urbanMSP

Seems to be a non-issue to me, as the wall is quite far from anything that interacts with it for most of the length.

The wall is nowhere near as bad as it was made to sound.

Yeah, aside from the actual cost to construct the wall, it would seem to be nothing to get upset over.

Obviously, this will not stop the Parks and Lakes people from continuing to get upset over it.

I see no issue with this wall, but people will complain to complain

Well that was disappointing. I was led to believe that this would be much more dramatic. How is this supposed to keep immigrants out?

Too soon.

Well that was disappointing. I was led to believe that this would be much more dramatic. How is this supposed to keep immigrants out?

THAT'S why they included it... we needed that federal funding, no way Trump would not fund this project NOW! ...a border state looking to build a wall, it has Trump Approved all over it!

I know these sorts of detailed plans take time, but it's a shame they couldn't have had that video ready to go when the wall was announced. Puts it in perspective very well.

Walls are generally bad in cities, etc. but 1) sometimes we need to accept some bad urban design for good overall outcomes, 2) this wall isn't even bad and it's a case study in poor PR management, and 3) the fact that this got such negative press while urban freeways continue to erect much larger and uglier walls in neighborhoods is kinda crazy.

So, rebids for the main SWLRT Civil contract are beginning.

Is Dylan Thomas from the SW Journal really the only local reporter to have sussed out the real reason for the rebid? If so, kudos to him.

Although it wasn’t clear to many observers at the time, the “responsiveness issues” Met Council cited when it rejected the four previous bids had to do with the inclusion of firms that had been involved in either the advanced design or preliminary engineering phases of the SWLRT project. Three of the four previous bids relied on subcontractors who had worked with AECOM, the firm hired for advanced design work, a violation of Federal Transit Administration rules meant to ensure fair competition in bidding.

I guess I don't understand the issue. Subs worked on design so they can't work on construction? On the surface this seems like an extreme amount of caution. How is it conflict of interest for a sub to work on multiple phases? Presumably the primes picked the subs they felt would get the best price and work. Why limit the bidding in this way?

I must be missing something...

The issue is the subs helped influence the design of the project, they could have introduced specifications that would have steered the mains to utilizing their services. Not saying they did, but it’s pretty standard to not let any vendors involved in creating the project specifications and SOW also be involved on the bid side of a RFP.

Dozens of subcontractors disqualified from new light rail bids
http://finance-commerce.com/2017/10/new ... -lrt-work/
*UNLOCKED*

I was just reading a Strib article from 2008. They were talking about this line being done by 2015.

Can we call this a fiasco yet?

No, because that would be offensive to some people on here.

It's almost as if designing and constructing a multi-billion dollar project across multiple jurisdictions while meeting federal funding requirements is a difficult undertaking.

The Spine Line in Pittsburgh was first proposed in 1907 as a subway between downtown Pittsburgh and the university city of Oakland.

It will be finally realized as a BRT line next year.

All the MSP light rail lines were conceptualized in the 1980s. The only thing about this project that's a potential crisis is demagogues who defund everything they don't like. Everything else is normal bureaucracy and the lack of political will to move things along on schedule.

Here is a $3 billion dollar bridge and tunnel under a damn sea that serves cars and trains between two different countries with all their different requirements, and they were able to finish it in roughly 20-30 years less than SWLRT when you include total time from serious planning efforts (studies, etc) to final completion.

Okay, obviously, these things are different. But we should not normalize how long it takes to plan and build something like this. No individual hiccup or extension on its own seems like a dealbreaker. But we should admit there are serious issues in aggregate from top to bottom for planning and building transit in this country. We should question why transit costs so much to build per mile in this country (and I assume much of the federal requirements that drive high costs elsewhere apply to SWLRT, even though casual comparisons show we're still better than other mega projects in this country).

It's okay to be pro-transit and still ask those questions.

Sounds like a good time to share my opinion article for those who haven't read it-http://www.startribune.com/southwest-li ... 444760443/

To sum it up these are the major hiccups in the planning process:
-encroaching development on railroad right-of-way
-assuming a railroad will accept being rerouted onto a god awful berm, severe grades, and winding tracks
-assuming light rail through forest will have better ridership and be easier and cheaper to build than a route through a dense area just a stone throw away

Of course we can't go back now, but hopefully these people have learned something.

I completely agree that it costs too much to build transit in this country, and that it takes too long to do it. (By the way, this applies to any massive public project, not just transit.) But that doesn't mean that we should single out SWLRT and call it a fiasco.

Obviously, in this case, one of the major headaches is that we've given private railroads so much power. I guarantee that in other countries (China, Europe, etc.) they don't let the whims of private railroads negatively impact an important public project, especially when it's a private railroad that is, in the grand scheme of things, profoundly unimportant. We're not talking about the BNSF mainline here.

And I absolutely refuse to re-litigate the 3C decision. Except you can probably goad me into it.