Yesterday, Heather and I bummed around the house for a good portion of the day. I washed the dishes, did my laundry and burned CDs for my jukebox. Heather spent most of the day using the new HTML skills I taught her and updated her site (link in sidebar).
Later we decided to hop in the car and go for a ride. We ended up at Izzy’s for a LARGE ice-cream cone and some good conversation. After that, Heather suggested we have a ride on the new Hiawatha Line a.k.a. “The Light Rail” a.k.a. “The Train”. It turned out to be a GREAT experience. I was thoroughly impressed. We each got $1.25 2 and a half hour passes to ride the train and then we were off! We rode to Nicollet station and walked along Nicollet mall. We eventually stopped at the Newsroom for a drink and an appetizer for dinner. Then it was back home. The train was promptly at the station each time we took off. It was air-conditioned and pleasant to ride on. Everything is so new and clean, it really is quite impressive. And they FINALLY seemed to have fixed the majority of the traffic problems stemming from it’s inception. So I’m no longer mad at the train. In fact, I will likely ride it even more.
The train needed to average 9,000/day riders to break even. It seems they have beaten their record averaging nearly 15,000/day. So I guess people have Jesse to thank for this one too. 🙂 I ain’t got time to bleed… but I’ll ride the new light rail!
The following day, the guys and I went to see I Robot downtown and Crown Block E. We all took the train back to 38th Street to get home. Again it was a great experience. The wait was a little tiresome as the skeeters were out–but still fun. BTW-I Robot is worth the price of admission. We all enjoyed it very much!
me too! i thought it was great last night. now that they have a lot of the traffic problems fixed i’d say you’re lucky to be near it!
After I left you guys, I rode the train back to Nicollet Mall where the 18 bus had conveniently just stopped. Since my transfer was still good I jumped on the bus and it dropped me off directly in front of my car 10 blocks south. As ridership increases, the train will become more useful… assuming they increase train frequency to match. 15 minutes between trains is a bit too long. If they can cut that in half, it’ll be much better. In general, everyone I’ve talked to has really enjoyed the light rail service and it has, as many hoped, sparked a new interest in Public Transportation around the Twin Cities. I bet it will dramatically improve bus ridership as well in the long run.
Only one problem with cutting the frequency in half. With that comes more cross traffic issues.
That’s a GOOD THING! All those people stuck in traffic on Hiawatha will eventually figure it out and start riding the train themselves! Heh.
Yes, but I work in prestigious West Bloomington. That doesn’t work!