Green Line Extension - Southwest LRT

[Silophant]

Adam Platt of Twin Cities Business Magazine is tweeting news from the Met Council's SWLRT meeting

From Platt:

Adam Platt ‏@plattMSP
1) SLP reroute all but dead after Surface Transpo Board told pols that it's at least a 2 year process to try to force TC&W Ry to do it.

Adam Platt ‏@plattMSP
2) After telling Mpls it was impossible, now Met Council has introduced a new "shallow" tunnel proposal which stays under LOI/Cedar channel.

Adam Platt ‏@plattMSP
3) New tunnel slightly more expensive than status quo and requires extra year of construction. 21st St. Station would be restored too.

Adam Platt ‏@plattMSP
4) Such an approach would co-opt much but not all Mpls opposition, but construction disruption much worse.

https://twitter.com/plattMSP

What's the status quo that this new plan is slightly more expensive than?

[ECtransplant]

So now it's getting even more expensive to tunnel in the park again? So how much closer is this to costing the same as an uptown alignment now?

[sad panda]

By virtue of the year delay in extra construction this hybrid tunnel plan should be killed. Not to mention I'm guessing a lot of the 'water/lakes quality' people won't be happy with the construction method (block off the channel for a year to dig down and build the tunnel, then reform the bed and banks of the channel and let the water back in). This (tunnels) is $200 million of unnecessary 'mitigation'. This may help appease Minneapolis but it appears to be angering the non-Hennepin County members of the CTIB.

[talindsay]

Apropos of nothing, I'd like to remind everybody that the Chain of Lakes itself was a massive engineering project.

[mattaudio]

So was the 29th St Grade Separation.

[Sara Bergen]

Mark Fuhrman (met council) said at the CMC today that next week he will be presenting to CTIB (county transit improvement board) about the SWLRT status, and this update will include a discussion of the new "deeper shallow" tunnel option. I am thinking that CTIB's response will inform whether or not the met council follows through on its expressed desire to further study the "deeper shallow" tunnel option. If they shorten the total tunnel length, the "deeper shallow" option would cost about $40 million more than the shallow option (this would also re-introduce the 21st street station). If the entire tunnel is kept the same length as the shallow option, but the deeper part is added under the channel, it will increase the total project cost about $80 million. It will be interesting to see how CTIB responds.

The CMC started out with testimony from a whole bunch (at least ten) farmer/co-op owners. They all discussed the economic impact their co-ops have on the state (including number of employees and annual revenues), the amount of semis that the trains keep off roadways, and how having safe, efficient rail access is critical for their industry. It was pretty interesting to see, and impressive that so many people came from western and southwestern MN to present to the CMC.

There always seems to be someone videotaping the CMC meetings. Anyone know if they, and maybe the CAC meetings, available to watch?

[Tcmetro]

Looks like Downtown Hopkins could get a 240-space park and ride. And some maps of the new Southwest Station. And of course, the Kenilworth corridor.

Presentation: http://metrocouncil.org/getdoc/ee5ef6d1 ... ation.aspx
more documents: http://metrocouncil.org/getdoc/f44badbf ... ation.aspx

[Silophant]

Mayor Hodges is officially unimpressed with the suddenness of the new plan.

[MNdible]

Neither here nor there, but Mayor Hodges spokesperson appears to be a 14 year old girl.

[David Greene]

Mayor Hodges is officially unimpressed with the suddenness of the new plan.

One woud expect the city to request studies to ensure the project doesn't harm the lakes. This tunnel won't but it's not at all surprising that this would be the first reaction.

[lordmoke]

I generally stay out of this thread, but I would like to take a moment to request a Hennepin Avenue subway as long as we're tunneling now. That is all.

[mister.shoes]

I generally stay out of this thread, but I would like to take a moment to request a Hennepin Avenue subway as long as we're tunneling now. That is all.

SRSLY.

I started futzing around with this idea the other night (because of course I would ) and really like it. I don't think it would be *that* much slower than Kenilworth and would be infinitely more useful. West Lake -> Hennepin/Greenway/Mall -> 24th Street -> Vineland -> Van White.

[RailBaronYarr]

I would think that *if* this project ran under Hennepin, the bottleneck could be re-done in some way (perhaps froggie's idea) as part of the budget, and the stop could be underneath? Seems to serve a larger population that Vineland (at the expense of being further from cultural attractions). "Lowry Square" could be re-developed on top of the station with a nice corner plaza and station entrance. Dreamin', of course.

[mister.shoes]

That'd be ideal, yes. The only reason I went with Vineland is because Triangle -> Van White is too long to skip, but just short enough that another stop seems like too many.

My assumption with the Triangle: as long as 94 is in its current configuration, the tunnel is too close to the surface for a Hennepin LRT to stay underground. The tracks would have to come up for air just north of Franklin—a tough prospect, given that Franklin is downhill from the Triangle already. That's why 94 needs to go deeper—so we can reuse the current tunnel for LRT

/unrealistic dreaming

[mattaudio]

I'm not sure a Hennepin tunnel is a wise idea. It makes more sense to elbow over to Blaisdell/Nicollet, since then the tunnel could be interlined with future service south from that elbow. It also separates the project from the Virginia Triangle / Lowry Tunnel issues.

That said, it still makes more sense than the Kenilworth Chunnel plan.

[mister.shoes]

My issue with Blaisdell/Nicollet for the SW line is simply that it's *so far east* that it doesn't make sense for it to be part of the SW line. Hennepin -> Downtown is such an obvious diagonal shortcut with a HUGE amount of surface traffic (and transit) that it seems obvious to relieve this with a LRT tunnel. Yes, the Triangle is a mess. But it's a mess partly because so many people travel through there between DT and Uptown. Running SWLRT down Nicollet isn't going to help that.

[mattaudio]

I'd rather see it coupled with a streetcar connecting Downtown, Loring Park, Hennepin Ave (with thru-traffic removed), to Lake St. Could then even turn east and interline with the Midtown streetcar over to Hiawatha, if it was okay not using LRVs. But that idea gets a little far fetched for the next decade or two.

[orangevening]

A elevated flyover from Franklin to the Van White area would be possible, no?

[Tcmetro]

NIMBYs would throw a fit over an LRT viaduct through the Lowry Hill Interchange area. I would imagine that the placement of the columns for a viaduct above the tunnel could also be a problem. Another problem is routing the viaduct over to the Van White Station. There's no way a viaduct will be built over the Sculpture Garden.

The inherent problem with routing SW LRT through South Minneapolis is the downtown approach. Any alignment; Hennepin, Lyndale, or Nicollet, has to manage a I-94 crossing and has to operate along busy north-south streets.

Additionally, any change in alignment is going to cause more delay in the planning. My belief is that some sort of north-south line connecting to the Southdale area should be planned rather than attempting to reroute SWLRT to South Minneapolis.

[David Greene]

The inherent problem with routing SW LRT through South Minneapolis is the downtown approach. Any alignment; Hennepin, Lyndale, or Nicollet, has to manage a I-94 crossing and has to operate along busy north-south streets.

Additionally, any change in alignment is going to cause more delay in the planning. My belief is that some sort of north-south line connecting to the Southdale area should be planned rather than attempting to reroute SWLRT to South Minneapolis.

Well said. I absolutely would support LRT/streetcar from downtown along Hennepin to Southdale. I think it would be quite successful.