November 14, 2004
I heard that they were building a light rail sometime last year and I thought it was a pretty cool idea because Minneapolis needs some other type of mass transit system besides buses like all the other big cities have. I have never ridden the light rail before but I was interested in trying it out. Since I don’t have a car it could be convenient for me to ride it if I wanted to get downtown or to the mall/airport if needed. I was also interested in checking out the different art works and how they make an atmosphere at each station.
I rode the entire line but I chose to stop and get of at the metrodome station because I thought the downtown stations were the most exciting. When thinking about somnambulism, I saw several new things about the stations that I hadn’t noticed before. First of all because the weather wasn’t so cod at the time I could stand at the station in just a sweatshirt but I just couldn’t imagine waiting for a train in -30 weather during a Minneapolis winter! Most of the stations just have an overhanging roof and there just isn’t enough shelter from the cold. Another thing I noticed at the station was that there was a fence separating the two sides of it far safety so that people don’t try to run across when a train is coming. At first I didn’t think there was any art at the metrodome station but after looking carefully I saw that there was an artistic pattern along the floor of the station and the large arches on one side actually had mosaics in them that you could see from the back side.
Overall I had a pretty nice experience on the light rail. The ride was very smooth and most importantly quiet compared to the bus and the seats were definitely more comfortable. I can see a lot of people taking this train to get to work downtown rather than waiting in traffic and paying a lot to park. I didn’t get my ticket checked, but I can see how that can be a problem when people try to jump on for free. I heard that 1 in 4 people get their tickets checked and you will actually get taken to jail if you don’t have one and you’re caught, but I suppose it’s the least they can do when people try to ride a $700M line for free.
Here's some pictures:
And this is a site that's got a bunch of articles on the light rail.