Green Line Extension - Southwest LRT

[MNdible]

Yes, and at the rates we've been able to sell bonds for lately, the carrying costs are almost negligible. We'd be foolhardy to not take advantage of the current environment.

[helsinki]

Agreed.

A DFL majority in both houses, outrageously low borrowing costs, the White House 'expediting' the project, and recession induced competitive bidding from contractors all bode well for SW.

If they were really thinking big, they would do Bottineau at the same time. Economies of scale would force down procurement costs (for materials, but especially for the vehicles), labor costs (workers wouldn't need to be hired/fired for SW, hired again for Bottineau), prime contractor costs (just one giant project instead of two big projects - no duplication of overhead/profit), etc.

[mattaudio]

Then we could also assess why we're planning to build Green Line and Blue Line stops at both Penn and Van White, when really it only makes sense to put them on the blue line extension.

[min-chi-cbus]

It's amazing to me that, considering how many huge businesses are relying on this SW alignment to be a reality, that we haven't heard ONE of them come out and say that they'll support the difference that the State is short for funding. I mean, UHG in particular could easily "donate" $50 million to this project, no sweat. I realize it's easiest if the State can just pay for it but if push comes to shove, and in the event this project could ever get scrapped due to a funding shortfall of under $100 million, I'd expect some of the big swingers to step up and help. Optimism at its greatest, I'm sure!

[min-chi-cbus]

Agreed.

A DFL majority in both houses, outrageously low borrowing costs, the White House 'expediting' the project, and recession induced competitive bidding from contractors all bode well for SW.

If they were really thinking big, they would do Bottineau at the same time. Economies of scale would force down procurement costs (for materials, but especially for the vehicles), labor costs (workers wouldn't need to be hired/fired for SW, hired again for Bottineau), prime contractor costs (just one giant project instead of two big projects - no duplication of overhead/profit), etc.

I like the way you think!

[talindsay]

Dayton has instructed his administration to study a "program of projects" approach to these projects, to determine if it would make more sense to approach the federal government with a master plan and staged construction in a centrally-organized way. That effort is well underway and I believe some initial results will be presented at the next Council meeting; it wasn't a high priority given the Legislature's unlikeliness to actually get behind such an approach, but if the legwork is done by the start of a new DFL legislative session we may see some movement toward this approach.

Bear in mind though that this won't magically make it possible for Southwest and Bottineau to be constructed concurrently; Southwest is quite far along in its planning and has good enough scores to secure funding, while Bottineau has only just selected an LPA for alignment and mode recently, and has not yet transitioned the project to the Council. Bottineau's numbers are not as good as Southwest's, though I personally think they're probably good enough to get funded - they meet the test that I think is most important, which is the "this line's projections are as good as or better than Hiawatha's proejctions at the time it was funded".

[woofner]

Dayton has instructed his administration to study a "program of projects" approach to these projects

By "these projects" do you mean light rail projects specifically, or transit capital projects, or transportation capital projects in general? (or something else?)

[Andrew_F]

I'd love to hear more about that, Tom.

[helsinki]

I'd love to hear more about that, Tom.

Second that.

Even if concurrent construction is unrealistic (which it is, talindsay's point about the progress differential between SW and Bottineau is the important one - Bottineau's "numbers" are, I would argue, a lesser impediment), this would not necessarily preclude sequential construction, i.e. SW heavy construction starts, ends, shortly thereafter Bottineau construction starts - thereby reaping the rewards of joining the projects together despite a delayed Bottineau start. The vehicles are delivered over a long time frame anyway - unresolved issues of planning and design largely concern the guideway and stations, issues immaterial to vehicle procurement.

Such a scenario would, of course, require the materialization of political will behind Bottineau rather quickly. Rybak once said something to the effect of "we can't take 10 years to build each line." (it will be 10 between the openings of Hiawatha and Central). This sentiment seems to indicate that the political will is there, perhaps.

[talindsay]

Okay, so I took a few minutes to find the information. Unfortunately there doesn't appear to be too much documentation for the public about where they're at, but it's a joint project between CTIB and Met Council; it looks like CTIB is taking the lead. The GEARS committee got an update on the current status on October 1 but it looks like the actual presentation wasn't uploaded to the CTIB site, at least as far as I can tell. The description in the agenda packet reads as follows:

Kathy Aho, Springsted, will give an overview of the Program of Projects (PoP) Study. The PoP Study is a joint project of the Counties Transit Improvement Board and the Metropolitan Council. It is a feasibility study looking at advancing a “program of projects” that considers options, opportunities and impediments at the federal, state and local levels to building multiple transit corridors simultaneously. The study will identify the impact for capital and operating resource levels, options for those resources, and policy implications.
If a Program of Projects is deemed feasible, Met Council and CTIB will jointly develop an implementation strategy in a second phase of work.

[mattaudio]

Any idea why we are planning two lines that will each have stops at Van White and Penn? Seems like overkill... one of the reasons why the now-LPA was chosen was because it supposedly served transit lacking North Mpls (even TLC was all over this lousy claim). Yet we will likely have stations on these same cross streets once Bottineau is built. Seems like a total waste to me... even if we can't build Bottineau right now, it would make more sense to run Southwest express to West Lake, and then build a stub extension of the Blue Line to Van White and Penn to serve N. Mpls. That would probably just as cheap as building these low-ridership stations on the green line and it would better serve N. Mpls.

[MNdible]

Any idea why we are planning two lines that will each have stops at Van White and Penn? Seems like overkill... one of the reasons why the now-LPA was chosen was because it supposedly served transit lacking North Mpls (even TLC was all over this lousy claim). Yet we will likely have stations on these same cross streets once Bottineau is built. Seems like a total waste to me... even if we can't build Bottineau right now, it would make more sense to run Southwest express to West Lake, and then build a stub extension of the Blue Line to Van White and Penn to serve N. Mpls. That would probably just as cheap as building these low-ridership stations on the green line and it would better serve N. Mpls.

Not sure why you're so insistent that Penn Avenue will be a low ridership station. Assuming that Metro Transit does some adjustments to their bus routes, Penn Avenue could be quite busy. Remember that there's a potential for significant reverse commuting on this line -- there are a lot of jobs in the golden triangle.

And Van White is a wild card -- it could be a dense redeveloped site by the time 2018 rolls around.

I know that in your mind, express to W Lake is a magical thing, but to me, it just doesn't make sense to bypass these locations.

[Nathan]

Because the two lines serve very different demographics and neighborhoods, Can you see anyone from the SW Metro wanting to take the lightrail to the Walker wanting to bypass proposed Van White station on the SW line, only to have to transfer at the stadium, go back to van white on the bottineau line, and then walk there from hwy 55 through a low income neighborhood over a public works site and rail corridor, then under 394? They may seem like they are very close together 'as the crow flies' but the physical barriers between the two lines are enormous.

Plus that happens all the time in places with complete rail systems. If you draw a number of lines straight out from a center point, and draw dots along them at equal intervals; of course the inner rings of dots are much closer together than the outer ring dots (but so is the density of population, amenities, businesses etc etc...) Consider the two west bank stations... They are considerably closer together, but serving two different demographics, and populations based on where the end destination is. If you lived in the crack stacks and wanted to go downtown stp, and they had chosen not to do a westbank station on the central, you would have to take hiawatha back to the metrodome, and take central back past within 5 blocks of your starting point.

I actually think a streetcar connecter could be really awesome from the Walker, up van white, continuing north and south on freemont/emmerson. That way someone coming from the north metro could easily bypass going downtown to get to S. Minneapolis, the lakes, The Walker, if they so pleased.

Plus if there is a 10 year gap only one line will be serving that area for quite some time.

[mattaudio]

Part of the reason why I'd prefer they avoid infrastructure between West Lake and Downtown is to make it less of a waste when we decide to finally connect LRT through uptown. I'm dreaming on that one, but yeah.

The second thing is I doubt the Van White station will serve the Walker neighborhood... who would walk blocks away from downtown, under a freeway viaduct, to a LRT station when they could just walk to DT or hop on a bus heading down Hennepin?

Edit: Since I'm dealing with hypotheticals, I'd be happy enough just getting rid of the 21st St station... then at least Penn and Van White could be used to connect to a LRT line in the 394 corridor to West End or beyond.

[MNdible]

So we shouldn't build these stations because 40 years in the future they may or may not build your fantasy system?

[mattaudio]

Correct.

[MNdible]

OK, just checking.

[mattaudio]

No prob.

[Nathan]

Part of the reason why I'd prefer they avoid infrastructure between West Lake and Downtown is to make it less of a waste when we decide to finally connect LRT through uptown. I'm dreaming on that one, but yeah.

The second thing is I doubt the Van White station will serve the Walker neighborhood... who would walk blocks away from downtown, under a freeway viaduct, to a LRT station when they could just walk to DT or hop on a bus heading down Hennepin?

Edit: Since I'm dealing with hypotheticals, I'd be happy enough just getting rid of the 21st St station... then at least Penn and Van White could be used to connect to a LRT line in the 394 corridor to West End or beyond.

Isn't it more likely that Uptown will never get LRT? And would probably get streetcars?

11% of people are more likely to use rail, it's seen as a much more usable infrastructure. I personally would prefer to walk a little farther, wait at the station and take the train than walk, wait for a bus, ride the bus, wait for the train. I also only walk or bike in mpls, I don't like buses, just don't. I would take rail or streetcar ALL the time. I know a lot of similar type people.

[talindsay]

Mndible and fotoapparatic both raise very good points. I want to raise another: for many trips, these intermediate stations will be the inner end of the trip, not the outer, and for those trips cutting a station would be horribly inconvenient.

I work on the West Bank and, despite the University's claim that the Metrodome is *the* University station on Hiawatha until Central is done, I've always used Cedar-Riverside when I take the light rail to work. When the Central Corridor opens I'll use the West Bank station all the time - when my destinations are downtown, St. Paul, or the East Bank - but I'll continue to use Cedar-Riverside when I'm coming to and from home. The two lines will be interlined, but I'm not coming from the end of the line that's interlined - I'm on the other side of the wye, and why would I put up with a two-seat ride that involves waiting for a transfer when I can just have a station near my destination and walk?

I can't imagine why one would oppose building the station, now that the line is definitely going there. When route was up for discussion I understand some were really, really wedded to an Uptown alignment, but that didn't happen - it's over, forget about it. The line will be built, with tracks in the ground at the Van White location whether or not there's a platform. That station may add 30 seconds to a trip but it will also add a lot more access, the primary purpose of transit. Sure, for downtown-bound trips originating in this area they might eventually get service from Bottineau, but that may well be a while - and would only be useful for downtown-bound trips originating in this area. Trips originating or ending in this area with other ends out from downtown would be very poorly served by eliminating this station.

The same thing is true of Penn station, but the equation is slightly different. For one thing, the two eventual Penn Stations are realistically too far apart to walk, and hence end up serving two different audiences except for the small cluster of people living directly between them. Obviously there's less potential for new development at the Southwest Penn station, but again, no other station on Southwest is close enough to serve the extant population there. And if they're going to have a train rumbling through their neighborhood the least we can do is make sure they're able to get on it. Suburbanites who never use the stop can live with the extra 30 seconds of ride so that these people can get some use out of the infrastructure right next to them.

"Real" Metro systems often have stops well within a half mile of each other, sometimes even within a quarter mile; in both Paris and Barcelona I've had the surreal experience of standing on a street and being able to *see* three or even four metro stations from the one I'm standing at. Obviously we don't have density to require that kind of spacing, but on the other hand it's kind of sensible that stations should be spaced closely enough to allow people along the line to use it. Half-mile spacing is the farthest you should ever see on a line that actually serves enough riders to justify its expense. If mile spacing seems appropriate, you probably don't need light rail.