Continued: Is that the light-rail train? Funny, it sure looks like a cattle car

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If you're eating breakfast right now, you might want to read this when you're done, because alert reader Andy's tale of taking light rail home from a Twins game last month isn't for the faint of stomach:

It took us an hour in line to finally get on a train. ... On the train, we were packed shoulder to shoulder as someone began to vomit.

Andy said there wasn't room to move his family away from the mess, and his head was full of questions: Don't trains have some sort of capacity limit for safety reasons? And doesn't Metro Transit plan for the postgame crowds?

The short answers to those questions are, respectively, "no" and "yes."

Trains and buses aren't like planes, boats or elevators -- operators aren't constrained by the number of seat belts or flotation devices or the combined weight of the passengers.

A light-rail car can hold about 190 people, says Bob Gibbons of Metro Transit, but there's no firm limit. "We don't have someone standing at the door clicking," he said; loading continues "until people don't want to get on anymore."

If the crowding is not to one's liking, Gibbons suggests waiting for the next train. But after a game, the next one is likely to be packed as well -- just ask the baseball fans who had to make room for paramedics last week after a man hurt in a robbery boarded a train at Lake Street.

To prepare for the postgame rush, Gibbons said, Metro Transit employees watch the games on television to see when fans start to leave, monitor the flow of people on the platforms, and activate the entire light-rail fleet (save for one or two cars in the shop for maintenance or vomit-cleaning). At the same time, they maintain the regular light-rail schedule so that non-sports-fans elsewhere along the line can get where they want to go.

It's "a little bit of an art," Gibbons said.

No wiggle room

Alert reader Cassandra is also feeling a bit cramped:

With rising gas prices, it's no surprise to me that more people are opting to ride Metro Transit buses. ... What I don't understand is why Metro Transit has not added more buses to routes that really need it, like the one I ride (850 Express from the Foley Park & Ride). It's very obvious that there are more riders, as demonstrated by every single bus I end up on having several people standing in the aisles. If more people are riding the bus, wouldn't it be reasonable to assume Metro Transit has more money to add more buses to the routes?

The economics of public transit can be counterintuitive. A full bus brings in more revenue than a mostly empty one, but the overall formula remains unchanged: Riders pay only about a third of the cost of the service, with subsidies making up the rest. So adding a bus, even if it attracted new riders, would cost more money, or require a service reduction elsewhere.

"It's not the kind of business where you can make it up on volume," Gibbons said.

Jim Foti can be reached at 612-673-4491 or roadguy@startribune.com.

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