Blue Line Extension - Bottineau LRT

[Trademark]

For anyone who attended - any new information presented?

Not really. I think they moved the light rail alignment from the southside of 10th to the northside of 10th? But that's it. Just a lot of NIMBY fighting. I talked with the director of the West Broadway Business and Area Coalition last night too and from that conversation it sounds like the next meeting over North Minneapolis on October 30th will be contentious too. A lot of people are mad at the property takings and the lack of trust in state and local governments to fund the anti-displacement initiatives.

[thespeedmccool]

For anyone who attended - any new information presented?

Not really. I think they moved the light rail alignment from the southside of 10th to the northside of 10th? But that's it. Just a lot of NIMBY fighting. I talked with the director of the West Broadway Business and Area Coalition last night too and from that conversation it sounds like the next meeting over North Minneapolis on October 30th will be contentious too. A lot of people are mad at the property takings and the lack of trust in state and local governments to fund the anti-displacement initiatives.

Don't you just love how productive community engagement is.

We get a worse project and still no one likes it. Worse results for everyone, yay!

[Trademark]

Community Engagement on this project has given us:

A better alignment avoiding Lyndale
A transitway on 10th ave and 21st (The 21st one is a huge test case for future residential transitways that could open up a lot of new possibilities for rail in the future).
An added station by Cub on Broadway

All of these are improvements from the original design.

The only bad one that I see is that they think they have to move the station to James since they have one on Lyndale.

[thespeedmccool]

Community Engagement on this project has given us:

A better alignment avoiding Lyndale
A transitway on 10th ave and 21st (The 21st one is a huge test case for future residential transitways that could open up a lot of new possibilities for rail in the future).
An added station by Cub on Broadway

All of these are improvements from the original design.

The only bad one that I see is that they think they have to move the station to James since they have one on Lyndale.

Well I don't think moving the Blue Line onto 21st is an improvement, and I don't think we should be building permanent infrastructure to serve grocery stores that could easily be redeveloped, so at least two of those changes are negative to me.

And as for Lyndale, I think that was a perfectly fine alignment, and Washington might be an improvement, but that's not something you can clearly attribute to public engagement. An option to the east of 94 was included from the very start of the replanning process, and it well may have been chosen without agitation against Lyndale from "the community."

I don't think it's uncontroversial to suggest that community engagement processes are

1. Costly, both in time and money
2. Not necessarily to the benefit of projects, and frequently to their detriment
3. Often biased against marginalized communities and amplify the voices of minor opposition
4. Premised on the notion that what or who is here today will somehow have the wisdom to rationally decide what's best for their communities 10+ years from now, and indeed that they actually have at heart the best interest of the future we need to build

The fetishization of ever-lengthening community engagement processes is actively harming our cities. It's basically a way for policymakers to be unaccountable to decisions made, removing decision-making from anyone with authority to a nebulous "community of stakeholders." Just look at how the George Floyd Square engagement process is estimated to take another three years. That's absurd, and it's an abdication of responsibility that our policymakers continue to allow this to go on.

So, no, I don't believe that more meetings is the answer to improving the Blue Line Extension. I actually think less meetings would produce a better product faster and cheaper.

[Silophant]

I'm unconvinced that adding half a dozen at-grade crossings and spending a pile of transit money on new freeway offramps and a bridge for car traffic is an improvement over the original Lyndale option.

[Tcmetro]

The Plymouth & Washington station supports the continued redevelopment of the North Loop. The area around Lyndale & Plymouth is mostly freeway land and the rest is unlikely to be redeveloped.

21st is superior to Broadway because whatever is left of the business community there would never support it and grade separation is unrealistic.

Naturally the community is going to be apprehensive to the government coming in and spending hundreds of millions of dollars in what is a relatively poor neighborhood. Those kind of investments don't happen often and they're largely justified by the how much land values (and ultimately tax revenues) can be increased.

That's not to say that transit investments are a bad idea or shouldn't be considered, but the reality is that public engagement is needed so that the neighborhood can at least have a say in how and what gets built. The freeways were considered great ideas in their days by practically everyone but the residents of neighborhoods that were effected.

[Trademark]

The Plymouth & Washington station supports the continued redevelopment of the North Loop. The area around Lyndale & Plymouth is mostly freeway land and the rest is unlikely to be redeveloped.

21st is superior to Broadway because whatever is left of the business community there would never support it and grade separation is unrealistic.

Naturally the community is going to be apprehensive to the government coming in and spending hundreds of millions of dollars in what is a relatively poor neighborhood. Those kind of investments don't happen often and they're largely justified by the how much land values (and ultimately tax revenues) can be increased.

That's not to say that transit investments are a bad idea or shouldn't be considered, but the reality is that public engagement is needed so that the neighborhood can at least have a say in how and what gets built. The freeways were considered great ideas in their days by practically everyone but the residents of neighborhoods that were effected.

This!!!!

I do agree that the community engagement process should be shorter. But it's a necessary part of the process. Also the original I-94 East option that was proposed is not the new route that's being considered which will have a much better station location at 10th avenue for accessing the North Loop.

On top of the government spending the money there. There's a ton of apprehension over the eminent domain that will be used on this project. Taking KMOJ is already a rallying cry for anti-Blue Line people over North. History repeats itself, not in the exact same things happening but in attitudes that cause decisions to be made. I know that this project is better than a freeway, and won't physically displace as many as the freeway did. But if this light rail prices out many residents, and kicks out a bunch of businesses, and it gets turned into North Loop 2.0. It will have a similar although smaller effect as Rondo, and so I understand their fears. There are a ton of anti-displacement policies that were identified, but without funding it's just words on the page.

And as far as not prioritizing grocery stores that could be redeveloped. I hard disagree with that. It is the number 1 destination for Metro Micro users in that area. And it is the ONLY grocery store in North Minneapolis. If you're not serving current users in favor of future redevelopment that is directly the attitudes that make North Minneapolis residents fear that they will be pushed out in favor redevelopment. Just to be clear we need redevelopments over North, we need jobs, we need density but it can't be at the expense of current residents.

[acs]

Metro transit re-ran the projected ridership numbers using the new FTA formula... it's not good. 18.5k daily riders down from 26.6k. Combine with the higher costs of this route with the new alignment and it's gonna be tough to get a federal match on this project as-is according to Scott Dibble.

https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/pro ... extension/

[Bakken2016]

Metro transit re-ran the projected ridership numbers using the new FTA formula... it's not good. 18.5k daily riders down from 26.6k. Combine with the higher costs of this route with the new alignment and it's gonna be tough to get a federal match on this project so says Scott Dibble.

https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/pro ... extension/

The numbers were re-ran on the old alignment, this new article is trying to make news out of nothing.

The routing through the heart of North Minneapolis ridership will come out in Spring 2024, I have a strong feeling those numbers will be much higher.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[commissioner]

KSTP doing a light rail is bad story? gee what a surprise!

[MNdible]

Doesn't it make sense that numbers for any route, anywhere in the country, are going to be lower because of our new WFH world? It's also entirely possible that, since MSP's transit usage has rebounded more slowly than elsewhere, our numbers would be down more.

[twincitizen]

It seems like a safe guess that the updated ridership numbers for the new route will land somewhere between the 18.5k and 26k cited above. The Washington & Plymouth station (if they juice the numbers enough) could very well end up being the reason this line is able to continue moving forward, in addition to the Broadway-adjacent stations pulling higher ridership than the previous alignment's fairly remote, empty walkshed stations at Plymouth and Golden Valley Rd.

On the other end of the line however, it seems inevitable that they're going to at least have a conversation about chopping off the outermost station or two, just as happened with Southwest. I am already convinced this line needs to end at 85th Ave / North Hennepin Community College. There is absolutely nothing at 93rd Ave deserving of rail transit service, and Target's remote work policies make for a tough argument that their corporate campus up there needs to be served by rail. That change will negatively impact the total ridership too, but will also reduce the cost of construction. It's ~1.75 miles of track (including a bridge over 610) and two stations that could be cut. Obviously bringing down the total price tag matters for local/state political considerations, but for the federal match they'll be looking at the cost-effectiveness ratio, not total price tag.

[Tcmetro]

There's a maintenance facility being planned beyond the end of the line at Oak Grove which would have to be relocated. It also looks like Oak Grove is being planned as something analogous to Bloomington's South Loop with higher density housing.

[Trademark]

There's a maintenance facility being planned beyond the end of the line at Oak Grove which would have to be relocated. It also looks like Oak Grove is being planned as something analogous to Bloomington's South Loop with higher density housing.

Yes, Brooklyn Park has had plans on really densifying that area. It would be a massive loss to cut this line short. As for 93rd, serving industrial areas is good for people trying to get to work. Not to mention there's an Amazon facility near the station.

[nybe0034]

Takeda, a large pharmaceutical company with 400+ employees and growing in Brooklyn Park, located near the 93rd Ave station has been very vocal about the benefits of the blue line light rail extension. There are also several businesses in the area in support of the line to Oak Grove station. The Governor and other state representatives have been to the site to discuss expansion and an important element of their Master Planning includes light rail placement. Connections to North Hennepin Community College and downtown is important to the company’s workforce and expansion plans.

[Tcmetro]

A new option for Lowry was presented yesterday which would place the station at street level. This would realign the Lowry/Wirth Pkwy intersection and would allow access to the hospital and neighborhood without the use of elevators or stairs.

https://metrocouncil.org/Transportation ... ation.aspx

[Tom H.]

Did they mention at all what cost savings that might entail? That's quite a lot of bridge structure that would no longer be needed, even if there is some roadway reconfiguration costs that get added back in.

[DanPatchToget]

I'm alright with it as long as trains get signal preemption through those crossings.

[mattaudio]

So they've looked at a viaduct over the CR 81 viaduct to get the station on the North Memorial side of the intersection, and they've looked at leaving it at grade under the CR81 viaduct. But why not just have a station at the same level as the CR81 viaduct with vertical circulation on each side?

[Tcmetro]

The minimum width between the new spans is about 20 ft and the max is about 33 ft. It seems like it could be challenging.