Green Line Extension - Southwest LRT

Roads - Rails - Sidewalks - Bikeways
David Greene
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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby David Greene » April 28th, 2015, 10:25 am

Northsiders are pushing for this line? I've heard them advocating for heated shelters and other dignified stop amenities, but not SW LRT.
You're not paying attention.

David Greene
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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby David Greene » April 28th, 2015, 10:28 am

I don't think anybody here buys the claim that SWLRT is going to much of anything for the Northside, but by all means, keep banging that drum.
It's amazing how much more urbanists on the Internet know about the needs of Northsiders than all the actual Northsiders who have vocally and repeatedly talked about the benefits of the line. Those poor fools, who don't understand how much nicer their lives could be if they could ride a train to Uptown!
If "the Northsiders" choices are binary then that conditions the answer doesn't it?

Is a light rail line that barely grazes low density areas of your "neighborhood" a good thing?

Is no light rail line that barely grazes low density areas of your "neighborhood" a good thing?

I know that the following choice doesn't exist either because funding but if "Northsiders" were given a choice between

Bottineau and/or Broadway streetcar
vs
SWLRT

I wonder how that question would be answered.
That's a false choice. Northsiders want both and both is what they are scheduled to get. We'd better not renege on that promise.

The benefits of SWLRT to the Northside go beyond the existing conditions today. There's a massive amount of TOD enabled by SWLRT and the neighborhood enthusiastically supports it. Aren't we always whining about NIMBYs? Here's a group of people not only welcoming density with open arms, they've put in massive amounts of work to make it happen.

It's not correct to characterize the area as "low density" as that is only the current condition. It doesn't account for future development.

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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby David Greene » April 28th, 2015, 10:31 am

Why are we not building out the network in the core cities first? With river view you could complete the *triangle*. Midtown seems so obvious to me that I'm left scratching my head as to why that wasn't first on the list.
You're ignoring the politics. What county commissioners are going to support building a line that only serves Minneapolis?

Without SWLRT or something like it, Midtown becomes MUCH less attractive outside of a very narrow south Minneapolis constituency.

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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby David Greene » April 28th, 2015, 10:34 am

The value in Midtown is not taking the train far west to the SLP border to transfer to SWLRT to get downtown.
No, but for a significant number of suburban officials, it's value is in getting their folks into and out of South Minneapolis.

acs is right that this news is even worse for 3C than 3A but let's say we build 3C. Do you think anyone is going to care about building rail from Nicollet to Hiawatha?

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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby grant1simons2 » April 28th, 2015, 10:37 am

Dream idea (which might hurt the price rather than help, but I'm not sure: The line currently turns in a U shape around the trash burning facility. We use the current line there, but add a bridge up to 10th St which is already a lower use road. It then turns down Lasalle, another low traffic road, and continues all the way down Blaisdell. After 29th is where it gets a bit tricky. Using lake would cause nightmare level traffic. We could route it down the greenway, but that may disrupt the future line planned there. 26th or 28th might be options, but then it'd have to turn onto Hennepin.

I'm still trying to figure out the suburban section

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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby RailBaronYarr » April 28th, 2015, 10:41 am

Why do people think that Midtown is some magic corridor that is viable on it's own? It's not. It most definitely relies on a high quality connection into downtown at least somewhere west of Nicollet. One of the main reasons the Met Council and Metro transit aren't pushing Midtown yet is because SWLRT is in such limbo and without it Midtown is much less viable.
I guess that's why the 21 and 53 are among the busiest routes in the system and Metro Transit proposed both the rail-in-trench AND Lake Street aBRT dual alternative, right? No value whatsoever to travelers just within the corridor? Its value is certainly enhanced by SWLRT, but it shouldn't be dependent on it. But, that's mostly irrelevant to the SWLRT discussion.

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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby FISHMANPET » April 28th, 2015, 10:46 am

At this point debating 3A vs 3C is pretty pointless, because it's not the A part that's getting expensive, it's the 3 part. I mean, the region has basically accepted the costs through Kenilworth and not a whole lot of the increases are from that. So in a vacuum, this is really a debate about how to route the line in the suburbs rather than in Minneapolis.

In a larger context it makes some sense to step back and try and assess what we're doing and why, beyond "We have always been at war with Eastasia." So maybe at that level it makes sense to throw out fantasy routes because maybe we really should go back to the drawing board.

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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby twincitizen » April 28th, 2015, 10:49 am

Let's not make this about 3A vs. 3C right now, because the current cost increases have nearly nothing to do with that decision. Yes, we're spending $160-200MM on a tunnel in Kenilworth, but that's not really cause for the recent increases.

I was (and deep down still am) one of the biggest supporters of rail serving Uptown, but let's just not go there right now. If SWLRT, as planned, is killed, brought back to the drawing board, etc...then yes, by all means let's have that discussion all over again, but not now. Please.

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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby mattaudio » April 28th, 2015, 10:53 am

^I published the old 3A vs 3C maps to debunk the idea that this has any meaningful equity impact for North, not to argue for 3C at this point.

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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby twincitizen » April 28th, 2015, 2:41 pm

Killer comment on MinnPost:
Just because this line's in trouble from a value standpoint, let's not go overboard. We are going to need mass transit as the metro area grows to 4 million people. The mistake here seems to have been underestimating the cost of abandoning the HCRRA corridor west of Hopkins and instead choosing to run the line south (through wetlands and across multiple freeways) to serve the Golden Triangle and Eden Prairie Center.

How about terminating SWLRT in Hopkins and adding bus rapid transit along Hwy 169 to Eden Prairie?
At this point I have to agree that might be the only way to move forward with the current project. We're already starting a study on Hwy. 169 BRT at the behest of Shakopee/Scott Co. This compromise is not the worst idea ever and might honestly be the only way to make lemonade this decade.

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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby Archiapolis » April 28th, 2015, 2:45 pm

If "the Northsiders" choices are binary then that conditions the answer doesn't it?

Is a light rail line that barely grazes low density areas of your "neighborhood" a good thing?

Is no light rail line that barely grazes low density areas of your "neighborhood" a good thing?

I know that the following choice doesn't exist either because funding but if "Northsiders" were given a choice between

Bottineau and/or Broadway streetcar
vs
SWLRT

I wonder how that question would be answered.
That's a false choice. Northsiders want both and both is what they are scheduled to get. We'd better not renege on that promise.

The benefits of SWLRT to the Northside go beyond the existing conditions today. There's a massive amount of TOD enabled by SWLRT and the neighborhood enthusiastically supports it. Aren't we always whining about NIMBYs? Here's a group of people not only welcoming density with open arms, they've put in massive amounts of work to make it happen.

It's not correct to characterize the area as "low density" as that is only the current condition. It doesn't account for future development.
I said it pages and pages ago but here it is again:

Northside rail (a better version of Bottineau or an incredible streetcar on Broadway) will do more for the Northside than SWLRT.

If it weren't for the "sunk costs" already invested in SWLRT (which makes me sick to my stomach), I'd *again* advocate for ditching SWLRT in favor of a rail line on the Northside. I just don't want to put any more energy/time into a line that is beset on all sides for a $2B price tag.

I'd rather spend $1B on Bottineau/Broadway than put $2B into SWLRT.

Create a BRT line/connection to Bottineau/Broadway to all of those amazing suburban jobs at Opus/Golden Triangle.

To say that the Northside is "scheduled to get both" (SWLRT and Bottineau/Broadway), is beyond wildly optimistic when it appears that the first phase (SWLRT) could be DOA. I think it is a mistake to take it as a given that the the North side is assured of anything given how difficult it is to get investment channeled into underserved areas of any city.

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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby Anondson » April 28th, 2015, 6:02 pm

Killer comment on MinnPost:
Just because this line's in trouble from a value standpoint, let's not go overboard. We are going to need mass transit as the metro area grows to 4 million people. The mistake here seems to have been underestimating the cost of abandoning the HCRRA corridor west of Hopkins and instead choosing to run the line south (through wetlands and across multiple freeways) to serve the Golden Triangle and Eden Prairie Center.

How about terminating SWLRT in Hopkins and adding bus rapid transit along Hwy 169 to Eden Prairie?
At this point I have to agree that might be the only way to move forward with the current project. We're already starting a study on Hwy. 169 BRT at the behest of Shakopee/Scott Co. This compromise is not the worst idea ever and might honestly be the only way to make lemonade this decade.
This is a very interesting "all options on the table" compromise. Assuming then SWLRT was run to the Hopkins Downtown station, we'd need some creative connection for the 169 BRT.

Inspired by the 35W BRT zig along Knox in Bloomington, the 169 BRT could get off at Malibu/7th, run up the 2nd Ave S frontage road, to 3rd St. S., the over to the Hopkins station, taking Excelsior to get back on 169.

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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby AccordGuy » April 28th, 2015, 7:24 pm

Dream idea (which might hurt the price rather than help, but I'm not sure: The line currently turns in a U shape around the trash burning facility. We use the current line there, but add a bridge up to 10th St which is already a lower use road. It then turns down Lasalle, another low traffic road, and continues all the way down Blaisdell. After 29th is where it gets a bit tricky. Using lake would cause nightmare level traffic. We could route it down the greenway, but that may disrupt the future line planned there. 26th or 28th might be options, but then it'd have to turn onto Hennepin.

I'm still trying to figure out the suburban section
Thank you for this. Makes sense to me.
Born in Minneapolis.

the other scott
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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby the other scott » April 28th, 2015, 8:40 pm

Why do people think that Midtown is some magic corridor that is viable on it's own? It's not. It most definitely relies on a high quality connection into downtown at least somewhere west of Nicollet. One of the main reasons the Met Council and Metro transit aren't pushing Midtown yet is because SWLRT is in such limbo and without it Midtown is much less viable.
I guess that's why the 21 and 53 are among the busiest routes in the system and Metro Transit proposed both the rail-in-trench AND Lake Street aBRT dual alternative, right? No value whatsoever to travelers just within the corridor? Its value is certainly enhanced by SWLRT, but it shouldn't be dependent on it. But, that's mostly irrelevant to the SWLRT discussion.
Be careful calling the 53 one of the busiest routes in the system. It only runs 16 times a day, only on weekdays during rush hour, 8 trips eastbound in the morning and 8 trips westbound in evening.

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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby David Greene » April 28th, 2015, 8:50 pm

Good CAC meeting tonight. Concerning the budget, "Don't panic" was the theme.

Engineers had the appropriate level of seriousness, calling it a "serious, imposing challenge." However, two Maryland projects at the same point in the pipeline as Southwest had even more serious cost increases and they are still moving forward. Apparently FTA expressed confidence in the ability of planners to get SWLRT into a viable state. FTA is pretty hands-off until the FFGA so they're not prone to complaining and overreacting.

Addressing some complaints in the media, planners noted that they indeed did use soil data from other projects in the area but of course that data didn't cover the whole line. The surprises came from elsewhere.

The extra retaining walls also require additional land acquisition so there is sort of a domino effect to all of this. Another example is the additional vehicles, which then trigger additional OMF space requirehments which in turn means more soil remediation costs (the pollution is mainly at the OMF site).

Concerning the extra vehicles, they're needed because after analyzing the latest geometries taking into account curves and elevation changes, the trains can't run quite as fast as originally thought so to maintain frequency they need another trainset. I don't know what that does to trip times but no one asked and no one mentioned it as a problem.

There are additional costs with connecting roads because traffic forcasts had to be updated to 2040 where previously they were done for 2030. Insert VMT decrease comments here.

Most of the additional acreage needed is in Eden Prairie due to retaining walls and construction staging for said. SW station is particularly problematic. Apparently it has been sinking ever since it was built.

The business relocations aren't quite as bad as it appears. 43 of the additional 99 relocations are simply mini storage pods that need to find new homes. Another set of additional businesses turned up because the latest inventory of properties they already were going to acquire showed more tenants than last time.

I asked about what they're looking at to reduce costs. Planners noted that there is already work underway to spare the mini storage site. Their goal is to provide the political leaders lots of options to reduce costs and let those decision-makers decide how that's done. Everything is on the table for cost reduction. I got the sense that while they understand the seriousness of the increase, they're also not worried about being unable to reduce costs. The question is by how much and whether that will be enough.

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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby mattaudio » April 28th, 2015, 8:53 pm

There are additional costs with connecting roads because traffic forcasts had to be updated to 2040 where previously they were done for 2030. Insert VMT decrease comments here.
So, a portion of this cost increase is due to building more road capacity as part of the project?

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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby mplsjaromir » April 28th, 2015, 8:55 pm

Thank you for the update.

David Greene
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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby David Greene » April 28th, 2015, 9:10 pm

There are additional costs with connecting roads because traffic forcasts had to be updated to 2040 where previously they were done for 2030. Insert VMT decrease comments here.
So, a portion of this cost increase is due to building more road capacity as part of the project?
Or at least signaling.

Go talk to your legislators and county commissioners. They're paying for part of this, after all.

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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby HiawathaGuy » April 29th, 2015, 10:02 am

Good CAC meeting tonight. Concerning the budget, "Don't panic" was the theme.
...
Awesome updates David, thank you for the great recap and information!

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Re: Southwest LRT (Green Line Extension)

Postby min-chi-cbus » April 29th, 2015, 12:32 pm

It's getting so damn expensive and complicated to try and route this thing at grade across the most built-up portions of the city and metro that a subway is starting to look more and more attractive as the price tag on this thing continues to climb. I realize a subway all the way out to EP would be insanely expensive, but perhaps it only needs to be underground in certain spots, like most/all of Minneapolis or wherever the soil is unstable for at-grade rail. It would cost more than $2B, no doubt, but it's so much more efficient, and is also cheaper than building a subway 50 years from now when the city can no longer support at-grade LRT and population/amenity densities can support/justify underground rail.

If this corridor does not become a light rail or heavy rail commuter corridor, I'm going to be so disappointed. It's one of the key amenities I personally thought would transform this city and tie the lakes to hundreds of thousands of additional people (who live within walking distance of any train station) -- not to mention both downtowns, the airport, and the Mall of America.

I'll keep dreamin' though! 8-)


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