According to this recent StarTribune article, a recent University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School study concluded that business and residents surveyed along the BRT corridor were not big fans of the system. As a result, Dakota County Commissioners decided that the best course of action would be to “promote awareness and build enthusiasm,” and help, “direct marketing efforts for the opening.”
From the article (emphasis mine):
The survey found that about 45 percent of 192 people interviewed along Cedar had somewhat positive or positive expectations about how the busway would affect their neighborhood in the next five years.
But about 55 percent had neutral or negative views about how the Cedar busway would affect their neighborhoods. Their reservations included worry about a possible increase in crime and street noise and reduced pedestrian safety.
Businesses showed similar attitudes. Sixty percent of the 40 businesses interviewed along Cedar expressed neutral or negative expectations about how the transitway might affect them. Fifteen percent said they thought it would hurt their business.
Businesses were positive about the busway if they expected customers to ride it, Guthrie said.
“Businesses were positive about the busway if they expected customers to ride it…” This single quote sums it all up right there. Everyone knows that Apple Valley and Lakeville’s businesses are not destinations for anyone, especially not for riding the bus to get there. Besides that, marketing, awareness, and building enthusiasm is NOT what the public sector should be spending money on for this project. They should be spending money on ensuring the system is going to actually be a viable transportation method for shuttling people around to reverse the fears echoed by the businesses above. Unfortunately, as has been repeated time and time again, BRT in Dakota County will not work as intended because it simply does not going anywhere people want to go for a reasonable price. So all the marketing, awareness, and enthusiasm building dollars are going into the same black hole our tax dollars did when they decided to implement BRT instead of LRT and tell everyone it’s trains on rubber instead of what it really is…bustitution.
Hey Dakota County, do us all a favor and go back to keeping taxes low by throwing $90,000 tree houses out of consideration only so the Staff can come back with plans at $60,000 and tell you they’re low and stop trying to waste money on educational endeavors for broken project plans. Fix the root on the problem, don’t just tell everyone it’s great and it’s awesome when it’s neither.
What do you think about the results of this study and the Commissioners’ response to it? Are you surprised at the negative outlook for the line and how businesses simply don’t believe their customers will ride it? Do you plan to ride it? Do you ride other mass transit lines instead? Whatever you have to say about this one go ahead and comment on as I’d love to hear your thoughts.
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November 28th, 2012 at 8:34 am
The only thing these morons — Will Branning especially — should be “marketing” is themselves in the form of applications for jobs at the new Chick-Fill-Ass and Shitburgers that are appearing like meth-induced facial sores all along this strip.
How did the endless, bazillion dollar “Bus 2.0″ marketing campaign work out for you? What?? Bus 2.0 is dead? I guess I must have missed the numerous articles where these same people admitted it was a massive, money sucking failure (that any sane person knew from the start, including most of Bill’s Band of Top Cronies). Surely John Gessner was all over that scoop. I’ll have to search the archives.
I guarantee it: In two years, we’ll be reading an article about six- and seven-figure “improvements” to BRT in reaction to fix all of the problems we’ve been talking about all along on here. Traffic will be exactly the same as it is now, only passing by pretty ornamental lighting (installing as we speak) and the new skyway(s) that Apple Valley will eventually succeed in cramming down people’s taxholes. The only businesses that will have opened in that time will be Popeye’s and Chick-Fil-A, as well as a bunch of other chain garbage, cell phone stores, nail salons and tanning places.
And we’ll all be several million dollars poorer, save for some construction company execs who have their lips permanently locked around Will Branning’s unit.
November 28th, 2012 at 9:09 am
“Bustituion” was right on the mark, Bill. What did transit riders really want (and by transit riders, let’s be honest, the ones who really wanted transit expansion were those who commute to downtown Mlps jobs) when they started “studying” this? They wanted more express busses, ideally on more of the much nicer coach-style rides many commuters enjoy on MVTA, from AV and LV to downtown. LRT was on the table at one time to solve the problem. Indeed, rail — the cleanest and most efficient rapid transit option, even more so than bullshit bus 2.0 — was on the table at one time. “Why not throw a light rail line up Cedar to connect with the under-construction Hiawatha LRT?” was the question asked. The resounding answer from (especially Lakeville) residents, the bulk of which had no stake in the game as they couldn’t even conceive riding a city bus, let alone LRT, to save their lives, was NO/NIMBY. (Not In My Back Yard) Citing the “likelyhood” of crime increases, etc., a LRT link to Hiawatha was killed out of a false pretense that hoodlums would spend all day on busses and trains to get to AV/LV from the inner city to sell drugs and commit murder. What did we get instead? More busses. (Hey, we already have bus service established. Why not run more?)
BRT is a sick joke, and a well-played outcome of NIMBY politics by conservatives who think mass transit should only be for “big cities” and “the lower class.” Puh-leeze.
November 28th, 2012 at 9:28 am
Bill, have you interviewed (or researched) Chris “Whatsinitforme” Gerloch’s position on BRT and the Cedar Corredor? With Branning’s retirement and Gerloch now representing AV on the county board I’d love to hear his take. (Not being a Gerloch supporter, I have some concerns about how well we’ll be represented.)
November 28th, 2012 at 9:47 am
C&V,
No need: http://www.mnpact.org/sblog/blog.php?id=3465
November 28th, 2012 at 10:08 am
Having lived in D.C. and Oakland, I’ve seen cities where mass transit works. The cities are set up with lots of stops and lots of places to even ride your bike to a stop and safely lock it. However, the biggest difference between those places and here are sheer numbers of people. In D.C. people take mass transit not necessarily because they love it, but because they don’t want to sit in traffic for hours on end. They’re stuck between a rock and a hard place, so they take the bus (or Metro, as the case may be).
I don’t use the bus. With kids, it’s pretty difficult to logistically get them to the nearest stop. If the bus went right down my street..great. I’ve tried looking at the schedule(s) but they’re a bit confusing. If I didn’t work from home and had an actual commute to Mpls/St. Paul, yes, I’d research it further.
November 28th, 2012 at 10:59 am
ks, sure the DC area has two million more residents than the Minneapolis area, but part of the reason why transit works is because people have built their decisions around it. People can pay literally a thousand dollar a month premium just to live within a couple blocks of a metro station. Companies realize that their employees would rather have commuting choices instead of being forced to drive, so they locate near metro stops instead of remote suburban campuses. It completely shifts the paradigm of what we consider to be normal development.
November 28th, 2012 at 10:59 am
ks, I grew up in the DC area so I can appreciate your comments.
Aside from the sheer numbers of people who HAVE TO use transit in cities like that, the powers that be in Minnesota have decided that transit is a social program, not primarily an element of infrastructure and efficiency/productivity. It’s not about moving people from point A to point B here.
November 28th, 2012 at 11:30 am
Totally agreed guys. In SF you pay a lot more $ to live within walking distance of BART. We used BART a ton just because I didn’t want to pay a lot for parking once in SF. Coupled with the fairly warm weather year round, it was more pleasant to get around on foot, plus there was a lot to do/see/work within a smaller footprint, DC as well.
I’m curious if the new outlet mall in Eagan will have an impact on the use of the bus..the station is going to be right next to it. I can see it being utilized a bit more often, but I’m surprised they haven’t made it easier for a bus to get off Cedar Ave to get to the stop by having an exit lane directly there. That may come with the outlet mall, who knows.
November 28th, 2012 at 11:40 am
Shoot. I forgot to add something and then I’ll shut up. “Are you surprised at the negative outlook for the line?”
No. I know people who’re scared shitless to ride the bus because of a perceived threat. You never hear stories on TV about people on the bus handing out candy and rainbows and unicorns. As far as they’re concerned, riding the bus means instantly being robbed.
I’m not sure what would change their minds. I drag them on lightrail whenever I can to sort of *ease* them into mass transit, but left to their own devices, they drive to Mpls.
November 28th, 2012 at 12:29 pm
ks,
It’s an outlet mall, not really a place where anything useful can be purchased on a daily/weekly basis. The current buses service Apple Valley’s Cub Foods, Rainbow, and Target today. How many people do you see riding the bus to get to those places? Almost none. Why? Because the corridor isn’t the problem, it’s getting to the corridor that’s the problem and BRT isn’t going to change that at all.
Yes, they want development around the bus line but it’s not going to grow like LRT did because BRT is WAY slower than what is already in place. You’re WAY better off taking express service downtown. So this would have people who live in developments along the line taking BRT to AVTS and then transferring to express service downtown? No, they’re going to get in their damn cars and drive to AVTS instead because it will take tons less time.
The entire system is fucking stupid and broken and it’s only made news because the politicians and staff have pumped money into ‘enthusiasm’ efforts instead of efforts to make the system viable.
November 28th, 2012 at 2:03 pm
Matt, in Northern VA, unless you’re talking specifically about the train, those people are getting robbed for being stupid. You’d be hard-pressed to find a home, townhouse, condo, or apartment (in Fairfax County at least where I lived for 10 years and still visit) that ISN’T within a short walk of a Metro stop (bus or train) of some sort.
But, again, we’re talking apples to oranges there. Besides the sheer density in the DC area (and SF which, in addition to millions more people, has sprawl significantly limited by water), transit is almost exclusively designed to move the most people from where they work to where they live, not “revitalize communities” and introduce artwork into neighborhoods. Fairfax County ALONE has 1.1 million people, yet is served by, in essence, only two commuting interstates (I-395 and I-66) and ONE SUBWAY LINE (the Orange line). They are building a 2nd line but for the purposes of Fairfax County, it follows the same path (the center of I-66) as the Orange line, then splitting off to Loudon County.
p.s. going into Maryland to the NW, you have essentially one interstate serving millions of people, albeit with SEVEN lanes in EACH WAY to serve the suburbs there (I-270 corridor)
By contrast, the ENTIRE Twin Cities metro (11 counties in MN and 2 in WI) has 3.3 million people spread all over approximately the same, if not more, square mileage as the DC metro area. Dakota County is still a year or two from reaching 500,000 people.
The reality is, in ideal conditions:
Transit takes you 30 minutes to get into the city.
Carpooling an hour-plus.
Driving alone, you’d be hard pressed to get there in under 2 hours.
From the south metro, there is no discernable difference between bus and non-carpool driving. And that’s only if you’re taking an express bus. It takes me 20-30 minutes to drive in rush hour, but more than an hour to go combo car and LRT from MOA. 45 minutes via Burnsville Transit Station express if you count driving to the station, waiting for the bus to leave, etc.
For the foreseeable future, BRT won’t have any significant time/efficiency benefit whatsoever to 99% of Dakota County residents, even those that use transit.
November 28th, 2012 at 5:43 pm
The Eagan outlet “maul:)” could be the savior for the BRT, no thanks to the Dakota County Commissioners. The Albertville outlet stores parking lot is always packed. The Eagan outlet stores would be the only ones serviced by this type of public transportation. Only time will tell.
November 28th, 2012 at 6:57 pm
Will,
Then they shouldn’t build a multi-million dollar partially publicly funded parking structure on the site and they would then educate people to use public transit from MoA or other transit stations instead. Right?
November 28th, 2012 at 7:21 pm
Bill,
Your absolutely correct……… however the “sheep” must be educated at our expense. Don’t get me wrong….I was opposed to this idiotic BRT plan from the beginning. BUT, that particular property resides within the Burnsville/Eagan/Savage school district. We need those tax dollars for funding in order to buyout employee $255,000 contracts.:)
November 28th, 2012 at 7:49 pm
I live a block from the Lakevile bus station – love it. The part of this BRT scheme that I can’t wrap my brain around is no express bus and instead people will take light rail. If you work in downtown that’s got to add 30 minutes to any commute.
November 28th, 2012 at 7:59 pm
Andy,
They claim BRT will not stop express routes. I’m the one who is claiming that they will eventually disrupt express service or severely limit it to force adoption of BRT because no one is going to use the service otherwise.
December 5th, 2012 at 6:52 am
[...] Commissioners have rejected this stating no one is going to use that name for a long time because Dakota County is going to be pouring money into building enthusiasm around BRT rather than actually making it [...]
January 30th, 2013 at 7:08 pm
I’m curious if the new outlet mall in Eagan will have an impact on the use of the bus..the station is going to be right next to it. I can see it being utilized a bit more often, but I’m surprised they haven’t made it easier for a bus to get off Cedar Ave to get to the stop by having an exit lane directly there. That may come with the outlet mall, who knows.
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http://eagan.patch.com/articles/all-eyes-on-cedar-grove-bus-station
Well look who just woke up. Why they didn’t just put an exit ramp off of Cedar when they built the station is beyond me.
January 30th, 2013 at 8:36 pm
Yeah, but the layout of the roads there makes doing that more or less impossible, so I’m not sure what they think can be done. The Cedar/13 interchange gets in the way going northbound, and southbound is the same thing, plus it’s farther away.
January 30th, 2013 at 8:54 pm
Yep – going south on cedar, they’d have to have either an overpass or a tunnel to cross over northbound Cedar to get to the station. They could probably put an exit ramp heading north on Cedar, just south of the station and make a loop de loop back onto Cedar heading north.
That whole area’s roads are just odd with remnants of old roads that just dead end when they changed that whole Cedar/Nicols/Beau D Rue/13 interchange. I’m not sure what the fix is but I had a feeling it’d eventually come into people’s minds that duh..the station isn’t exactly convenient to Cedar Ave traffic.