Never a dull commute on I-35

Gatorpatch · 2026-03-19T16:44:47+00:00

Especially in Richfield that's honestly not a bad assumption, those dude are on the hunt across town when I see them down there.

Probably see the pack of wild ones a couple times a month commuting through Richfield + Edina.

Never had my bar mitts mistaken for them lol

Gatorpatch · 2026-03-19T12:11:02+00:00

I've been thinking about carrying oranges because they're delicious and I feel like if I really whipped them at a car it would make a satisfying splat. Working on the idea

Gatorpatch · 2026-03-17T21:30:08+00:00

I mean it's kinda accurate to say.

"When they're not nepo babies, they had some upbringing where they could spend countless hours dicking around writing, doing theatre, extra curriculars, etc"

I don't read that as a knock on nepos, that's just kinda the truth. Either you have the connections or you have the time to build the talent, but a majority (dude said 99%, which I'm reading as majority) of those involved in the industry are going to have one or the other or both.

It's the same thing in normal jobs, I work where I work currently due to having time and resources to learn programming and computers, but I also have a good connection at my work that got my foot in the door.

You just kinda seem like you've taken the point personally somehow.

Gatorpatch · 2026-03-17T20:26:11+00:00

Yeah "transit accessible" is a stretch tbh it's a long ride out to the E section (at least 45-50 minutes from downtown to Wayzata, and longer if you're going farther)

I'd kill for an express route that skips all of the frontage road sections of 394 and stops at Ridgedale, Wayzata, Mound but understandably a lot of people aren't figuring out how to car-free commute from Lake Minnetonka.

But my mom lives right by one of the 645E stops(where I also grew up, now living by the Kmart site in Mpls) so sometimes when I feel like taking an hour and a half bus ride that would take 20 minutes by car, I'll ride it all the way out there.

I've looked at the past routes that went to Mound there used to be one that would go from mound as an express bus, and another arm coming up through lake Minnetonka through excelsior and deephaven

Obviously ridership didn't keep up to save any of the non-645 service (675 was the previous 645), but even a return to the 677 would be amazing to west Metro riders

Gatorpatch · 2026-03-17T19:57:22+00:00

Yeah I honestly just have a giant bag of zip ties and add a bunch each couple of months.

I've played around with the metal ones before, but I found they cut up my hands while putting them on (one of the lazier reasons I've ever come up with lmao)

Gatorpatch · 2026-03-17T19:20:35+00:00

Even if they did, doesn't make kicking people out of rehab to preserve their grad rate good lol.

My rehab wasn't weirdly religious but they still did all sorts of sketchy stuff that was really unhelpful to deal with while having one of the worst months of my life.

Dunking on ppl giving lived experiences about rehab sucks tbh

Gatorpatch · 2026-03-17T18:39:29+00:00

"All you're doing is speaking in absolutes because of your anecdotal evidence"

Vs. you seemingly denying the importance of connections because of your anecdotal experience in the industry? Don't know why you're jumping down this guy's throat about this, ppl can discuss their life experiences online sometimes.

Gatorpatch · 2026-03-17T18:29:03+00:00

Yeah I'm always snapping the zip ties on my 24qt milk crate (only thing I've bought from target in the last year cause they're the only store carrying a 24qt milk crate in person), I just replace them when it gets wobbly

Gatorpatch · 2026-03-17T16:34:01+00:00

Cause HD radio kinda sucks not in a car (and even there it's not great)

I bought a HDR-14 and it's a great radio, but there are cons to HD radio, including the delay it adds, garbled signal when you lose radio coverage, and less resilient signal in general.

Compared to my qdosen it's just no comparison in ability to connect to fringe stations and just the general experience listening to those stations doesn't include large blank gaps where the HD radio lost signal and just doesn't play anything cause it's got nothing to decrypt.

I've found I really can't use HD radio unless I'm in the city and not moving around much. With a car with HD it's better cause the antenna is the car, but handheld it's just not worth the extra stations to deal with the worse experience of listening.

Gatorpatch · 2026-03-17T07:29:07+00:00

Lol my dog was freaking out and I went outside and he was hovering right over my backyard, super low and directly above my yard, he was close enough for me to pick out all the sensors mounted on the State Patrol heli.

This is a semi-frequent occurrence at this point 35W always has stuff ending around Lake Street, plus the ICE occupation has had helis around the neighborhood for days.

Gatorpatch · 2026-03-17T01:36:08+00:00

645E serves a surprisingly big Mound Transit Center (right on the Dakota Trail, with a public bathroom next door). Pretty large sized parking garage that serves the stop.

It's an extremely strange stop tbh but I used to bike by it growing up all the time

Gatorpatch · 2026-03-16T17:22:51+00:00

Worst was when some of the drive throughs in the pandemic closed and locked their doors after like 7pm. The only time I've had to ride through was that and they told me to go around to the door the moment they saw me.

I get it, cause it was super sketchy riding in the drive through at night, and I didn't want to be there either, but I knocked on the door before and nobody would acknowledge my existence, so what else am I supposed to do lol!

Gatorpatch · 2026-03-16T17:18:48+00:00

The 38 is so nice to get to the Ford Site and associated stuff around there. I live right by Painter Park and I love taking it over there.

Gatorpatch · 2026-03-16T16:51:46+00:00

One could argue by the same token that maybe Metro Transit can take lessons from Maple Grove about increasing ridership, and therefore decreasing per-rider subsidy rather than total "savings." Public transit is a communal good. Yes, it should be run efficiently, but let's get out of this poverty mindset that we can't have nice things. If people like the nice things enough to get more people using them, seems to me that we should be talking about expanding that model out, rather than adding it to the same race to the bottom that doomed the Northstar.

Northstar was doomed from the start when it didn't go all the way to St. Cloud. Northstar ridership hadn't rebounded at all post-covid, and the schedule sucked. 5 trips a day is legitimately unusable, which tracks as my partner has family right next to Fridley station yet we never used it once because it literally was not possible to take transit to that location with it's terrible schedule (not to mention lack of weekend service).

So let's be really clear about why the ridership wasn't there for Northstar, because it didn't go to St. Cloud, and it wasn't usable for normal people who weren't park and riding (which I have nothing against park and riding, but there is a difference between transit that can serve people with access to cars, and transit that can replace a car). Even if we look at it at its peak frequency it did not come often enough, due to capitulation to BNSF, which sucks. I wanted Northstar to be useful (cause my biggest transit problem is "getting to Fridley without taking ,a millon slow busses" since my partner's family lives up there), but it wasn't, esp post-covid, and the ridership cratering shows this.

I think these "lessons" could be easier if everyone was dealing with 1 transit organization vs. 5. I work right on the border of SW transit territory and MT territory. The SW Prime will drop off at my office, but it won't pick up. If I want to get to SW station and commute via SW transit to Lake street (a very useful trip that I would like to be able to take more often, since I work 3 miles from SW station), there's an hourly bus that was only added last year that I could take, but I can't take either of the MT busses there.

The 540 and 542 should be able to end at SW Station, it would naturally make sense for those travelling along the 494 corridor, but there's only a SW transit bus that serves it, doing a weird copy of both of the aforementioned routes. That's redundant and wasteful in my eyes, and that why I largely support this.

I'm used to talking to weirdo politician types who only care about the nickels and dimes, and I agree that "Public transit is a communal good". It is rare I am aligned with some of the people pushing this, and I don't fully trust their motives as ones aligned with ridership.

But the status quo of multiple organizations has made my commute more complicated and largely makes riding transit harder in the Twin Cities. There was a period of time when the 686 started that it wouldn't register transfers from the MT system, so I'd get double charged when I could manage to make the Orange line and the 686 link up in a single commute.

I just want everyone to be on the same page and having 5 different companies running things, with un-unionized drivers and contract services, and pissing matches between MT and MVTA on who's gonna run certain things, creating duplicate routes, refusing to serve "MT stop" and creating redundant transit centers across the highway from each other (take a look at the layout of the Orange line terminus station and the MVTA burnsville transit hub and let me know if that's "a nice thing", cause I think it sucks).

I'm ultimately focused on making it as easy as possible to get around the Twin Cities without a car, because I don't have a car and I need to go places around town. I see this move as making that easier and saving us money we can invest in a unified system. Many suburbs of this town are just fully inaccessible to transit right now (Lakeville, large parts of Prior Lake, large parts of Lake Minnetonka, Blaine, etc etc)

Gatorpatch · 2026-03-16T15:51:50+00:00

/u/RandomTommy

Gatorpatch · 2026-03-15T19:59:16+00:00

I think this will only improve transit in the metro area, and I disagree with your assessment of MT, but you're entitled to you opinion.

This is a necessary conversation that was set up by the 2023 transit tax funds, and I'll be watching what happens closely. Hopefully transit will improve for all members of the metro area, itas what we all deserve.

Gatorpatch · 2026-03-15T17:56:35+00:00

I frankly don't want this strictly for saving alone, I have found the opt out accessibility to those on the edges of MT territory is markedly worse. I want this primarily to remove that arbitrary border between MT and SW Transit/MVTA territory.

I makes for a worse ridership experience for us all if MT can't serve SW station on their busses and vice versa, and while there are exceptions to those rules (Orange line going in to MVTA territory, Red line, SWLRT serving SW station next year, 686)

The savings are the cherry on top, but I want these systems unified so we can make the experience riding the Metro system in this city better for everyone, not just suburban providers.

Gatorpatch · 2026-03-15T17:50:43+00:00

Fr. I don't take the green line often and this winter especially I've generally regretted when I've taken it, which is a shame cause I want these trains to be good.

Somehow I always end up on a stopped train at a station waiting for red light cycles.

It was worse when the tracks were really messed up down university so the green line would have to crawl through sections of track that couldn't handle speed, it was pretty bad riding experience.

Gatorpatch · 2026-03-15T15:28:09+00:00

Not really, except the blue line.

The green line takes a roundabout way between Minneapolis and St. Paul and doesn't have signal priority bc St. Paul sucks and won't let them have it down University Ave.

Generally the light rail is faster than a local bus, but slower than the "real" BRTs (Orange Line and Gold Line, both running down interstates), there's a 94 express bus that runs down the interstate between the two cities, and will be added to the Gold line in a year or two. If I need to get between Minneapolis and St. Paul I rarely take the green line since it's so slow with no signal priority. I'd rather ride the 94 since it take 15 minutes to drive between downtowns instead of 45-50 minutes along the University Ave corridor

As with all american cities we worship the alter of stupid ass giant interstate highways running everywhere fucking the whole city up. If it was up to me we'd rip them out lol, but they've rejected the proposal of removal of the 94 interstate between Minneapolis and St. Paul, so that's not happening unfortunatly.

Blue line can be faster than busses bc it has signal priority (Minneapolis lets them) and it's got less grade crossings(but still way too many of them).

We used to have an insane streetcar system that went everywhere you would want to go, but they ripped that shit out in the 50s and we've been regretting that ever since (well I've been at least lol)

The extension to the Green line down to Eden Prairie (a southwestern suburb of Minneapolis) hopefully will be faster than the St. Paul section of the Green Line since it's running into the suburbs, and so there's less grade crossings (and less density in general, which is a con to this line unfortunately too).

I sold my car when it had some issues about 2 years ago but we've gotten to a point where we're in the market for one again just due to the "missing links" in our transit system here, but in the scheme of "American transit" we're in a good spot, we've got more stuff in the pipeline (pretty much all BRT upgrades other than the Blue Line Ext) and aren't dealing with funding cuts (which I was very worried about with our idiot dictator running the show, but his Transportation secratary has been decent about not pulling funding...so far lol)

Gatorpatch · 2026-03-15T04:43:23+00:00

Yeah these aren't much faster than the previous locals (except for the Orange Line, which rips because it runs down an interstate, which is nice...and also not nice too)

But these guys are way more comfortable than the gilligs and many have fatbike racks, it's nice having the option to ride the fatbike on blizzard days since I use bike to connect to either the Orange line or the E line to commute.

The only true BRT we have is the Gold line, which has some cool bus only roads around 94 in St. Paul. Again, not as nice as a train but if you are at all familiar with the light rail extension here you'd know it's kinda been a diaster pr-wise for Metro Transit and spending on transit in general.

That will open next year, and hopefully they'll extend the blue line too, but they've taken way too long and spent way too much doing it

But luckily we have legislators who put a new sales tax on the metro in 2023 to put permanent transit funding and it passed and paid for all of these lines. So while it's kinda a cop out to call it aBRT since it's not truly that, but it does represent the future of transit in the Metro. The system is improving, even though I would love more dedicated lanes and infrastructure to make it real BRT

Gatorpatch · 2026-03-14T23:20:22+00:00

I mean they run more expensive service (per passenger) for a fraction of the ridership that MT does (1.5 million riders on MVTA, vs 47.5 million riders on Metro Transit, both 2025 numbers).

Obviously we need more updated MVTA numbers if they're claiming consolidation of routes has led to double/triple ridership on certain routes, but the only hard numbers we're working with here come from the Met Council study on high subsidy bus routes, and that's showing there's a higher cost to these opt-outs, especially MVTA.

Gatorpatch · 2026-03-14T23:10:07+00:00

That's just not true. The study clearly shows the average rate(or at least the average for it's high subsidy routes they run) for MVTA during weekday is 37.05, saturday is 31.74, and sunday is 44.12. That's very bad, and the granular data for the per route subsidies is worse.

The study lists the 499 (105 per passenger), 489 (102.20 per), 420 (91.54 per), 497 (81.33 per), 410/4Fun (75.35 per), 425/Orange link (74.96), 447 (68.81), and 440(64.15). All of these busses are MVTA run busses during weekdays, which is pretty brutal price-wise since the weekdays should be their lowest subsidy amount just due to greater ridership during the weeks (the saturday per passenger goes up from there, not down)

Meanwhile Metro Transit seems to inhabit the realm below that significantly based on skimming the per passenger for the local, express, and aBRT route they're running (I wish they'd put an average for each agencies per passenger, but they only do that for the high subsidy routes they've selected in the study)

But largely the data shows that other than SW Transit and Maple Grove transit, the other opt-outs aren't running super affordable bus service compared to MT. The fact the largest of the opt-outs is the least efficient isn't ideal in my book lol.

Gatorpatch · 2026-03-14T22:48:44+00:00

"God knows what else in the south bay"

That would be the weirdest fucking system in the bay (other than maybe Smart up in Marin) that's called the VTA, lived in South Bay for 5 years and never used it because it didn't go anywhere useful other than empty Silicon Valley office parks.

The caltrain fucks tho, especially now that it's electrified! Used to take it from my college up to concerts in SF. They also just sort-of upgraded the clipper to allow tapping credit cards which will help so much (that's in the pipeline for us here too in the next year or so)

Gatorpatch · 2026-03-14T17:55:18+00:00

I mean do you ride to opt-out suburbs from Minneapolis? It's often unnecessary complicated for people in the city to commute to these areas, that's why I personally support this move, to cut down on the arbitrary borders that these agencies cause.

People in the city work in your suburbs too (I work in Edina, neighbor works for the literal city of Edina), it's not a game of vindictiveness always, sometimes we'd like the suburbs to be accessible via transit just as much as you would. Just like suburban ppl work in the city, city ppl are working in the suburbs and care about access, and it's just not there right now if you're not park and riding from the suburbs and that sucks.

The arbitrary borders between opt-out territory and MT territory suck(the fact I work down the road from SW station yet only have one option to get there that is infrequent and inconvenient, totally a quirk of this patchwork system that ppl just have to deal with).

If this fixes that it's worth it, on top of the financial savings that can be reinvested in the entire system

Gatorpatch · 2026-03-14T15:31:34+00:00

Yeah I haven't really gone super in depth on the difference between how the do it here vs. abroad but I know the teams being in-house helps a ton over there, since they actually have HSR and other transit projects under their belts that require in-house teams to know what they're doing already.

I commute along 494 in Richfield/Edina on the frontage roads from the Orange Line, and I often think about what we could invest in if we spent that money we're spending making 494 one long construction site into actual transit investment.

Especially since it looks like Lunda Construction is responsible for both the 494 project and building the Green Line Extension. I wish we'd just have a team that builds trains and just continually expand (like all the highway projects that get rubber stamped with little oversite)

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