Jack Ferman's take on this subject. What percentage of
Viking/Twins/Timberwolves fans live in reasonable proximity of LRT
stations? I am told that after games 35W north & south, 394, and 94 east
& west are jam packed. So why does anyone even mention the Hiawathas LRT
as being a player in this issue?
>Beyond what David posted, the design specs for Hiawatha lrt sets the
>capacity of the electrical substations to be sufficient to run 3-car
>trains no closer than 5 minutes apart. And that was the original, I'm
>not sure whether it was cut back to save money. That means that even if
>there was a special track for the dome, the trains couldn't go anywhere
>quickly. Remember that the round trip from the Nicollet Mall was supposed
>to take 62 minutes, 75 with layover time. That'll be a few more with the
>extension to the warehouse district.
>
>I don't know whether there is going to be a cross-over point between the
>dome and the downtown end of the line. The extra cars could come from the
>Cedar-Riverside yards, but might have to go all the way to the end of the
>line to cross over to the right tracks.
>
>Some cars will be occupied with scheduled runs that departed downtown
>before the game, so you would have 2 to 6 cars not available for the
>fans' specials, depending on how many cars per sccheduled run.
>
>So, even if you had the trains configured with three cars (meaning 5 to 6
>total trains), you could serve around 360 riders per train. A total of
>2,160 riders per set of trains with the following schedule for a game that
>lets out at 6 pm:
> Time Cumulative riders
> 6:00 360
> 6:05 720
> 6:10 1,080
> 6:15 1,440
> 6:20 1,800
> 6:25 2,160
>then a wait until the scheduled trains that left before the game come back,
>probably no earlier than 7:00. Needs a big waiting area. And the numbers
>above only work if you can load 360 people in less than five minutes.
>
>Bruce Gaarder
>Highland Park Saint Paul
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
John Ferman
Harriet Avenue
Kingfield Neighborhood
Minneapolis
Ward 10 Pct 10
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
