Northern Lights Express

[Andrew_F]

The vast majority of people I see boarding the mid-afternoon Hiawathas that I occasionally watch board while waiting for the Empire Builder are business people types who are presumably traveling from the Loop to somewhere in MKE-- They're going to have to languish forever on the Kennedy on a weekday afternoon if they're trying to get there by car.

I really doubt anyone living far enough north to not have to deal with the Kennedy crush would even consider the Hiawatha.

[mulad]

From today's Passenger Rail Forum meeting, the environmental work for NLX has continued to drag on longer than expected, though they now seem to be more definite about when it will be finished -- public meetings (open houses?) are being planned for November. Preliminary engineering is planned to start in October, and the Hinckley Loop study will officially kick off in October as well.

The handoff between the NLX Alliance group to Mn/DOT is in progress, and Mn/DOT is the one negotiating contracts with consultants going forward.

[talindsay]

Certainly not a given, but I would expect the election outcome should be a pretty positive thing for this project as well - Cravack was adamantly against this project, and while Nolan is no Jim Oberstar I expect he'll be more likely to embrace something that can bring jobs and tourists to Duluth. It's hard to say how receptive the legislature will be to this project, but they probably won't be openly hostile the way the last legislature was.

[woofner]

I'm not saying I trust the economics of NLX, but I think the Legislature will go for it. I'd say NLX will run into more trouble at the Federal level. Pretty sure MAP-21 had no funding for passenger rail, and it conveniently expires at election time 2014. There could be a stand-alone passenger rail bill (i.e. PRIIA) but I don't see any reason why anything will improve in Congress between now and then, and it's hard to say what the Congress after that will look like. Not sure how much more money is needed to get through Preliminary Engineering - the state may be able to cover that through bonding - but for final engineering and construction they'll need FRA money and the earliest we can hope for that is 2015, which means trouble for the projected opening date.

[mulad]

The Pioneer Press had an article on the NLX today:

http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_ ... tinue-even

Sounds like the preliminary engineering phase will drag on for quite a while -- 20 months, according to the article, though I'm not sure what the start point would be for that.

There was some discussion regarding Anoka County pulling out of the NLX Alliance, and some speculation that it may have had to do with concerns that the county would have to pay a significant chunk of the cost. The article said that "local partners such as Anoka County ended up picking up 10 percent" of the bill for the Northstar Line, but since 80% of the NLX cost would be paid by the feds and most or all of the remainder would be paid by the state, that shouldn't really be a concern. (I suspect there's been some Tea Party infusion up there, though -- and there's a political contingent these days that is perfectly happy refusing free money.)

Anyway, there was also a note that MPIRG is going to have some press conferences at points along the line plus the St. Paul Union Depot tomorrow. The other Twin Cities location will be the Foley Boulevard park-and-ride.

I'll also mention that there had been a Passenger Rail Forum meeting this past Monday, but it was just a phone conference and I forgot to dial in. I'm not sure if there was any significant news. In theory, Mn/DOT should be in control of this project now anyway, and the NLX Alliance's role is no longer as central as it had been anyway.

[mulad]

There is now a Mn/DOT NLX website:

http://www.dot.state.mn.us/nlx/

The "Tier 1 Service Level Environmental Assessment" will have a public comment period from March 18th to April 17th. I don't see it on the site yet, so I'm presuming it'll be posted on Monday. There will be a public hearing and open house on it on April 4th in Cambridge:

http://www.dot.state.mn.us/newsrels/13/03/15EIS.html

[mulad]

EA has been posted: http://www.dot.state.mn.us/nlx/documents.html

[twincitizen]

Drew Kerr wrote a piece on F&C about the EA: http://finance-commerce.com/2013/03/hig ... rs-hurdle/

FWIW, I still think this line is a POS. This should be a much lower priority than actual transit that gets people to work/school/appointments/etc. I just don't see how this is necessary. Wanna go to Duluth by bus? You can do that now. Wanna drive but don't have a car? You can rent one.

I am in favor of building the Foley Station for Northstar though. That should've been built instead of Fridley in the first place, all things considered.

[Viktor Vaughn]

Look, you can throw around facts about why NLX isn't a priority, but this train line will connect my two (future, hopefully)homes in Duluth & Minneapolis with a stop near my family cabin (Sandstone), and is an extremely good use of public funds in my (biased & self-serving) opinion. So I (sincerely) support NLX.

I'm sure there are some great objective arguments why NLX is a priority for public investment, but I guess they'd lack credibility coming from me.

And the shuttle can suck it...

But in all seriousness. Don't you think our new Jefferson Lines CEO / MNDOT Commissioner's (biased & self-serving) opinion would be that NLX is a poor use of funds? Why would he use his position to subsidize the competition?

[UptownSport]

Look, you can throw around facts about why NLX isn't a priority, but this train line will connect my two (future, hopefully)homes in Duluth & Minneapolis with a stop near my family cabin (Sandstone), and is an extremely good use of public funds in my (biased & self-serving) opinion. So I (sincerely) support NLX.

I just blew pepsi out my nose ...

[mulad]

It looks like there won't be a stop in Sandstone. That had always been a rather vague thing, being described as a potential layover point in the past. I was never really sure what that meant -- my best guess was that it would have been the maintenance facility for the proposed "6+9" plan of operation where there would have been 6 round-trips going along the whole route and an additional 3 (total 9) round-trips from Minneapolis to Hinckley. But even that never made a whole lot of sense.

It also might have been taken out when the planned length of the 110-mph segment was reduced, increasing the projected travel time from 2 hours flat to 2h17. Dropping a stop could save several minutes, but I'm not sure if it had been included in the time projections to start with or not.

Anyway, on one hand, I see the corridor on the 20% side of the 80-20 rule -- Most transportation needs are local, so you can accomplish a lot with shorter urban routes. But just because most travel is local doesn't mean that longer-distance transportation needs can be ignored.

The EA lists a projected cost of $820 million, which makes it somewhat less expensive than the Central Corridor. The average trip will probably cover most of the 155-mile distance, and with the EA projecting 938,000 annual trips, it works out to a similar or higher number of passenger-miles than CCLRT. They hope to recover all operating costs through fares on the NLX, while CCLRT will be closer to 40%. Urban and intercity transportation are apples-and-oranges, of course, and we don't know whether the ridership projection will be accurate, but if the CCLRT was a good project, then it seems like NLX is also a good idea. The NLX comes with the bonus that state and local funding should only have to cover 20% of the capital costs.

I definitely think that the NLX is overpriced, though I feel the same way about CCLRT. There's something systemic about transportation planning and design in the U.S. that causes this to happen. The high cost is one reason why it takes so long to plan these things out, which ends up making things more expensive. Anyway, people have been trying to restore service along both of those corridors almost continuously since they ended service decades ago. I don't see any value in delaying projects any longer just so they get built in the "right" order. Just like the process that bubbled the Snelling Avenue aBRT route up to the top of the heap, it's ready to move on to the next step even if it doesn't make any sense compared to how you'd plan things out with a blank sheet of paper.

[Andrew_F]

Agreed. While I think HSR headed east should be a priority over Duluth (perhaps with Twin Cities-Rochester as the starter segment while Wisconsin is busy napping), this is what has momentum now and is a project of merit, even if not the #1 best use of funds.

[MNdible]

There are also some improvements embedded in this project that will help a lot of service, including the third main, the build out of a new long platform at the Interchange, and some key double tracking being built in close, all of which will help a number of other projects. Such as: the second daily trip to Chicago with service extended to Minneapolis, and a branch of the Northstar running to Cambridge.

[UptownSport]

Read thru chapter 2 of EIS, still don't know what, exactly, is the purpose of the line besides to be an 'alternative'.
IIRC, existing bus from Duluth to St. Paul was cheap, frequent and fast.

I've read to service UofM and tourism-I don't know how many, if any, passengers come into the port(s) and need a train to continue travel.
Would it make Duluth a hub for bus lines, or allow old regional lines to re-open (is this the NSSR?)?
Is outstate growing enough to give it a second try??

What chapter/appendix do I read to get this info?

Interesting, didn't know this was 'on':

Planning efforts for theMilwaukee to Twin Cities segment of MWRRI is currently underway. Service between Chicago
and the Twin Cities is currently envisioned as six trains daily with a travel time reduction from
eight hours by automobile to five hours by passenger rail.

[mulad]

If the NLX were to begin operation today, it'd be the second-fastest train in the country. The Acela Express only averages 71 mph between Washington, DC and Boston (disincluding the 15-18 minute stop in NYC -- 69 mph if that's included). The NLX is planned to average 67 mph. The Acela and its complement in Northeast Corridor, the Northeast Regional, both run faster if you just look at the DC-NYC portion of the route, but even there the Regional is 68 mph and the Acela is 81 mph).

Almost everything else that Amtrak runs averages less than 60 mph, even recently-upgraded "high-speed" services on the Chicago to Detroit (Wolverine, 50 mph) and Chicago to St. Louis corridors (Lincoln Service, 53 mph). It looks like only the Empire Service in upstate New York manages to go faster than 60, and just barely -- it gets to 61 if you look at the whole route from Niagara Falls to New York City.

[twincitizen]

I'm pretty sure I didn't dream this up, but I swear I saw a headline last night saying "Dayton says NLX unlikely" or something to that effect. Now I can't find anything.

[Le Sueur]

Here ya go:
http://www.fox21online.com/news/article ... sal-duluth

...The governor also stressed the importance of fixing the state's crumbling infrastructure in the near future, saying we're far behind and the flooding last June didn't help our area any.

Another hot button topic that just recently got approval from an environmental inspection is the Northern Lights Express, but Gov. Dayton said that the high speed rail is unlikely at this point.

He says that's unless the Federal Government steps up to the plate with more money.

[mulad]

I've been frustrated by what I've heard from the governor -- or at least what I've read in reports. I don't know what his specific wording was this time, and I've had the same problem with indirect quotes in the past. Still, I haven't been overly concerned since this seems like it's more appropriately handled as a bonding request next year instead of a budget appropriation this year.

Anyway, the feds aren't just going to throw money at us -- even though the FRA is aware of NLX, we do have to commit to putting up cash of our own and make a formal request for matching funds. As I've said many times, the program that the NLX folks are looking at could fund 80% of the project, though I've never been clear on exactly what program it is, or whether it currently has any money in the bank. I'd gotten the impression years ago that it was a Jim Oberstar special, semi-secretly waiting there for the NLX folks to use, though environmental review has dragged on and on. At one point, it was suggested that the key to the 80% funding (instead of the more typical 50%) was that they've projected a farebox recovery ratio that's better than 1.0. I'm not aware of any other project in the country that has been using that angle, but it's also entirely possible I was reading too much into some statements.

While the 80% ratio sounds a lot like an ARRA project (I think that was typical, though some ARRA projects may have even gotten 90% funding from the feds), I know the NLX folks had talked about it in the pre-crash, pre-ARRA era. There must have been a pre-existing program, though who knows whether it's still around or not...

[Viktor Vaughn]

And does anyone remember Obama taking a pot shot at Oberstar about NLX? I'm afraid this project may not be a Federal priority.

[twincitizen]

I can't imagine it would be. This project is nothing compared to getting HSR between actual metropolitan areas. I'm starting to feel like the nasa35 of this topic.