Day 1576 – Victim of Success?

Hours of Daylight – 15:39

Yesterday was the official kickoff the the brand-new Hiawatha Light Rail line and in many ways it was a victim of its own success.

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It was quite the festive occasion.

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There were all manner of celebratory stuff at most of the stops along the route. Annette and i decided to get a fairly early start and drive down to the current end of the line: Fort Snelling. The line will soon continue to the Mall of America and the main airport, but that section is not yet open, so Fort Snelling is the current terminus.

We arrived, it turned out, way early due to conflicting information. Seems the kickoff time of 10:00 AM was only for the speeches and photo-ops in downtown for all the short-sighted elected/appointed officials and VIPs who have been trying to kill the Light Rail project from day one.

So, Annette and i stood in a rapidly growing line at Fort Snelling, in pretty hot sun, while nothing happened.

Ok, ok, don’t get me wrong: I am 100% in favor of rail transit and support whatever added taxes or fees get assessed on Minneapolis residents to help support the current line, and future expansion, but the big kickoff day was handled in typical dumbass fashion by all the “officials” involved.

First, the published start time was, at best, confusing. I’m not the only person who got the time wrong as evidenced by the line of people that rapidly extended in a vast arc from the train platform into the parking lot. We stood around as the first train from downtown rolled into the station packed with media and the aforementioned VIPs.

Second, due probably to budget contstraints, there isn’t an interlocking at both ends of the Fort Snelling station. That’s “train-speak” for an x-switch that can route trains onto different tracks. In the New York Subway system there are interlockings all over the place. This costs more, but consider what it means for day to day operation. Specifically if a train is stalled in a station other trains can be routed around via the interlocking while other trains are briefly held at signals. If there are no interlockings, say, for four or five stations, a stalled train effectively cripples the whole system since it will be very difficult to route other trains around while keeping trains behind the stalled train moving.

Another effect of the missing interlocking is it become a bit more complicated to reverse a train’s direction. For example: the VIP train rolled in, the all-white doughy men in suits (who, of course, will never ride the train again) stumbled off onto the platform and milled about in mild confusion. Transit officials tried to figure out who would ride the train back, who wanted to take one of the special busses back, and who was simply bailing for their cars brought down by their wives. This took a long time. Finally the train doors closed and once the masses of VIPs cleared the grade crossing south of the station the train moved out of the station, away from downtown, and crossed the only available interlocking. It then sat for ten minutes while traffic was permitted to clear the grade crossing. Then the red tailights switched to white headlights and the train crept forward and crossed over the interlocking, switching to the northbound track, and again stopped in the station. I guess some “regulars” were taken on and, finally, the train departed for downtown.

See what i’m getting at? When you combine the complexity of bringing a train in on one platform, unloading, clearing the people (many who need to cross infront of the train), rolling the train out, changing the switch, rolling back into the station on the opposite platform, loading new passengers, but only enough so that everybody gets a SEAT, and then waiting until the next train from downtown rolls in and the whole process gets repeated, it will take hours to move even a modest crowd of people let alone the hundreds who were queued up for the free ride.

We bailed on the whole thing after about an hour of barely inching forward.

Again, don’t misunderstand, this is not a statement against public rail transit. I’m GLAD the place was mobbed with people. I want the Hiawatha line to succeed and i want to see it expanded. It’s just the execution of the kickoff day was so poorly organized i simply couldn’t stand it.


After the Light Rail
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After i pulled the plug on waiting around for the light rail ride i took the above beast out for an 80 mile trip with my upstairs neighbor Nate. Yep, that’s actually my motorcycle. A Victory Sport Cruiser. 1,507 cc’s. All i can say is that i’m getting better at riding everytime i go out. I suppose that’s about the best one can hope for when it comes to riding.

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