01591793

Component

The Green Line, and LRT route operated by Metro Transit in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis–Saint Paul, MN, opened in June 14, 2014 after many years of planning and construction. Simultaneously, sigificant changes were made to the surrounding bus network in order to integrate the new rail line with the existing regional bus network. These bus route changes were the result of a locally-funded planning project. This analysis uses detailed accessibility metrics calculated before and after the transit network changes to evaluate the impact of the Green Line and the bus network changes on the surrounding area. By comparing a custom hybrid scenario with the transit networks before and after the openind of the Green Line, this analysis estimated the accessibility impacts of the Green Line itself separately from the impacts of changes to connecting routes in the regional bus network. The results suggest that had the Green Line been implemented without any supporting changes to the regional bus network, accessibility benefits would have been limited to areas near the new rail stations. A well-designed network of routes can provide access to a much large area, and can help distribute the benefits of new investments like the Green Line throughout the community.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AP025 Standing Committee on Public Transportation Planning and Development.

01584066

16-6941

English

12p

2016

Transportation Research Board 95th Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Maps; References; Tables

Accessibility; Bus routes; Bus transit; Improvements; Rail transit

Twin Cities Metropolitan Area (Minnesota)

Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning; I73: Traffic Control

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2016 Paper #16-6941

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Jan 12 2016 7:01PM