with the ridership numbers.