Green Line Extension - Southwest LRT

[Anondson]

Many have thought the land was owned by the Hennepin Regional Rail Authority, thus implying it was intended for rail from the beginning and trails were a temporary use until that day.

[mulad]

It all gets a bit vague with rail trails. Some corridors are technically "railbanked", which means that the conversion to a trail is used as a preservation technique to prevent changes that would make it hard/impossible to convert to rails again.

I'm not sure if that applies here.

I'm a little unclear on whether the tracks ever actually went away in Kenilworth. Looking at historic aerials, there seems to be a very narrow window of time when the current track could have disappeared/reappeared. Some places along the line had yards or multiple tracks which had been pared down in the preceding years/decades, though.

[UptownSport]

Again we hear concerns about what this project is doing to chances of a broader transit plan

From Silophant's link:

County officials expressed frustration that the high cost of the Southwest project will sap funding and political support for other transit projects.“I would hate to see us, on this one line, lose that support,” McDonough said.

The last station seems to be sacrificed, if I understand correctly.

[talindsay]

I'm hopeful they'll keep sacrificing stations until it ends in Hopkins.

[the other scott]

From today's Strib

Anoka County Commissioner Matt Look asked why the Met Council has virtually rejected a less expensive idea: having the freight and LRT run next to each other in the Kenilworth corridor and rerouting the recreational trails for about a mile at the narrowest points.

“We have a solution staring us right in the face,” he said.

At $35 million to $40 million, “It was the lowest cost option,” said Mark Fuhrmann, in charge of transit development for the Met Council. But he added that 567,000 bike rides have been recorded on the trails and rerouting them drew opposition from bike groups worried about safety. In addition, neighbors objected to hundreds of LRT trains near their back yards.

Anyone know where that 567,000 number came from?

[the kid]

AHA!

[woofner]

The city estimates 2000 riders on a typical non-winter weekday, so 567,000 seems like a reasonable annualization of that. That will certainly decrease if the reroute they've published so far takes effect. A less onerous reroute like the one Thatcher mentioned probably wouldn't significantly decrease traffic, but adding two sharp rights does make it a less desirable route. Sorry because you all have heard it before, but it seems worthwhile to spend $5-10m more and sacrifice a couple dozen unremarkable townhomes to maximize possible cycle commuters.

[UptownSport]

I'm hopeful they'll keep sacrificing stations until it ends in Hopkins.

Or route midtown streetcar to Hopkins, its already going there for the O & M, and extend existing line West and North West a stop or two.

Couldn't argue with the price, bikes, canals, townhomes and trains would continue to co exist

[mattaudio]

Or route midtown streetcar to Hopkins

I like where you're going with this.
1. The Midtown streetcar will use LRVs.
2. Extend it to Hopkins. Route it to Shady Oak by way of Hopkins, Blake, Louisiana, Wooddale, and Belt Line using said LRVs.
3. Grade separate "Nicollet streetcar" under Nicollet and interline with "Midtown Streetcar" west of Nicollet.
4. Call this line the "Yellow Line" or something.
5. Cancel "Green Line Extension" as we know it west of Penn, recycling engineering and ROW for future service southwest of Shady Oak when demand warrants.
5. Initiate new "Green Line Extension Phase II" study to bring trains from Penn to West End, with potential phases to job centers at 169/394, Ridgedale, etc.

Boom! 3C!

[ECtransplant]

I realize everyone drives for all of their trips in Anoka County, and that all their trails out there are "recreational," but Matt Look's disregard for bike commuters really rubs me the wrong way. What's he's so worried about transit funding for anyway? The best they were able to pull off in his county was Northstar. Not exactly the best person to be making the arguments for the opportunity cost of transit costs in the core.

[twincitizen]

The .25% sales tax was the best thing to happen to transit in this region.

Disbursing it through a 5-county board of elected County Commissioners (CTIB) was the worst.

[talindsay]

Disbursing it through a 5-county board of elected County Commissioners (CTIB) was the worst.

Are you kidding? There are so many worse ways they could have chosen to disburse it. They could have given it to Met Council directly, which would have taken any elected official completely out of the loop. They could have set up a legislative oversight board, or a separate office of the governor's bureaucracy (like with the legacy amendment). They could have given the money to each county individually. They could have given it to the railroad authorities. They could have given it to the Legislature to disburse as formula funds. They could have set up a special earmark fund answerable to the political whims of each legislature. They could have given it to Mn/DOT.

The CTIB is by no means a worst-case situation; it's actually a pretty good one since the counties vote according to their population and tax revenue, all the decision-makers are actually elected, and the Counties only got a vote by agreeing to levy the tax themselves for transit purposes. They're accountable, culpable, and democratic.

In this case the CTIB is a safety valve: if Met Council had direct control of the money we would have gotten either their crap plan unaltered, or else the plan that appeased the most special interests on the Corridor because they don't want to flaunt their non-elected status. The CTIB allows people who are actually answerable to the voters to make the hard decision of saying that the Met Council plan is crap and the local groups shouldn't get free rein in exploding the costs. They may make specific choices we don't like, but they'll question the Met Council and they'll also work to keep costs under control. Those are both much better than the other prevailing alternatives.

[UptownSport]

Or route midtown streetcar to Hopkins

I like where you're going with this.
1. The Midtown streetcar will use LRVs.
2. Extend it to Hopkins. Route it to Shady Oak by way of Hopkins, Blake, Louisiana, Wooddale, and Belt Line using said LRVs.
3. Grade separate "Nicollet streetcar" under Nicollet and interline with "Midtown Streetcar" west of Nicollet.
4. Call this line the "Yellow Line" or something.
5. Cancel "Green Line Extension" as we know it west of Penn, recycling engineering and ROW for future service southwest of Shady Oak when demand warrants.
5. Initiate new "Green Line Extension Phase II" study to bring trains from Penn to West End, with potential phases to job centers at 169/394, Ridgedale, etc.

Boom! 3C!

This makes a lot more sense; not to go too far off topic, I wonder if there could be both be a streetcar, and then a cut & Cover 'U-Bahn' under another street;
The streetcar does what it's good at, circulating people,

and

The underground move people from South Mpls to downtown.

Undeniably the lines would actually serve Minneapolis!

[mulad]

The Sierra Club is hosting a ~25-mile bike ride this weekend (Sunday, Sept. 22) to "highlight issues and opportunities" along the corridor. I got a piece of snail-mail about it which says the fee is $25, though you can ride for free if you're a student. The website to RSVP is http://northstar.sierraclub.org/tour

[UptownSport]

Article on letter to MTC:
Minneapolis Mayor wants freight rail re-routed:

http://m.startribune.com/local/?id=224662411&c=y

[UptownSport]

Article on 'Southwest rail review dealt setback'

Or

'Consultant has conflict over Southwest Corridor freight route review'

http://www.startribune.com/local/225119032.html

[Anondson]

One more thing to piss all sides off. Why did it take this long to catch this? I seem to recall someone in this thread posted that there was this conflict of interest, and it took these folks this long to call it out?

Or is this just "the speed of government"? It's like the people in charge of this don't want a solution that is careful of the money being spent.

[twincitizen]

Following that news, Chair Haigh has rejected Mayor Rybak's (and others') call for further study of freight alternatives, setting up a showdown between Minneapolis and St. Louis Park. This is about to get really ugly.

That's extremely disappointing that they waited this late in the game to study other freight alternatives, including a reroute west of the metro area.

http://www.startribune.com/local/225235562.html

[David Greene]

That's extremely disappointing that they waited this late in the game to study other freight alternatives, including a reroute west of the metro area.

No one "waited this late in the game." Those options were studied *years* ago and rejected.

Bringing in the consultants was about political cover, not actually expecting to find a magic bullet. Apparently if the railroads don't like something, it can't happen. I'm baffled as to why but it is apparently a constraint we have to work within.

I don't think this is going to take all that long to get through. We'll have all the votes done by the end of the year. The lawsuits might take a while but those aren't going to go anywhere in the end.

The only ugliness is going to be from residents who are mad. The politicians are smart enough not to stoop to that level. They'll trade some barbs but in the end I don't expect any real resistance. My prediction is that we'll get half a shallow tunnel in Kenilworth. *Maybe* a full tunnel if Minneapolis really pushes it. The Mitchell station will also likely go away. I hope we can keep 21st.

I'll have to talk to some people about the consequences of Mitchell going away. I'm not very familiar with that area.

[NickP]

This seems to be very similar to what went down for the central corridor. Does anybody else feel this. Maybe we''l get something cool out of it, like I think we did with the Washington Ave Transit Mall.