Riverview Corridor Streetcar

[angrysuburbanite]

I really don't know how to feel about this project. There are lots of positives but also lots of negatives. Some I can think of:
+ Improved MOA Station
+ Potential multimodal Hwy 5 bridge
+ Already has a decently well used bus route (unlike the other two current rail projects)/anchored by important destinations
+ Improved ride quality because of rails
+ Pedestrian improvements along the alignment
+ Nearby redevelopment opportunity
But,
- About the same speed as the current bus route
- Smooth transfers to north and eastern St. Paul suburbs will be awful depending on what happens with the Purple Line
- Lack of full ROW could slow the train even further and cause delays in the existing LRT system
- Stupidly expensive for expected ridership (though I think it will get much better ridership than what is projected)
- Potential separate rolling stock type (This could make everything needlessly complicated from an operations perspective)

If it does get built, I'm not complaining (The Twin Cities will have streetcars again!), but I think full light rail would realistically work a lot better here.

[Didier]

https://x.com/FrederickMelo/status/1763 ... 13414?s=20

Fred Melo has some updates

[Nick]

So do any of you guys think this is actually going to happen?

[MNdible]

Ramsey County needs to get some love, so probably.

[Bakken2016]

I think it’s going to happen, but I think we are going to get the worst version of a rail project.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[thespeedmccool]

If I were a state legislator, I would write a bill to kill this. I can smell from a mile away that is gonna see massive overruns and fail to enhance transit ridership or experience. Fund Blue Line Extension and a regionwide LRT study, but this project in its current form needs to be stopped before it flops.

LRT or aBRT. Streetcar shouldn't even be an option. Terrible, terrible political incentives have led weak politicians to design this waste of money. Can't believe this is still even a discussion in 2024.

[Nick]

Ramsey County needs to get some love, so probably.

If I had to pick between this combined with the incoming huge flop of the Gold Line, and a $2.5 billion transit museum in downtown St. Paul, I'd maybe go with the museum. You could put a little train in the food court and ride it around .

[DanPatchToget]

Streetcar isn't perfect, but it's not doom and gloom like people seem to be implying. Of all the modern streetcar lines in the country I think this would be one of the best. Way better than the short-route streetcars that are only intended to attract development rather than upgrade transit service.

Worst case scenario if/when this gets built the on-time performance is below expectations because of traffic conflicts, but maybe that would be the push needed to make Riverview a fully dedicated LRT (minus the 3-car trains).

[thespeedmccool]

That's the thing: this can never be easily converted to a real, full LRT without completely rebuilding everything north of the shared portion with the Blue Line.

By the time we get around to an LRT conversion in 2060, it will be a $10 billion project. It's unacceptable that the best possible outcome of this process is to build a $2 billion project that we'll rebuild for five times as much in thirty years.

Cancel this. Transit planning in the Twin Cities is a nightmare. The only part that works is aBRT planning.

[Tiller]

I think we need a reality check on what things actually cost - because we have to account for inflation if we're talking about if costs are reasonable for a project. And I mean normal inflation, not construction inflation. If construction inflation is super high, then that is a perfectly reasonable point when talking about the value we get from our tax dollars.

The green line LRT on University Ave was $1B When constructed from 2010-2014. According to the BLS inflation calculator, that $1B from 2012 in today's money (2024) would be $1.36B. The cost projection for Riverview is another 10 years into the future (2033?).

I haven't seen the exact inflation assumptions for 2024-2033 in the Riverview documents, but inflation will most likely be higher than it was from 2012-2024.

Let's say the rate of inflation is the same as it was previously - then the University Ave LRT's cost in 2033 dollars would be $1.79B.

The cost of Riverview really doesn't look unreasonable compared to the original Green Line LRT. Construction inflation being higher than normal inflation probably accounts for the rest of the difference in cost.

The green line extension looks way worse, at almost $3B in today's money. That's enough in real $ terms to build BOTH the University Ave LRT and Riverview LRT - which unlike Southwest LRT are both in urban areas connecting key public transportation hubs.

The biggest potential flaws of Riverview LRT are if land use isn't allowed to intensify, resulting in lower ridership, and if reliability suffers because some dedicated ROW gets cut out. Both of those we can apply political pressure, particularly on the city of Saint Paul, to make sure we keep getting upzoning/zoning reform and so that the NIMBYs don't weaken this project and get it "value-engineered" down too much.

[Tiller]

That's the thing: this can never be easily converted to a real, full LRT without completely rebuilding everything north of the shared portion with the Blue Line.

By the time we get around to an LRT conversion in 2060, it will be a $10 billion project. It's unacceptable that the best possible outcome of this process is to build a $2 billion project that we'll rebuild for five times as much in thirty years.

Cancel this. Transit planning in the Twin Cities is a nightmare. The only part that works is aBRT planning.

If we can get the majority of this built as LRT - then we will have what is functionally a LRT line.

And in 2060, the conversation will be about building an automated light metro line like skytrain in Vancouver.

That means we need to push for option 1 over option 2, and then keep pushing on keeping this as close to LRT as possible. Option 1 has 87% dedicated guideway while option 2 is 72% dedicated guideway. That's a big difference.

Other important things to push on would using the same LRVs we use on the green/blue lines, making sure the stations can accomodate 3 car trains in the future, and potential convertability of that last 13% of ROW to dedicated lanes in the future. The city of Saint Paul is the biggest roadblock to making this more like LRT - so make sure you talk with your city council people about not watering Riverview down and making it less useful.

Imo in the future we will need transit tunnels in both downtowns - and burying our LRT lines can be tied to those projects which will be needed for future expansions of our rail system.

[thespeedmccool]

That's the thing: this can never be easily converted to a real, full LRT without completely rebuilding everything north of the shared portion with the Blue Line.

By the time we get around to an LRT conversion in 2060, it will be a $10 billion project. It's unacceptable that the best possible outcome of this process is to build a $2 billion project that we'll rebuild for five times as much in thirty years.

Cancel this. Transit planning in the Twin Cities is a nightmare. The only part that works is aBRT planning.

If we can get the majority of this built as LRT - then we will have what is functionally a LRT line.

And in 2060, the conversation will be about building an automated light metro line like skytrain in Vancouver.

That means we need to push for option 1 over option 2, and then keep pushing on keeping this as close to LRT as possible. Option 1 has 87% dedicated guideway while option 2 is 72% dedicated guideway. That's a big difference.

Other important things to push on would using the same LRVs we use on the green/blue lines, making sure the stations can accomodate 3 car trains in the future, and potential convertability of that last 13% of ROW to dedicated lanes in the future. The city of Saint Paul is the biggest roadblock to making this more like LRT - so make sure you talk with your city council people about not watering Riverview down and making it less useful.

Imo in the future we will need transit tunnels in both downtowns - and burying our LRT lines can be tied to those projects which will be needed for future expansions of our rail system.

This isn't being planned as "LRT south of Grand/Victoria, streetcar north" though.

I think the nature of the corridor is that anything that isn't dedicated at first construction will be impossible to easily convert to LRT. Looking at the schematics, it looks like anything north of Grand/Victoria will require a 100% rebuild.

Beyond that, the schematics seem to show that there are no intentions of building the dedicated portions of West Seventh such that they could accommodate even two-vehicle trains. Unlike the OG Blue Line, I don't think the project team is even thinking about potential station extensions in the future (though I'd be happy to be proven wrong.) Because of space constraints and the like, I'm betting everything from Grand/Victoria to the river would require 90% reconstruction for an LRT conversion.

Then everything south of the river should be mostly built to LRT standards (except maybe the Historic Fort Snelling Station,) but let's say only 10% reconstruction is needed on that portion.

In any event, I'd say the idea that this could easily or cheaply be converted to a full LRT is a farce. Us transit advocates shouldn't be consoling ourselves with the thought that "well, at least we can convert this to an LRT in 2060." The time horizon on that is beyond reasonable, and the costs at that point, both political and fiscal, to tear out a functioning streetcar and build an LRT would be astronomical. To even achieve that, we would need to begin planning for an LRT conversion in 2035 right after the streetcar is completed.

Long story short, if you want LRT on this corridor, this streetcar is not the sneaky way to get us another light rail line. This is a $2-3 billion pit of money and political capital that will make the transit riding experience worse in exchange for a $10 million increment in property taxes per year.

[HKM]

https://x.com/FrederickMelo/status/1763 ... 13414?s=20

Fred Melo has some updates

So the difference in capital costs for doing streetcar vs ABRT is approximately 18-20 ABRT routes? What are we doing here?

[mattaudio]

Yep what a mess. Maybe they should go back to looking at the CP Ford Spur alignment if it means actual dedicated ROW with 2-3 car trains and better speed. Have Randolph-West 7th become ABRT, with a transfer to/from LRT at Randolph/West 7th where the Ford Spur is adjacent. Then have it come up the hill to Kellogg somewhere near the west end of downtown, and run along Kellogg. At that point you either need to sacrifice terminating at Union Depot or sacrifice easy connectivity to the CBD core and capital. But the current slow alignment and lack of expandability should be a non-starter for that cost.

[Mdcastle]

[/quote]

So the difference in capital costs for doing streetcar vs ABRT is approximately 18-20 ABRT routes? What are we doing here?
[/quote]

St. Paul doesn't want to see people leaving the airport for downtown Minneapolis on real trains and to downtown St. Paul on nothing but buses.

[MidwayLuke]

Yep what a mess. Maybe they should go back to looking at the CP Ford Spur alignment if it means actual dedicated ROW with 2-3 car trains and better speed. Have Randolph-West 7th become ABRT, with a transfer to/from LRT at Randolph/West 7th where the Ford Spur is adjacent. Then have it come up the hill to Kellogg somewhere near the west end of downtown, and run along Kellogg. At that point you either need to sacrifice terminating at Union Depot or sacrifice easy connectivity to the CBD core and capital. But the current slow alignment and lack of expandability should be a non-starter for that cost.

^^This^^

IMO the only logical version of this project would have been to use the CP rail corridor as much as possible to keep speeds high, and route up through the Ford Site redevelopment and across to 46th St to connect somehow to the Blue Line. Both of those areas, of course, have dense housing projects.

The "somehow connect to the blue line" is a challenge to be sure, but I refuse to believe it's any harder than rebuilding the Hwy 5 bridge and reconfiguring a freeway interchange.

The Blue Line Extension changed route in a big way, for the the better, late in the game. Maybe it's not too late for a miracle?

[EOst]

It's truly hilarious to see people say "apply the lessons of the Blue Line Extension" and then suggest that this line should be diverted to a privately owned rail corridor far away from the destinations transit riders actually want to get to.

The money for this line is coming from Ramsey County transportation sales tax. If it doesn't go to this line, it will not be spent on ABRT. The county board has said over and over that they have no interest in funding ABRT.

[BigIdeasGuy]

I don't have the technical expertise to understand what would prevent converting shared ROW into dedicated? Or really why stations couldn't be expanded/relocated as needed if ridership ever required additional vehicles. If that could be explained, I would greatly appreciate that.

This project should be shitcanned in it's current form. The lack of interlining in DT STP and having shared ROW just craters the additional utility a rail project need to justify the cost, even if it was a Streetcar. I'm pretty sure I said this up thread but the transit planning focus & dollars should solely be on aBRT everything and then adding frequency as demand requires. And maybe even re-start the rail planning process if the additional capacity is needed and political will to maximize projects is there.

[DanPatchToget]

Look, I know LRT is best for Riverview, but quite a few of you are making perfect be the enemy of good. I think there should instead be a focus on the options Ramsey County has put on the table and advocating for the best one, which is Streetcar Option 1. It's not LRT, but it's pretty close to it with 87% dedicated right-of-way and center-running on West 7th. Converting the rest of the route to dedicated right-of-way may not be as simple as throwing down some paint on the road, but I also don't think it would require tearing up the road and tracks and starting from scratch.

As for ABRT, I've already said why that's barely an upgrade over Route 54, and making this an ABRT route doesn't mean we saved a ton of money that can be put towards many other ABRT routes. That's not how funding for transit projects works.

[angrysuburbanite]

^ I think I have to side with you on this one. I think St. Paul should get a rail connection to the Airport and MOA, and, while this project is far from perfect, it's not as bad as y'all are making it out to be. It may be expensive, but we would definitely end up with one of the better modern streetcar routes. We need to accept that this project is moving forward and try to make it the best it can be--in my opinion this corridor has lots of potential.

...they better repurpose the Red Line name for this project though.