MSP to Rochester High Speed Rail

[RailBaronYarr]

Which is why St Cloud should be connected via Northstar and it should be rebranded/used as a regional rail network, not just commuter. Manage train times along the freight rail until demand is high enough to warrant a separate line, also at higher speeds. I also think the 11M number for yearly rail demand includes commuters whereas Rochester to MSP would have a higher share of non-commute trips.

Further, am I missing something in the population/routes report? The line that goes through Rochester and Madison to Milwaukee have among the highest corridor populations. Obviously the Zip line wouldn't go through Owatonna like the studies show. I would also say a route that connects not only Minneapolis to Mayo but also Chicago (a MUCH bigger domestic/international airport hub and population center) to Mayo would be worth the extra 30-45 minute total trip time. I know that's more HSR talk, but it would seem that if this line could support itself and we could get it funded, the choice for MSP-Chicago by way of Madison/Milwaukee would be an easy one. If Wisconsin cities like Eau Claire, Merrillan, Stevens Point, etc also deserve rail than a separate line from Milwaukee through them could present itself as an option since facilities at each end would reduce the cost of adding those systems.

[UptownSport]

Which is why St Cloud should be connected via Northstar

YES!

And we can can call (or 'rebrand') it anything anyone likes; just do it.

I'd also ask you consider the very important (beer) stop of Madison (beer) in any future route considerations.
Clearly a dimension the study's missed.

[RailBaronYarr]

My ideal HSR to Chicago route would be MSP-Rochester-LaCrosse-Madison-Milwaukee-Chicago. If there are some smaller towns along the way (Tomah?) so be it, but those would be my top stops. Madison is a must IMO because it's the capital of WI, has a major university that MANY TC residents attend (and vice versa for WI people to the U to a lesser extent), and depending on station location has a lot of business/government opportunities within walking/transit distance. Plus beer. And it would be really, really cool to go for a road hockey/bball/football game by train for me

[UptownSport]

My ideal HSR to Chicago route would be MSP-Rochester-LaCrosse-Madison-Milwaukee-Chicago. If there are some smaller towns along the way (Tomah?) so be it, but those would be my top stops. Madison is a must IMO because it's the capital of WI, has a major university that MANY TC residents attend (and vice versa for WI people to the U to a lesser extent), and depending on station location has a lot of business/government opportunities within walking/transit distance. Plus beer. And it would be really, really cool to go for a road hockey/bball/football game by train for me

Yes, all the study's NEGLECT the Madison (beer) factor!!!

Seriously, the studies linked above are quite informative on distance, ridership & times
I'd like to see more or less a direct route across 94, (Tomah) 90 to Madtown then Milwaukee.
Going too far south I understand terrain becomes difficult.
And I keep forgetting it's the empire builder, so it can't go like 220 MPH from here to Milwaukee, then chug along at 80 or whatever to the West coast.

Being the avid socialist I am, I tend to think Mayo could pay it's own way for a link to their business from MSP airport.

[mattaudio]

I'm curious about the context behind the table Mulad posted in the other thread that shows St. Cloud as having double the passengers as Rochester. Was that forecasted based on actual O/D or was it just based on current travelsheds? Because it's easy to understand that St. Cloud, with an Interstate and existing Amtrak links between North Dakota and the Twin Cities would show up twice as high as Rochester, where U.S. 52 is more of a regional connection mainly used for S.E. MN to MSP.

My gut says there's absolutely no way St. Cloud (or Eau Claire for that matter) has as much true demand as Rochester-MSP. Anyone who has been to downtown Rochester knows that it will soon give St. Paul a run for its money.

[RailBaronYarr]

Anyone who has been to downtown Rochester knows that it will soon give St. Paul a run for its money.

Especially with all that free parking provided by the $100+ million ramp!

[UptownSport]

Lies, Damned Lies. and Statistics.

[mulad]

I'm not quite remembering which table or thread you're talking about, but it probably came from the State Rail Plan. There are some supporting draft technical memos which had background information on a lot of the data in the ultimate report, though I'm not sure which one of the 10 would have travel demand info (if any).

[mattaudio]

I'm personally blaming this on you, Mike.

[UptownSport]

for a lot of stuff!

PMed link to Mulad.

[prk166]

In 2011 MnDOT chose the river alignment for Chicago - Minneapolis high speed rail line. Of course that could always change if the project starts to make substantial headway in getting off the ground. But it would add a few billion dollars in cost to the project. That's a major reason why the MS river alignment was chosen. And it make it seem unlikely they go with the Rochester alignment.

At this point, Zip Rail is proposal to connect Rochester and Minneapolis. The alignment study going on right now is to sort out a few feasible routes. MnDot will be holding a meeting for it next week on June 3. The meeting will be from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Rochester Community and Technical College's Heintz Center, located at 1926 Collegeview Road, E.

http://www.postbulletin.com/news/local/ ... 2ba1c.html

[mulad]

I went to the meeting on this in Bloomington earlier this evening. There will be one more open house in this round on Thursday in Cannon Falls. The presentation and boards from the meeting have been posted here:

http://www.goziprail.org/info_center/

The "Alternative Map" and "Regional Alternative Maps" PDFs are probably the most interesting. Not a whole lot of detail, but this is fairly early. The one good thing for me is that they've identified a number of different potential route segments. They'll start whittling away at the alternatives, but the study consultants said they were still interested in hearing about routings that they may not have considered so far.

There are two main trunk routes that they're examining, which are no big surprise: One closely following U.S. 52 and another following the old Chicago Great Western corridor identified way back in 1991 in the Tri-State study as a potential option. Things branch out a lot on each end, with multiple options for accessing MSP airport, SPUD, and MTI in the Twin Cities, and downtown and RST airport in Rochester. As in previous feasibility studies and miscellaneous hand-waving sessions, the idea of a suburban Twin Cities stop has been mentioned, with Rosemount often being mentioned. It would likely be an express service from the Twin Cities and Rochester, not really stopping anywhere in between whatever suburb might be chosen for that latter station and the stop(s) in Rochester.

I'm personally leaning toward running from the Minneapolis Interchange over to SPUD via the BNSF Midway subdivision, which would make the train loop around downtown Saint Paul so it would be pointed southwest at SPUD. Then I'd have the route use the UP's Robert Street bridge to get across the river. I'd probably prefer to see the train follow the CGW alignment, partly since it is flatter and probably a lot cheaper to build on, and doesn't have to deal with the curviness of U.S. 52 (not that a "U.S. 52" alignment would really need to follow the highway precisely in my book, but the river valleys it crosses can limit options quite a bit). I'd prefer a downtown Rochester stop -- I don't necessarily mind having it extend to the RST airport, but anything that goes out there should be routed so that it could continue on to Winona and/or La Crosse.

With that alignment, I don't really think Rosemount makes much sense as a suburban Twin Cities stop -- while rails technically go through Rosemount, they are way over on the eastern end of the city while the populated area is way over on the west. Rosemount would probably work if the train was going to/from MSP airport, it doesn't seem to make sense if the previous stop was SPUD. Something near I-494 in Inver Grove Heights would probably be better. I'd also kind of like to see a suburban Rochester stop, such as in Kasson, but that's partly because I grew up in Byron and my parents still live there.

While I think it would be nice to have a direct rail connection to MSP airport, I can't really figure out how to get from there to The Interchange in Minneapolis without looping through Saint Paul somehow, though there might be a way to cram it down the Hiawatha Avenue corridor. While I've had that idea in the past myself, I don't really see a good way to have fast passenger trains running through the grain silos along the ex-Milwaukee Road line, and the presence of the Blue Line in the corridor north of Lake Street constrains space. Getting to MTI from that angle would also require a tunnel through downtown Minneapolis. (If the Vikings had decided to move to Arden Hills, I probably would have pushed for a train station on the Metrodome site, which I believe was occupied by a freight depot before the 'Dome was built.)

It would probably be better in the end to actually get a Riverview Corridor rail line built (LRT or streetcar) from MSP to SPUD, rather than trying to serve MSP directly with Zip Rail. Maybe possibly in the future if Zip Rail becomes the first leg of a true HSR (150-220 mph) link to Chicago, it may make sense to have an MSP link as a branch that gets served on some trips.

[twincitizen]

Just seems cheaper and easier in every way to terminate at SPUD and using existing transit modes to get to MSP and downtown Minneapolis (Green Line, Route 94, 54/Riverview). I don't think the value of having a single seat ride to Minneapolis Interchange outweighs the cost (capital or operating) when you can hop on LRT or Express bus and be there in 25-35 minutes vs. whatever it would take for the train to back out of SPUD and head to the Interchange (and then backtrack to their actual destination in the CBD)

[TWA]

Just seems cheaper and easier in every way to terminate at SPUD and using existing transit modes to get to MSP and downtown Minneapolis (Green Line, Route 94, 54/Riverview). I don't think the value of having a single seat ride to Minneapolis Interchange outweighs the cost (capital or operating) when you can hop on LRT or Express bus and be there in 25-35 minutes vs. whatever it would take for the train to back out of SPUD and head to the Interchange (and then backtrack to their actual destination in the CBD)

-1

Especially being by the time this is done, the local transit network will be even stronger and those trips would be easier. We can't waste money on redundancy- think of all the other places that money could be spent from savings in not routing it all across town for an extra stop or two.

[Tcmetro]

One of the options has the line serving both the Interchange AND SPUD. That seems like a good option. An airport station is a wonderful idea, IMO. People could fly in and directly take trains to Rochester, Duluth, St Cloud, Eau Claire, etc. Similar to how one can fly into CDG and hop on the TGV to anywhere in France.

I think a south suburban station would be a great idea. There has to be some kind of commuter market between Rochester and the south metro, and it seems like it would be extremely easy to cash in on.

[mattaudio]

My vote would also be for connecting MTI via SPUD. Down the line, there will be demand for more services connecting these two stations, such as Red Rock or possibly NLX in addition to the current Amtrak and any additional services to Chicago via the river corridor. Last night, Mike and a former BN guy were talking about how CP could possibly vacate the Merriam Park sub down the line. If this happens, I hope the public can secure this RR corridor for passenger rail between the two downtowns. At first, this would involve a connection on the BNSF by way of Minneapolis Junction. In a few decades, if we see a substantial increase in passenger rail between the downtowns, there could be dedicated ROW the rest of the way (maybe a crosstown tunnel by way of the NP #9 bridge).

[MNdible]

Just seems cheaper and easier in every way to terminate at SPUD and using existing transit modes to get to MSP and downtown Minneapolis (Green Line, Route 94, 54/Riverview). I don't think the value of having a single seat ride to Minneapolis Interchange outweighs the cost (capital or operating) when you can hop on LRT or Express bus and be there in 25-35 minutes vs. whatever it would take for the train to back out of SPUD and head to the Interchange (and then backtrack to their actual destination in the CBD)

This doesn't make any sense to me. There are already lots of rail lines between the cities -- how hard would it be to continue the train on through to the Interchange? The capital costs should be minimal -- just acquiring some trackage rights.

[mulad]

Here's a quick map of what I'm thinking:

[MNdible]

You should add a stop in Kenyon so Steve Sviggum can hop on board. Otherwise, looks great.

[mulad]

Hah. My dad ran against Sviggum twice. I've had thoughts of adding a stop at Randolph or Stanton, which are both about halfway between Northfield and Cannon Falls -- a shuttle bus running between the two might be useful.