"What's that skyline over there?" "That's like, grain elevators" Most Minnesota thing I've ever heard

man it feels surreal seeing something like this on a random youtube video from recommended

I'm from Minneapolis and I'm so accustomed to the fare system on the trains that I had no idea people thought it was so complicated!

MINNESOTA MENTIONED 🔥🔥🔥

Glad Minnesota is finally getting some attention, it's a great state and always under appreciated by people born in other states.

That Union Depot used to be where all the streetcars went...before the 50s ☹️

Fun fact, you can take the light rail between the Twins' stadium and the Triple-A St. Paul Saints' stadium, CHS Field! It's about a six-minute walk from Union Depot Station to CHS Field. So the two stadiums are basically at each end of the line. I went to a Twins game and Saints game on the same day in 2021, which was a tremendous experience aside from the 90% humidity.

LET'S GO IT'S MINNESOTA TIME!! Thank you for another awesome video! I want to make a couple comments about the light rail system addressing points in this video! 1. Ridership per mile has fallen since the pandemic started, but is recovering and is still in the top for US LRT systems 2. Though it was not on the footage, that whole area around the Light Rail and MOA is called the South Loop, a neighborhood that Bloomington is trying to transform into a downtown from scratch. Bloomington Central Station is anchored by a nice park, and more mixed use development is going up with a mixed use Oxendale Market grocery store+apartment opening up at the station later this year! 3. The Washington Ave crossing bridge over the Mississippi is actually rated for up to 50mph! 4. The 15 minute frequencies are due to a driver shortage, which could be fixed with hiring less than 10 light rail drivers. 5. Each fare comes with a 2.5 hour unlimited transfer window, something you can stretch A LONG way to ride a lot of different lines. Overall great showcase of a video! Glad to see the Twin Cities representation is strong on KZfaq lately :) can't wait for a BRT showcase next!

Eli is an underrated-ass guest and this was a fun-ass summertime romp

While the fare system is way too complicated, something you didn't mention is that the base fare isn't for a single ride. It's actually a 2.5-hour pass with unlimited transfers to buses and other trains. As someone who lives in Iowa and comes to the Cities fairly often, I've been through that diverging diamond on 30th Avenue lots of times. The first time I drove through it I was scared out of my mind, but it does make sense once you get used to it.

Wow this is really strange to watch a video of everyday things I never really think about seen through new eyes, like I never thought the fare structure was confusing or that our light rail lines were that special

"Ah, the PP Plaza" only 20 seconds in and we already have a banger quote lol. I appreciate your dedication for explaining their confusing fare system, and the ✨𝓭𝓲𝓷𝓮𝓻✨ caught me off guard. I really do like the design of Minneapolis's City Hall. Yup it's in the Richardsonian Romanesque style promoted by Henry Hobson Richardson but was designed by Franklin B. Long and Frederick Kees. The Allegheny County Courthouse in Pittsburgh served as inspiration for Minneapolis's City Hall. When constructed, the building claimed to have the world's largest four-faced chiming clock. The faces are 18 inches/45.7 cm wider than those on Big Ben/Elizabeth Tower. My favorite stadium of all-time remains the Bird's Nest/Beijing National Stadium, but I still love the design of the US Bank Stadium. HKS designed it, who also worked on Lucas Oil Stadium, SoFi Stadium, Venetian Macau, and Atlantis Paradise Island. The stadium looks like a viking ship, but the actual inspiration was the jagged rocks that formed the nearby cataract known as St. Anthony Falls and the ice shards that pile up on the edges of Minnesota lakes as they freeze, thaw, and refreeze in winter. The roof was done with 60 percent Ethylene tetrafluoroethylene, and inspired by Nordic vernacular architecture, allows the stadium to endure heavy snow loads as the snow moves into a heated gutter and drains into the Mississippi.

The mall is not the only tourist attraction. Minneapolis also punches above its weight in art and architecture. The Walker, the Weisman (both in iconic buildings) and the Minneapolis Institute of Art are all fantastic.

"...including the overnight airport shuttle! The foamers will like that." Yes! Thank you, I enjoyed seeing that Siemens S70

Most of the downtown grain elevators have been unused for decades. They’re in an awkward spot of being old and interesting enough to be worthy of historical preservation but also basically impossible to repurpose for anything else.

"Into the great unknown" considering this was filmed in Winter, it was a missed opportunity to sing "INTO THE UNKNOOOOOWN". The Metro uses three different LRVs. Bombardier Flexity Swifts is Type 1 and are also used on the Croydon Tramlink, Cologne Stadtbahn (which these models were originally produced for), Melbourne's Yarra Trams, and the Porto Metro. Type 2 LRVs are Siemens S70s (known as Avantos in Europe), and Type 3 are Siemens S700s. The S70s and S700s are the same thing, but the S700s are successors of the S70s. These are the ones used on the Atlanta Streetcar, Charlotte's Lynx system, The Tide, Portland's MAX, San Diego Trolley, OC Streetcar, and Seattle's Link. Mall of America is managed by the Triple Five Group, which in turn is owned by the Ghermezian family. They also own the West Edmonton Mall and the American Dream Meadowlands mall in New Jersey. The Mall of America is located on the site of the former Metropolitan Stadium where the Vikings and Twins once played A plaque in Nickelodeon Universe commemorates the former location of home plate, and if you look carefully, there is a chair from the stadium hanging on the theme park's walls to mark the longest home run in the history of Metropolitan Stadium, a revised estimate puts it at 522 feet, by Harmon Killebrew in 1967.

The only thing wrong with MSP's light rail system is that there aren't more lines. It really is an enjoyable way to get around, though, and is actually what sparked my interest in public transit and urban planning! It's changed the way I look at our built environment entirely and woke me up to how our current car-dependent system perpetuates many social issues.

After commenting on your Duluth video, I'll add here that Minnehaha Falls (the natural waterfall park you mentioned) is extremely cool for being so urban. A beautiful waterfall in the summer and completely frozen over in the winter!

is this what Minneapolis actually looks like in august lmao

Union Depot is also sometimes used as a convention center. I would stop there when I was in university to be picked up by my parents from the eastern suburbs, and this one time while waiting I stumbled upon a convention for dogs and dog owners. it was adorable as hell, I got to pet so many of them!

Gosh, I now truly understand the very easy fare system of Minneapolis, and my goodness it looks so beautiful in the summer.

The architecture of Metro Transit is genuinely really good, they like to vaguely match the local area, or at least do something that looks nice.

The Twin Cities are my favorite place to visit. However, it has been ten years since I visited. I am sure the U of M students like being able to take the Light Rail from campus to the airport. BTW, one wing of the Mall of America is four floors.

10:25 Wikipedia says that, per mile, the most productive lines are the MBTA, then San Francisco's Muni Metro, then Seattle's Link, then Metro Minneapolis as a whole.

Being able to ride all the way from Target Field to the airport is awesome!

It's so interesting seeing a youtube video of a guy riding a lightrail by places I drive around and recognize all the time. Kinda surreal. MN is so underrated.

Tracing the lineage of transit logos that are Ts or Ms by observing the accumulation of mutations along their evolutionary history

Honestly I dont think the fare system is particularly complicated in practice, you just get a To Go card and tap to automatically pay. Definitely not as much of a hassle as it would seem like looking at all the different fares.

One Amtrak train a day...soon to be two 😎

As a lifelong Minneapolis resident who takes public transit everywhere, it’s nice to see it get some appreciation and see it through some fresh eyes!

I love your editorial on the straight forward fare structure.

There is also Valleyfair and the Minnesota Renaissance Faire on the other side of the river. Also that is the closet renaissance faire to an amusement park I've found so far. Ren Faire runs from Mid-August to end of September/first weekend of October. Valleyfair is open from May to around Halloween, but their Halloween event is for kids and not a horror event anymore

Props on having a fairly uneventful ride on the light rail system. Can't say I've been that lucky.

Fort Snelling is NOT a military base, it is a tourist attraction that is actually really really cool, and you should visit sometime when it's not 10 degrees Fahrenheit!

"Transit accessible farmland" Lmao

watching this after city nerd's video on what the twin cities does right really hits different!! love to see you explore different regions of the US

2:16 My favorite thing about these trains is that they have an integrated snowplow.

I just watched City Nerd's video about Minneapolis and he mentioned the waterfall park too! It looks nice. Seeing such a wintry video in the middle of yet another hot Atlanta summer is fun too lol.

That train is for sure Minnesota nice. It will say in a heart beat “ Please be considerate of others, do not put your feet on your seats… thank you “ lmfao

The complicated fare system is significantly simplified by having no turnstiles and no ticket checks ever. 😉

Luggage storage is crazy. Wish more places had that in cities/towns/transit centers.

There is also a start park at Fort Snelling (Fort Snelling State Park) down by the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers with some good hiking trails.

We used to go to Stamford Town Center, which is a ten-story mall in Stamford CT. Admittedly, the first two floors are just parking, the sixth floor doesn't exist, and the top three floors mostly consist of walkways to nowhere, but that's still four floors of actual mall.

One more note about fares: disabled veterans with a Veterans Affairs Health ID Card can ride the entire Metro Transit system for free, regardless of peak/off-peak, including the Northstar Commuter Rail, Blue & Green lines, and all BRT lines. This courtesy also extends to partners in the greater metro area like the MVTA.

The Minneapolis Light Rail system reminds me a lot of Bergen's tram system. Only difference is Minneapolis is way bigger. They need a lot more transit.

To get to Target Center, home of the NBA Minnesota Timberwolves and WNBA Minnesota Lynx, take blue line to Warehouse center.

You made me feel pride in what I take for granted everyday thank you. Minneapolis can be pretty cool

As someone from boston who moved to MN, I never actually rode any of the public transportation here while I used it primarily as only means of back in MA. Its interesting to see!

As an european it is crazy how little railinfrastructure there is there. Here in Oslo we have the same weather but 5 subwaylines, 5 tramlines and 8 commuterraillines and the Oslo metro is roughly 1/3 of the twin cities metro😮

Miles you make some of greatest and funniest trip reviews. I love every single one of your videos and honestly no one has humor like you do. I myself especially love your videos as i am from, Massachusetts myself. Keep up the amazing videos. Say hi to jules.

This is the first metro system I remember riding independently. Cool!

Very fun that you actually got to ride a 2.5 type train on the first section, especially on the blue line, those usually run on the green line, and there's only a few of them compared to type 1 and 2s

Very cool! Loved getting a full exploration of the system. :)

mightily classy looking airport stop, cleverly effective; along that championing crest showcasing Naples and co. 🍸

Would love to see you come to Denver, there's a lot of really good transit that lead to nothing much (some of the stations are really good though!) but TOD is starting to pickup a good amount. Also! RTD has a similarly complicated fare system right now but they are simplifying it A LOT early next year. Loving the MN representation! The city is also starting to upgrade the busiest bus lines into BRT that will also act as a road diet on some of the worst stroads. Some very good improvements in the relatively near future.

3:09 I used those "weird little bike racks" all the time when I lived in Minneapolis, esp worked in the airport. If you carry a backpack instead of panniers, they're great. They keep the bike out of the way and let you be mobile in the car while riding. I live in a different city now where they have barely any consideration for bikes on the cars. It's a nightmare and every time I ride with my bike, which is rare, fortunately, I remember fondly my time riding the Blue Line in Minnesota.

Minneapolis Looks Like A Great City To Visit, Even Mall Of America Looks Interesting.The Light Rail System Looked Great And Clean. And Lot's Of Housing Close To The Rail System. Mostly I Enjoyed The Weather You Guys Were Having, Cold And Snowy. I Don't See That Here In Southern California.🌴

10:20: Pre-pandemic, San Francisco MUNI's N-Judah carried 43,000 passengers per day on a line approximately 9 miles long, for about 4,780 riders per mile.

woah! really cool to see my city from fresh eyes - definitely makes me appreciate all the stuff i've gotten used to haha

Cool that you liked it. Just moved out of St. Paul; might return by the end of the year. But the frequencies on both lines aren't good. I usually took a bus to the 54 to work near the mall rather than dealing with the Blue Line.

I'm an incoming freshman at the University of Minnesota so this video was actually quite useful lol

Mickey's Diner is still closed because the Midwest Disability Initiative hit them with an ADA lawsuit for not being handicap accessible. The tiny train car that was used to create the diner is too small for wheelchairs. I believe the counter argument for renovating is that it is cost prohibitive and detrimental to the cozy train-car aesthetic of a place listed on both local and national historic registries.

awesome video! really enjoyed it 👍

@Milesintransit the Seattle Link (metro system) carries well over 7000 riders daily due to the 2020 northgate extension that increase the yearly ridership by over 220,000 alone. as a Seattleite who now lives in buenos aires i can tell you 2 things, A The light rail in seattle is a metro its entirely grade separated exept for a wierd 3 stop street running segment where its still in the median and EVEN has crossing gates (mostly), 2 we shouldve built a metro. I have used the metro here in Buenos Aires daily, its absolutely incredible, its fast, convenient, super clean, ultra modern. and covers the whole city.

That voice over for the fairs might be the best thing youve ever done

I want to ride this system more than ever, now! The Type 1 LRV's there get my vote for best-looking low-floor LRV design ever. The late and sorely-missed CLRV and ALRV fleets of the TTC had my vote for best-looking standard-floor LRV design ever. My criteria was simple: totally personal opinion on outward appearance!

Shoutout to that diner’s starring role in Jingle All The Way.

Thanks for the Twin Cities light rail tour. It looks like a well thought out system, other than crazy fare structure. They should through a couple of additional levels of complication, maybe fares for service animals based on weight? And maybe veteran fares based on which war you were in. ( Free for all WW1 vets ). You always mention the one Amtrak train per day situation but St. Paul has two, the delayed (usually) train from Portland/Seattle going to Chicago in the morning and the (often) on time westbound counterpart from Chicago late at night. Running only one train in one direction per day would cause a awful pile up cars and locomotives at one end or the other 😮. Amtrak service is pitifully sparse 😢 anyway, don't make it sound worse. For the sack of clarity we'll not discuss the Amtrak routes ( the Cardinal and the Sunset ) that don't even rate daily service, double pitiful 😢😢.

Thanks for sharing good information. I should try the metro system in Minneapolis

Added note on fare, UMN students used to be able to ride for free just along the campus corridor, but starting in Fall 2022 UMN and Metro Transit paired up to transit fare to student IDs, so now any student who pays "Student Services Fees" can ride transit for free by swiping their student id (UCard).

14:07 That hall can also be rented for events-- my junior prom was held there

Not to be that person but Fort Snelling is not a military base, it's now a museum/historical site where you can take tours as airplanes fly over head!

This is really cool to hear someone with city planning language inspecting the rail system! I'm too anxious to drive so the light rail has been a huge part of my life. Normally it runs every 10 minutes, but the pandemic really hecked things up and they've yet to get fully unhecked. I knew we had decent (for America) public transit, but I never knew the light rail was so good! (again, by American standards)

The REAL best option for getting from Minneapolis to St Paul might be the 3, which runs every 15 minutes but splits off into the 3A and the 3B, and sometimes the 3U or the 3E ot even like the 3S??? Idk it's weird.

Hahaha...I couldn't get past the Pee Pee Plaza without writing a comment about how I started laughing out loud as the words came out of his mouth with a straight face. Love the alliteration too. 😆

enjoying how u vloged a bit of ur destination

Okay, Miles....when you did the planet tracking from the Museum of Science and were in the CambridgeSide Galleria, you were in a 3-story mall And that's a fact!

I know it's not a video about bike infrastructure, but you missed my favorite spot along the light rail, the Martin Olav Sabo bridge!

I love how you went from criticizing the American Dream mall for having an indoor ski slope in your Longest Commuter Rail video, to praising Mall of America for having a theme park! The American Dream mall not only has an indoor ski slope and a theme park, but it even has a DREAMWORKS WATER PARK with a wave pool and a mini golf course! If you think a three-story mall is impressive, wait until you see the megamalls built in Asia! In Tehran, there is a mall called the Iran Mall that has SEVEN floors and a total retail floor area of over TWENTY MILLION square feet! The world's largest IKEA isn't even in North America nor Europe, it's in the Philippines at Metro Manila's Mall of Asia! Their IKEA is over 700,000 square feet! Mall of Asia is served by the EDSA Carousel BRT, a feeder service to the Manila LRT. The Philippines has multiple huge malls besides Mall of Asia like SM Megamall in Mandaluyong and SM North EDSA in Quezon City. Compared to American malls, Asian malls are absolutely thriving! Why? Because there, malls are designed like fifteen-minute cities. They aren't a place for special shopping, it's a place for all your necessities, you're do everything in one place. Asian mall planners understand that they aren't just creating malls, they're creating communities. Government offices, banks, churches, even schools are in Asian malls! Big community events are held at those malls. It's not just the shopping or convenience, it's the unique experience.

It’s great the way they put those ear spitting sound effects the dialogue that has the info you’re watching the video for😂

This is awesome. I'm a current UMN student and I was super excited when I saw you uploaded this. Love seeing some positivity about our light rail lines. Also I believe the amtrak 7 and 8 serve st Paul union depot (SPUD) which are just EB and WB empire builder (does that only count as 1 train per day?) Great video hope you enjoyed Minnesota

I gotta hand it to you. These are great

I grew up a few blocks away from the 46th street station it was so convenient

Love the stuff on screen

8:15 I know 3-storey malls are very common in Europe, and there's some in Montreal's underground city where the malls extend down below ground

This is so fulfilling to watch. Miles in my townn 😄

PEOPLE - this is NOT the “Minneapolis Light Rail” system - it’s the Twin Cities Metro Light Rail system! Twin Cities, as in two cities: Minneapolis (largest city in Minnesota) and Saint Paul (second largest city in Minnesota). This video runs through both; the Blue Line is roughly Minneapolis and the Green Line is roughly Saint Paul connecting to Minneapolis. It’s a nice system (though not quite to Switzerland standards ;) And for those who say this is the Twin Cities in August: the dead giveaway is that a Vikings game is going on, so this is filmed sometime in Fall/Winter (though I give you the point that the snowy weather and heavy coats are non-deterministic 😂)

Come back, we've the Red Line under construction to take you out to the SW of Minneapolis.

2:22 This is kind of possible with Toronto's Presto. With some transit agencies, you can ask the operator to pay for multiple people when you get on a bus. Also with the stationary card reader that GO Transit, UP Express, the TTC, and York Region Transit uses, you can check a card's balance and transaction history. And from my knowledge, GO Transit is the only agency that allows for a transaction to be reverted as well (only for their trains, and it might also be possible on UP Express but I haven't checked). Since for GO, you have tap off within 3 hours of your tap on, I've used the fare reversal feature a few times since apparently they didn't think anyone would take a train trip that takes more than 3 hours :/

It's funny, I live like 10 minutes from the Twin Cities but I never get to use the rail system, it's cool to see y'all explore it!

12:16 Metro trains only have signal priority in Minneapolis, but they do not in Saint Paul

10:25 ridership per mile is cool but have you ever tried building your light rail through a ton of corn fields? Regards from St. Louis

i miss this so much. for most my life id bike around the paths and green round, then jump on the train and be across town to jump off and go biking again. i moved to a smaller town with no train :((

Reminds me of the Calgary CTrain - also has full priority, high-speeds, a downtown transit mall. Too many similarities to list except it’s high floor

december is the BEST time to experience the reality of riding metro transit lmao. many a cold winter nights waiting for those damn trains. not sure if you planned on doing this trip in the winter, but good timing if you didn't!

I ride green line everyday for school. While it’s not perfect, I’m pretty glad I have access to it.

Spokane WA also does the intercity bus hub inside the Amtrak station, but it is just as bad as any greyhound station...they also have ghost kitchens in the same building (where the old cafeteria used to be)

Living here in SE Texas where currently we are baking in 100+ degree heat, the Purple Line route to the mall looks VERY refreshing, what with the snow flurries! I'm a cold-weather guy and Texas heat is virtually unbearable--how would Bostonians deal with heat such as ours? Was this video filmed about the time you did the 'grand tour' of Duluth? Your onscreen explanation of the fare system caused my eyes to glaze over! Huh? :)

I thought for a second we were going to get the same spot in the mall from Eddy Burback/Ted Nivisons videos where they visit every Rainforest Cafe and every Margaritaville.

If the MTC ripped off Boston's logo, they did it a long time ago. That's been the MTC logo since I was a kid in the 1970's.