Issues occur on the roads and the rails — crashes, building, demonstrations — that may drive buses and trains to deviate from their routes and run late or under no circumstances.

Beginning Monday, Metro Transit is launching a brand new Twitter account devoted to alerting riders when journeys are canceled, delayed or rerouted.

The account @MT_MN_Alerts will broadcast real-time alerts the company already posts on its web site and sends by e-mail and textual content message to riders who subscribe to obtain them.

“That is half of a bigger effort to enhance communication round service disruptions,” Transit Data Mission Supervisor Bre Grand mentioned. “It supplies an extra option to discover out about service disruptions.”

The brand new Twitter account is for outgoing messages solely, that means Metro Transit workers gained’t monitor it for feedback. Riders can proceed to interact workers on the company’s foremost Twitter feed, @MetroTransitMN.

To make the alerts simple to comply with, every tweet will likely be accompanied by an icon. Bus Rider Alerts will characteristic a pink bus, whereas a blue or inexperienced light-rail practice icon will denote alerts about Blue or Inexperienced Line LRT service. The variety of Rider Alerts issued for present or upcoming schedule adjustments can range from everyday, however an occasion reminiscent of a winter snowstorm may set off a barrage of tweets.

“That’s one of many causes we created graphics to offer a visible cue for which modes our alerts are for,” Grand mentioned.

Metro Transit put in new expertise over the summer season that permits workers members to push alerts throughout a number of platforms concurrently, together with the brand new Twitter account. The system, referred to as TRANSIT-alerts, additionally produces an trade commonplace information feed that permits third events reminiscent of Google or the Transit app to show the identical alerts.

Metro Transit additionally redesigned its Rider Alerts web page. Notices will characteristic icons and extra colours and distinguish alerts by after they’re in impact to assist prospects shortly discover those who might have an effect on them, Grand mentioned.

“We heard from prospects who need to pay attention to detours and repair disruptions as they plan their transit journeys to scale back potential frustration,” Grand mentioned. They usually need to have the ability to discover it simply, she added. “It’s necessary to proceed to enhance supply of buyer info.”

Good Experience turns 10

This was not the banner yr of us at Nice Ride Minnesota had been hoping for as ridership dipped, largely on account of COVID-19.

Nevertheless it was hardly a misplaced season. The favored bike share program marked its tenth anniversary and launched new electrical power-assisted bikes to the fleet. Lyft, which operates this system, deployed about 1,000 e-bikes throughout Minneapolis and has one other 1,000 in a storehouse able to placed on the streets in 2021, mentioned Good Experience Government Director Invoice Dossett.

“E-bikes assist bike share work for individuals with completely different driving talents and so they make longer journeys simpler,” mentioned Tamara Conway, Lyft’s basic supervisor for bikes and scooters within the Midwest.

This yr additionally noticed the arrival of latest e-bike docking stations designed by Dero, a Minneapolis firm.

In its first yr, Good Experience supplied about 100,000 rides on its shiny inexperienced pedal bikes. Over the previous 10 years, Good Experience has supplied 3.6 million rides on its bicycles and 173,000 scooter rides.

Comply with information about site visitors and commuting at The Drive on startribune.com. Obtained site visitors or transportation questions, or story concepts? E-mail drive@startribune.com, tweet @stribdrive or name Tim Harlow at 612-673-7768.