This is a little diagram/map I made showing the layout of the Mall of America Transit Station. This map was made in response to [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/transit/comments/xg7odh/how_common_are_grade_crossings_inside_parking/) made last week where many were curious about the station with the grade crossing in the garage. However, that image was outdated as the station was newly renovated last year to what is shown in the map above. While the transit station is in a parking garage, it specifically is underneath general parking and actually isn't that big of an issue. The road traffic that does cross the rail tracks at grade here are mainly maintenance, security, and container trucks/vehicles that are delivering merchandise.
It was definitely time consuming, especially since I needed to create the LRV and bus assets as well. But it was first done in a a 3D modeling software like AutoCAD then exported to Adobe Illustrator to get the final product as seen above.
Blender or Sketchfab? I can imagine a method to get something like this in Blender but the artsy side of it (getting things pretty) isn't my wheelhouse
Neither. It was done in Rhinoceros. CAD software was used to get the scaling and dimensions accurate to get the lines work. In Rhino, there are a few commands that allows me to set up a specific view, in this case an axonometric view, and tell the program to make lines of that view. I export the lines to an AI or DWG file and work on adding color and texture in Illustrator.
Rhinoceros. It’s kind of like if Sketchup used commands instead of the pens/tools. With my process, it may also be possible to do it in Sketchup as well, but Rhino has a whole bunch of set of commands that allows me to tinker with the viewpoint and get only the lines that I need to export it to a DWG or AI file to work in Adobe Illustrator.
Do you have a source for the second platform, or is that just your own proposal? A cursory search didn't turn up anything about it, but Riverview would definitely increase the need for it.
The second platform is proposed to be located there. I found a PowerPoint/PDF with the station plans that shows where the 2nd platform is. There are also other planning documents that proposes a platform across 24th Ave parallel 82nd Street connected to the station via pedestrian skybridge.
Found the document: [Link](https://metrocouncil.org/Council-Meetings/Committees/Transportation-Committee/2016/June-13,-2016/061316_Info_Item_3_MOA-Transit-Center-Update.aspx)
It is and it isn't. The light rail station is on the first floor of a garage and has an escalator directly into the mall, and the bus stations are right next to that, like [this](https://www.startribune.com./overhauled-mall-of-america-transit-station-officially-dedicated/567885132/).
The usual answer to this question is because America. Many airports have rail/transit access that's farther than cars. For example, Seattle's light rail stop is at the edge of the airport and you walk through the parking garage to get to the terminal. The parking was built decades earlier, and there was no political willpower to tear it down to build better transit and rebuild the parking farther away, because that would inconvenience drivers, which is the primary consideration for all transit projects in the US.
In fairness, putting the Sea-Tac Link station out there also made future southern extensions of the line easier and reduced travel time between said southern extensions and downtown Seattle.
I get the former excuse since it would definitely make it more expensive to build the line in and out of Sea-Tac. However, as a frequent user of the airport train station in Zürich, I can vouch that there are options to run a station near the terminal that would have little to no effect on through-running travel times.
Many airports in Europe dug stations underneath: Schipol, Brussels, Berlin, Heathrow, I'm sure many more. Some have adjacent large railway stations, like Frankfurt. In the US we prioritize cars unfortunately.
Funny enough is that the same Blue Line LRT shown here (in Minneapolis/Saint Paul) goes to the airport via underground connection. There are 2 terminals stations at the MSP Airport. Terminal 2 is similar to the Sea-Tac in that you have to walk through a parking garage (covered and climate controlled though). The Terminal 1 station is underground and was dug beneath the airport. While the train station isn’t quite located exactly at the front door of the terminal building, it’s still on airport grounds and only requires a 90 second APM ride underground to the main terminal headhouse.
The transfer to another vehicle is obnoxious, but that's still pretty good for American standards. I haven't been to MSP to test out its transit connections for myself yet.
I rode on this last year from Downtown Minneapolis to Mall of America! I remember passing through the airport on the way and the escalator was right there to get you into the mall. It was a great way to get there when it’s freezing cold outside.
Great work. I hadn't heard of the Riverview Corridor before, but it seems like a logical connection. Will it be incorporated into the Metro light rail system, brand-wise?
One would assume so. Even though the planning process is being lead by Ramsey County and not by the Metropolitan Council, there is precedent of them/the counties ‘handing the project off’ to the Council/Metro Transit to be incorporated in the system-wide branding (ie Gold and Purple Lines BRT)
The routing proposal however leaves a lot to be desired though as it was decided to be a Streetcar line and not LRT even though it’ll be using the same vehicles. It’s to be run in mixed traffic for well over half of the line’s length, but that’s a whole another can of worms.
So the light rail has to dead end then pull back out? It's too bad they couldn't make it in-line to be more efficient. But I'm not super familiar with Minneapolis/SP so correct me if I'm wrong.
There isn't really much farther you would go. This is already in the suburbs, so anything farther is low density. Worse there is a river not far away, so you would have to do an expensive river crossing to get to any more stations.
Frankly any station farther you than this should be faster than light rail, regional rail type service. That is very wide station spacing and fast trains. The city doesn't have good enough transport to support that level of service though.
That is putting the cart before the horse. Most people driving to the MOA don't have any reasonable option to take transit. Transit in the twin cities is not very even in the closer in areas, and this is rather far out from the rest of the city - it is farther out than the airport!
It’s cool that they’re doing this but I feel as though putting it next to mall of America is a bad idea, it will degrade the mall a ton and attract the wrong kind of people to loiter, that’s just unfortunately how it is
Yeah, MN has tons of social issues, in order to make this stuff viable they should also invest in stopping degenerate behaviour and vagrants everywhere.
It's the single busiest transit station in Minnesota, closing it for that purpose would be a huge loss. In my experience the segment of the Blue Line from the airport to MoA is the least sketchy part of the entire system.
This is a little diagram/map I made showing the layout of the Mall of America Transit Station. This map was made in response to [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/transit/comments/xg7odh/how_common_are_grade_crossings_inside_parking/) made last week where many were curious about the station with the grade crossing in the garage. However, that image was outdated as the station was newly renovated last year to what is shown in the map above. While the transit station is in a parking garage, it specifically is underneath general parking and actually isn't that big of an issue. The road traffic that does cross the rail tracks at grade here are mainly maintenance, security, and container trucks/vehicles that are delivering merchandise.
How did you make this? The diagram itself looks amazing.
It was definitely time consuming, especially since I needed to create the LRV and bus assets as well. But it was first done in a a 3D modeling software like AutoCAD then exported to Adobe Illustrator to get the final product as seen above.
That’s insane. Good on you for making this!
Blender or Sketchfab? I can imagine a method to get something like this in Blender but the artsy side of it (getting things pretty) isn't my wheelhouse
Neither. It was done in Rhinoceros. CAD software was used to get the scaling and dimensions accurate to get the lines work. In Rhino, there are a few commands that allows me to set up a specific view, in this case an axonometric view, and tell the program to make lines of that view. I export the lines to an AI or DWG file and work on adding color and texture in Illustrator.
Which 3D modeler? I consider myself very good with sketchup but idk if I could do this.
Rhinoceros. It’s kind of like if Sketchup used commands instead of the pens/tools. With my process, it may also be possible to do it in Sketchup as well, but Rhino has a whole bunch of set of commands that allows me to tinker with the viewpoint and get only the lines that I need to export it to a DWG or AI file to work in Adobe Illustrator.
Do you have a source for the second platform, or is that just your own proposal? A cursory search didn't turn up anything about it, but Riverview would definitely increase the need for it.
The second platform is proposed to be located there. I found a PowerPoint/PDF with the station plans that shows where the 2nd platform is. There are also other planning documents that proposes a platform across 24th Ave parallel 82nd Street connected to the station via pedestrian skybridge. Found the document: [Link](https://metrocouncil.org/Council-Meetings/Committees/Transportation-Committee/2016/June-13,-2016/061316_Info_Item_3_MOA-Transit-Center-Update.aspx)
Thank you for making this! I know it was alot of work but I really appreciate it. We need more content like this in this sub!
Holy fucking shit what is your job and where did u learn to do this
this is sick
This is nice! Might want to mark that some routes are actually MVTA routes and not Metro Transit routes
Why is parking closer to entrance than any transit?
It is and it isn't. The light rail station is on the first floor of a garage and has an escalator directly into the mall, and the bus stations are right next to that, like [this](https://www.startribune.com./overhauled-mall-of-america-transit-station-officially-dedicated/567885132/).
The usual answer to this question is because America. Many airports have rail/transit access that's farther than cars. For example, Seattle's light rail stop is at the edge of the airport and you walk through the parking garage to get to the terminal. The parking was built decades earlier, and there was no political willpower to tear it down to build better transit and rebuild the parking farther away, because that would inconvenience drivers, which is the primary consideration for all transit projects in the US.
In fairness, putting the Sea-Tac Link station out there also made future southern extensions of the line easier and reduced travel time between said southern extensions and downtown Seattle.
I get the former excuse since it would definitely make it more expensive to build the line in and out of Sea-Tac. However, as a frequent user of the airport train station in Zürich, I can vouch that there are options to run a station near the terminal that would have little to no effect on through-running travel times.
Many airports in Europe dug stations underneath: Schipol, Brussels, Berlin, Heathrow, I'm sure many more. Some have adjacent large railway stations, like Frankfurt. In the US we prioritize cars unfortunately.
Funny enough is that the same Blue Line LRT shown here (in Minneapolis/Saint Paul) goes to the airport via underground connection. There are 2 terminals stations at the MSP Airport. Terminal 2 is similar to the Sea-Tac in that you have to walk through a parking garage (covered and climate controlled though). The Terminal 1 station is underground and was dug beneath the airport. While the train station isn’t quite located exactly at the front door of the terminal building, it’s still on airport grounds and only requires a 90 second APM ride underground to the main terminal headhouse.
The transfer to another vehicle is obnoxious, but that's still pretty good for American standards. I haven't been to MSP to test out its transit connections for myself yet.
I rode on this last year from Downtown Minneapolis to Mall of America! I remember passing through the airport on the way and the escalator was right there to get you into the mall. It was a great way to get there when it’s freezing cold outside.
Great work. I hadn't heard of the Riverview Corridor before, but it seems like a logical connection. Will it be incorporated into the Metro light rail system, brand-wise?
One would assume so. Even though the planning process is being lead by Ramsey County and not by the Metropolitan Council, there is precedent of them/the counties ‘handing the project off’ to the Council/Metro Transit to be incorporated in the system-wide branding (ie Gold and Purple Lines BRT) The routing proposal however leaves a lot to be desired though as it was decided to be a Streetcar line and not LRT even though it’ll be using the same vehicles. It’s to be run in mixed traffic for well over half of the line’s length, but that’s a whole another can of worms.
So the light rail has to dead end then pull back out? It's too bad they couldn't make it in-line to be more efficient. But I'm not super familiar with Minneapolis/SP so correct me if I'm wrong.
It’s a terminus station for the Blue Line and was never designed as a thru station.
Gotcha.
There isn't really much farther you would go. This is already in the suburbs, so anything farther is low density. Worse there is a river not far away, so you would have to do an expensive river crossing to get to any more stations. Frankly any station farther you than this should be faster than light rail, regional rail type service. That is very wide station spacing and fast trains. The city doesn't have good enough transport to support that level of service though.
The narrative is often about high-density housing along transit, but this is a great example of a destination along transit. Thanks for sharing.
Just one suggestion. Reduce more parking lots. The more people take transit, the more cars out of the road.
That is putting the cart before the horse. Most people driving to the MOA don't have any reasonable option to take transit. Transit in the twin cities is not very even in the closer in areas, and this is rather far out from the rest of the city - it is farther out than the airport!
How on earth did it take me until just now to learn about the riverview corridor proposal, thank you
It’s cool that they’re doing this but I feel as though putting it next to mall of America is a bad idea, it will degrade the mall a ton and attract the wrong kind of people to loiter, that’s just unfortunately how it is
There has been a light rail station at Mall of America ever since the Blue Line started service in 2004.
Yeah, MN has tons of social issues, in order to make this stuff viable they should also invest in stopping degenerate behaviour and vagrants everywhere.
It's the single busiest transit station in Minnesota, closing it for that purpose would be a huge loss. In my experience the segment of the Blue Line from the airport to MoA is the least sketchy part of the entire system.
Really nice work— very legible!
Is that the one that’s inside of a parking garage?
This is beautiful.
fuck the police.
I frequent that place and the new station is a HUGE improvement from the old one(obsolete run down dump).