That’s One Way To Speed Up The “Green Line”

The “Green Line” – nee the “Central Corridor”, aka “The current Met Council’s $1.4 Billion monument to its own wisdom” – has, exactly as predicted in conservative circles, turned out to be a very, very slow variety of “rapid transit”.  In its first four months in service, it’s clocked the trip between the downtowns at well over an hour; that’s about the same as the 50 Line limited stop bus it replaced, not that much faster than the 16 Local that it trudges down University with, and slower – much slower – than the 94 Express that it shouldered out of existence, except during rush hour. 

Part of the problem – exactly as I discussed on my radio show in 2007-2008 – is that the train operates at street grade level, and has to obey the same traffic signals as all the cars, trucks and buses on the street.

But at least one MTC driver seems to have figured out a way to jumpstart his route times – by ignoring traffic lights; the video in the attached story shows a “Green Line” train crossing a street in Prospect Park (southeast Minneapolis) against a green light on the cross street.  Note that that green light is on throughout the entire motion of the train across the street.

The MTC has an explanation, of course:

Metro Transit spokesperson Drew Kerr declined to answer specific questions about the video because “you can’t see what signals were indicating to the train. A train doesn’t follow green or red lights like a car does.”

If the train driver’s special signals conflict with the lights that the cars around it are seeing – as they clearly do?    I’m no Met Council traffic engineer, but I’m seeing a problem, here…

5 thoughts on “That’s One Way To Speed Up The “Green Line”

  1. <tinfoil hat%gt;
    One might say this is not a “bug”, but a “feature”. One designed to increasingly inconvenience motorists, implemented by the powers that be where they are willing to have a little collateral damage in order to further their agenda of “cars=bad, not cars=good”. Blame the wreckless train driver’s future accidents on the cars, much like an abusive spouse: “If you hadn’t been there in the first place, this wouldn’t have happened. See what you made me do?”
    </tinfoil hat>

  2. It reminds me of the “Far Side” cartoon where aliens show up as traffic lights, planning mayhem.

    It strikes me as well that there are models why which one can predict route times, models that cost considerably less than $1.4 billion to run. There are also models that will tell you whether light rail signals are coordinated with the traffic lights, and the vendors will run those for you for free.

    OK, so tell me why exactly Metro Transit didn’t take advantage of these? Why they’re flushing a billion plus down the porcelain altar without doing this basic due diligence?

    One final note. If the distance between the “twins” is about ten miles, a capable cyclist could beat the train.

  3. The Central Corridor Green Line has adversely affected virtually every existing business along University Ave. A drive down the Avenue at midday is a truly depressing experience; block after block of formerly successful small entrepreneurial, often immigrant businesses shuttered forever. One hopes there will be a special level of hell for urban planners and their enablers.

  4. Another way I’ve personally observed as a Green Line passenger is speeding. The posted train speed limit is 35 mph on University, but more than once I’ve noticed we are rolling much faster, I think 45 mph at times, sailing past the cars. Maybe a TV news crew should do a radar gun sting.

  5. Another thing I’ve noticed is a big blinking train icon affixed to the traffic signals, with not a train in sight either way. I assume this is a “bug” but they need to fix this “crying wolf” soon lest we ignore it like the ramp meters.

    One more little beef: “A Green Line train to downtown St. Paul is due in 2 minutes” the PA boomed at Snelling. It did arrive in 2 minutes but at that point it was 8 minutes late. Liars!

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.