Green Line Extension - Southwest LRT

[HiawathaGuy]

Can Southwest LRT go on a $341 million diet?
http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/m ... -diet.html

Good article. I enjoyed reading this quote from EP's mayor:

"Cutting the Mitchell Street station in Eden Prairie could save $100 million, and Eden Prairie Mayor Nancy Tyra-Lukens says she's open to the idea (the city would still have two other stops) if it would save the project."

[grant1simons2]

She's a progressive mayor, I have no idea how she was elected here

[David Greene]

Sounds like they're have some sort of idea by May 20. Should make for an interesting CAC meeting.

[HiawathaGuy]

Where to save $341 million along Southwest LRT?
http://finance-commerce.com/2015/05/whe ... z3a3IDo8WH

Glad to see that leveler heads are prevailing.

[twincitizen]

Good question: Do they literally need to cut $341MM in hard costs from the project? Or do they need to cut about $256MM in hard costs (and $85MM / 25% in contingency costs will fade away)??
That’s a huge difference maker.

If it’s the latter scenario, cutting $110MM for Mitchell Rd, reducing the initial size of the LRV fleet & maintenance facility, and shrinking/eliminating some park & rides would seem to get the project within spitting distance.

Abandoning the plan to swap places with the CP tracks sounds like a bad idea. That’s critical in order to make the station areas in St. Louis Park and Hopkins both walkable and developable.

[exiled_antipodean]

Maybe by removing park and rides they'll realize that land immediately beside a rail line is a valuable asset that people will pay to build on, turning acres of costs into acres of revenue.

[froggie]

Only if they set up a TIF in that land so as to capture some of that "acres of revenue"...

[grant1simons2]

I made a video of what it would be like coming from my neighborhood to the SW Transit station

[fehler]

Build all stations only long enough for 2-car trainsets. That'll save a few bucks now.

[VAStationDude]

Green Line trains will run from Union Depot to Eden Prairie. The Green Line extension can't operate with 2 car trains.

[HuskyGrad]

Build all stations only long enough for 2-car trainsets. That'll save a few bucks now.

That won't work since the Green Line already runs three car trains and the runs will be continuous.

[MNdible]

Also, that really won't save you very much money in the grand scheme of things, and you'll be kicking yourself when you have to come back three years later and extend the stations at three times the original cost (not to mention the operational headaches of rebuilding platforms on an operating line).

See: Blue Line along Hiawatha.

[FISHMANPET]

It only takes about 30-60 seconds to detach a car on service (I have the good fortune of being on the blue line around 7:20 PM going south when it loses the third car at Cedar Riverside) so you could in theory drop the second car at Target Field Westbound, and build some crossover tracks so you can get it onto the Eastbound platform and reattach it to the train going east from Target Field.

Don't do it because it sounds like an awful operational nightmare, but you could.

[fehler]

You could save money by not having ticket machines at every station. Have them at every other station, and require people to exit the train and purchase tickets.

Or just have all the ticket machines at Target Field Station, and instruct people to purchase them there. Its not like anyone riding this line will be getting off at any other point on the line.

Or remove ticket machines entirely, since no one ever buys tickets anyways. Its an "honor system", get it?

[grant1simons2]

I don't know what part of that was sarcasm and what wasn't.

[fehler]

Or pass a law that says transportation projects do not need to spend additional dollars to protect/conserve wetlands that were not already in a pristine state prior to construction. I mean, why bother to clean a chemical-filled, heavy-metal contaminated swamp, its not like anyone is going to start swimming there after the train starts rolling.

[acs]

Or pass a law saying you don't need to rehabilitate soil underneath a former rail bed when you intend to build a new railroad there.

[David Greene]

Not sure why either of those last two posts are relevant to this project.

If there's contaminated soil at the OMF site it's got to be removed due to, among other things, runoff.

To my knowledge no wetlands are being "cleaned" by this project. The issue is stability of the structures being built.

[Tiller]

Can't tell whether the sarcasm is mocking light rail, or those who mock light rail.

[mulad]

This discussion needs more maps (preferably good resolution, zoomable, pannable ones) to help show where these issues are cropping up. Bad soil, polluted areas, wetlands, etc.