Green Line Extension - Southwest LRT

[Anondson]

^ This.

[intercomnut]

Plans have changed quite a bit for the Downtown Hopkins park and ride. Originally, the city was going to built a 240-space 2 story park and ride on a lot they were going to purchase and leave room for private development. Now, a developer has bought the land. The developer plans to build a 1 level 270-space parking garage for residential use, a 190-space parking garage at ground level (with some residential units and retail on ground level as well) with 4 or 5 stories of a 200-unit residential development on top of the garage.

Source: http://www.metrocouncil.org/METC/files/ ... 6adeb9.pdf

[Anondson]

The Shady Oak station design is getting changed. I attended an open house showing a consultants proposed suggestions. I'll try and hunt down digital copies of the designs. Or I'll just take photos and post those...

The summary of changes, that the SWLRT office was near to signing off on are:
- moving the station location out from behind the mini storage, clear sight from Excelsior.
- connecting K-Tel drive directly to 17th, 5th will cross the LRT tracks and connect to 17th.
- The LRT car parking will be a single long narrow lot, 17th will have developable property on both sides its entire length.
- No more roundabouts. This gave enough space in the ROW for a protected bike lane on the east side of 17th from Excelsior to the station plaza.

[grant1simons2]

Maybe the increase in price was a good thing to happen? The Met Council will start really rethinking what makes the most sense for this line and what was plain ridiculous. I'm still happy the EP mayor is in favor of cutting the Mitchell station. Now if we could run the rail next to technology drive instead of cutting in between a small strip of "woods" and zig-zagging around wetlands and ponds I'd be happy.

[Anondson]

You can go compare the following images from the packet at the May 6th Shady Oak Station open house with those on the SWLRT Community Works website. http://www.swlrtcommunityworks.org/expl ... ak-station

Draft proposal of revised Shady Oak station area. by xeoth, on Flickr

Perspective view towards station along 17th. by xeoth, on Flickr

Shady Oak proposed 17th ROW. by xeoth, on Flickr

In addition to the points bulleted about, 17th will also have on street parking. The consultant told everyone that any development along 17th will want the on street parking, as well as it will help slow down traffic cruising in. The layout of the parking is claimed to make it easier for people arriving to make a fast decision and not wander for the ideal spot a couple closer.

The station will have a triangular plaza with three developable plots facing it around the intersection of 17th and 47th.

The dimension of the proposed plots are more ideal for someone wishing to develop anything. And the shape of the proposed car park and ride is thought to be far easier to treat as a "land bank" that could be developed off in the future should development become desired enough they could sell it off and put up and nice shape parking structure.

And I was mistaken, the proposed changed show have the protected bike lanes on the western side.

[xandrex]

Has there ever been any talk of cutting any other stations than Mitchell? Was talking to a few people tonight who have connections to Met Council and they mentioned the possibility of another station cut, but I haven't heard rumblings of that elsewhere and I'm not sure where else you'd take one away.

[Silophant]

As much as I'm a Minneapolis booster, I'd be okay with Penn and 21st St being just roughed in at first instead of being built. Penn especially is going to be a spendy one, and it doesn't really make sense if the C-Line isn't going to connect to it.

[RailBaronYarr]

I have to say the Shady Oak area changes seem like some decent improvements. The Community Works site shows potential long-term redevelopment east of where the re-designed parking lot site as well as south of the station, but the new plan has neither of these called out. Are they still on the table (zoned for it, etc), or is this just a re-imagining of what can happen around opening day?

And, seriously, the Met Council should be asking the county and/or cities for some value capture money at station areas. These land owners are being gifted much higher land values, and some of them will be cashing in before the line opens. The resulting urban form will be great for the region, etc, but there's still private benefit going on by doing nothing other than being lucky. Even if engineers can get costs back down to $1.65bn, why wouldn't we want to alleviate funding ask from the state or CTIB?

[Anondson]

Around all the stations there are immediate open day improvements, and then long term development. The long term development is outside the scope of the $1.65/$1.99 billion, other than to put down something that makes the long term vision possible. All of the cities are essentially accepting the long vision, but it will be up to them to get it there.

There were slides for the area, I'll go get them...

Land use framework (draft) by xeoth, on Flickr

Station area vision by xeoth, on Flickr

There is a scribble there where the table I sat at, we charge out a route out and around Shady Oak Lake for walkers who lived at the station, or worked at the offices along K-Tel.

[RailBaronYarr]

A sneak peak at some of the cost savings in EP identified by project engineers. I expect the full press release/document will be out soon. https://twitter.com/OhCaliJade/status/6 ... 0268441600

[RailBaronYarr]

Handout from the meeting is already posted (their document pages for projects are very poorly laid out and not searchable...) http://www.metrocouncil.org/METC/files/ ... 8e25f2.pdf

[FISHMANPET]

Eliminating the tunnels in the park and just taking the townhomes would cost an extra $5 million, but $50 million of that is time in delay, the actual cost to tunnel is $100 million vs $55 million for taking the townhomes. But we've dragged our feet for so long that the delay now makes the tunnel cheaper.

[Anondson]

Elevated bike bridge through Kenilworth gotta be on the cheap side. Can that go back on the "all options on the table"?

[HiawathaGuy]

$500M in cuts proposed for Southwest LRT line
http://www.startribune.com/500m-in-cuts ... 304445241/

[HuskyGrad]

$500M in cuts proposed for Southwest LRT line
http://www.startribune.com/500m-in-cuts ... 304445241/

That is quite the false headline, they took all of the potential options and added them up.

[xandrex]

Well they're all proposed cuts and they all add up to $500 million. So it's not false. It's just not likely we'll squeeze half a billion out because not everything will actually be cut.

[twincitizen]

I know it isn't super likely, but that's a lot of track, bridges, etc. between Golden Triangle and the next stop (EP Town Center). It would take a big ridership hit not going to Southwest Station. However, in the near term there's no reason that trips between the Mitchell area and Golden Triangle couldn't be accomplished with buses. That EP segment is just so damn expensive for 6,600 riders.

I noticed that no stations were on the chopping block in SLP/Hopkins. Everything past Golden Triangle is on the cutting table, as well as Penn OR 21st in Minneapolis. Removing Royalston is obviously a non-starter. If the Interchange / Target Field Station had been built differently (i.e. with northside bus transfers in mind), then Royalston could be seen as redundant. As it is though, especially with that 7th/Olson intersection remaining so hostile to peds, Royalston is a must for those transfers.

[RailBaronYarr]

Does it seem odd to anyone else that ending the line at EP Town Center doesn't reduce the need for vehicles at all, but terminating at Golden Triangle allows reducing by 7 LRVs? I'd think you could shave off 2 LRVs without the service reliability hit they discuss later on.

On that note, it's unclear to me what costs are included in each scenario. Example: Does terminating at Golden Triangle ($370-375m saved) include LRV purchase drop, O&M facility scope reduction, etc, or is it only station/track cost reductions?

If the costs ARE stackable, ending at EP TC, saving vehicles/OMF costs would bring the project down by $206m, only lose 3,200 daily riders (~10%), and retain access to 95% of jobs along the line. The obvious downside is equity - transit dependent riders served drops by 17% (obviously SW Station has a good chunk within walking distance). Deferring Penn Station and removing the 2 expensive trail bridges saves another $40m while only losing 750 riders (again, assuming you believe the forecasts). Is ~$250m enough savings to get this thing built? All you'd need is municipal consent from EP since CEI is unchanged and Mpls doesn't need to consent to deferring Penn.

[MNdible]

The chatter I'm hearing is that planners would really like to be able to serve Eden Prairie Town Center and the jobs that area represents, which means getting across 494, but that the less expensive alternate option would be feasible. So, it seems like Option 47 is the one they will push for.

[HiawathaGuy]

The chatter I'm hearing is that planners would really like to be able to serve Eden Prairie Town Center and the jobs that area represents, which means getting across 494, but that the less expensive alternate option would be feasible. So, it seems like Option 47 is the one they will push for.

With that said, what then happens to with the SouthWest Transit Park & Ride? Seems like A LOT of money invested will now seemingly go to waste, right? Or will SouthWest Transit still use it for express bus service?