Disentangling Accessibility Impacts of Bus and Rail Transit Improvements

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.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AP025 Standing Committee on Public Transportation Planning and Development.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Owen, Andrew
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 95th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2016-1-10 to 2016-1-14
• Date: 2016

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Maps; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 12p
• Monograph Title: TRB 95th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Accessibility; Bus routes; Bus transit; Improvements; Rail transit
• Geographic Terms: Twin Cities Metropolitan Area (Minnesota)
• Subject Areas: Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning; I73: Traffic Control;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01591793
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 16-6941
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 29 2016 9:20AM