Welcome, 201

As I rushed out the door today, I grabbed my LRT lapel pin and stuck it onto my coat.

It's a special occasion that requires train bling. Today, the first Central Corridor light rail vehicle glided into Target Field station. It is vehicle number 201, and it's the first of a lighter, smarter - and dare I say - cuter fleet.








Here is 201 next to a newly painted Hiawatha "Blue Line" train, both sporting the new Metro logo. Would we call that 2012 Metro livery? I guess we might.









After a few short speeches from the big kahunas (did I mention it was freezing out there?) we all got to board the train and check out  the new digs. Good news, the heat works. The seats work, too.



Giddy with excitement.








I realize now that I could have taken better photos of the interior, but when you're excited, it's hard to remember what you're supposed to do. I think I actually gave someone a high five at one point.

A route map! How many times have I sat on Hiawatha and imagined looking up at this image? Many.





A future system map, for show I suppose. There was also one placed on the LRT platform - nice touch, Metro Transit!




Poster on board showing a shrink wrapped train being delivered to the Hiawatha OMF. Wait, you're telling me that this thing passed right over University Avenue in broad daylight and no one told me? My day job is clearly getting in the way of trainspotting.

Location:Target Field station platform

Best and Worst of the Week

Best: Catenary poles and catenary wire-holder-thingamabobs. Can we pause for a moment and look at how good those tapered, tubular, Saint-Paul-Brown catenary poles look? Details matter. (I apologize to those of you that ride Hiawatha everyday and will never look be able to look at your galvanized i-beams the same way.) Special thanks to the traffic engineer who strategically placed that arrow for this photo.




Worst/best: A bus shelter on a cold, rainy day. So awkward. So clammy. And yet, such a sight for sore eyes. There's kind of a strange camaraderie among a bunch of half-soaked grumpy people who need to share a tiny space. And if there's not, some group venting about the bus being late usually does the trick. Everyone loves to hate on a late bus!




Best: Lumbermobile. Something that is so bizarrely American is this idea that cars are irreplaceable. A world without a roof rack? Gasp! I wish I had a dollar for every time I heard something like, "transit is great, but nobody is going to take the bus/train to Menards to buy lumber." You know what? They actually do. Take a seat, haters.




(I should say - Menards is a true superstore and sells virtually everything. We have a game trying to guess things they don't sell - it's impossible. Pudding? Coloring books? Deodorant? Flameless candles? The magic bullet? Hot pink zebra duct tape? It turns out all these things fit on transit! And here we had just written off customers in the Central Corridor shopping for things smaller than a breadbox.)


Worst: Parking fail. Failure. Failed. Fail.




Best: Granite Pavers (aka Paver Watch 2012). From deep below the streets of Saint Paul - reclaimed granite and sandstone pavers are now being reinstalled in the medians of the Raymond historic district. There's more to this design coming east of Raymond...wait for it...





- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Nightlights and new tricks

Let's face it - construction has gone from exciting, to frustrating, to endlessly long. For a few weeks, the only thing I could get behind was the seemingly magical drop-off-only buses running on University. I don't really get it, but I like it...a lot.

But then, I go for a walk and notice that things are happening - still- new things all the time. Here are a few of my favorite University Avenue additions.

1. The medians are actually planted. Yes, it's ok to look twice. The pile of industrious weeds that had sprung up are starting to be replaced with real plants, and even some (gasp!) flowers. Did you ever think you'd see the day when flowers were planted down the middle of University Avenue? Only in my wildest dreams.




2. Bike racks. While I don't own a bike, and am not quite sure if the median is the most functional spot, I am now beginning to understand that getting bike parking installed is only slightly less difficult than, say, buying a unicorn or finding the Northwest Passage. It's hard. We'll take it. Did you ever think you'd see the day when bike racks were installed down the middle of University Avenue? Only in my wildest dreams.




2. Advance stop bars. Say what? Oh, yes, that fatty stripe on the street isn't just for looks. And if you don't think it makes a difference, I should note that TWO vehicles stopped and waited for me to cross when I paused to take this photo. Looks like it isn't that hard to teach an old dog new tricks.




3. Neighborhood-scale nightlights. You always hear people talk about light pollution and streetlights shining in their windows and commercial lighting generally ruining humanity. Well, I moved to the city so I can have the luxury of walking my dog without a flashlight, and I can't get enough of this LED bonanza. More is more. Beautiful.

Location:Westgate station

A train by any other name

For many years we've called it the Central Corridor. But it's going to be the Green Line, and since the signs are already going up, well, it's time to make the switch.

I am kind of attached to Central, but the color system is less about what we're getting rid of, and more about what we're getting: maps. Real, beautiful, abstract, big city metro maps. I don't have the Transit Maps of the World book on my coffee table for nothing, people.

The good news is, I possess some cartography skillz myself. The bad news is, the hardest thing to map is something stylized and beautiful and unrelated to coordinates on the earth. Cheating in GIS is so difficult! For this job, we need to throw out the projections (sorry, Mercator!) and bring on the graphic designers. And when I started looking around, it seemed like these folks may already have a head start...I like where this is going!

[See this and other prototypes at Carticulate!]

And speaking of things I want to design, I am thinking about creating some transity nerd green line tshirts - something to express my localized enthusiasm, like you see in places like Toronto and New York. I'd like a shirt or a bag with every Twin Cities local* bus number printed on it. It would come with a sharpie keychain so that you could proudly cross off routes you've used, or put a heart around your favorite line. I mean, instant street cred of course, but also people might say "oh, you've been on the 64 - can you tell me where I need to transfer to catch that downtown?" Now how useful is that? We transiteers should self-identify and make ourselves useful.

Also, these shirts could double as matching uniforms for our opening day flash mob. I mean, there is going to be dancing in the streets, right?

*Sorry, suburban express riders, but this is kind of a city thing. Maybe you could make blingy seat covers or coffee cozies with your route on them?

Home improvements

Either they're putting in a huge whirlpool tub at Cedar and 5th, or that's just more guideway work.

Perhaps I have been watching too much HGTV this summer...

Mind-bending, face-melting

This is going to sound terribly nerdy - there are few things that make me as happy as this map. We seem to have won the transity jackpot, my friends. 

This week I have been spending a lot of time telling people about the SAINT PAUL OF THE FUTURE [outer space voice]. SPOTF is a place where I can get to Bead Monkey or Seward co-op or Highland on one bus. One bus! These bus improvements have been a bit of a Central Corridor dark horse for me - who knew that we'd save so much from the 16 & 94 that we'd be able to plow it into obscene* amounts of service? I have ridden transit despite the crummy transfers and the 30 minute headways at rush hour. Soon, I'll be able to ride transit because it's easy. Easy? Whoa.

Equally mind-bending is this travel time chart from the same open house last week, where I confirmed that the train will cut fifteen minutes off my 50 bus commute. Fifteen minutes. Each way. Holy bananas.

What am I going to do with an extra half hour every day? Loosely translated, I could hit about five more snooze buttons, or actually make dinner before I get too hungry and just eat popcorn.

Or, I could for-reals learn to knit and (yarn) bomb things.

Or, I could play with circuits. On way home last week, I stopped by this interactive pop-up studio next The Edge. 

The friendly duo, Beatrix*Jar, had created a workshop of rewired toys. Think Axman meets Toy Story meets electronic music. Brilliant.


Beatrix*Jar from mn original on Vimeo.

Yes, I think playing with some face-melting robot keyboards could be the perfect way to spend my newfound time!

*Obscene by East Metro Standards.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location: 50 bus

This is really happening, people

See? 

Some days I just have to say that out loud.