As someone who has been living in Maplewood on WBA since 2015, that's bunk. Shortly after I moved in, I was asked about my thoughts on the Purple Line. I've received many mailers since 2015 seeking feedback and providing updates. Numerous pop-up events and other public events were held throughout the years, as detailed in Metro Transit/Met Council's presentation where they even listed the dates and locations and number of people they engaged with. Plus, the trail has had signs up for the past 15+ years stating it would be reserved for future transport use as well as contact information on the signs to provide feedback.I know it's easy for to blame stagnant suburbs in this region for not wanting the Rush Line to go out there, but the truth is that engagement was pretty terrible on this one. If you look at the video on 3/22 you'll note Ms. Longrie's frustration with met council about lack of engagement. If you watch the previous meetings/worksessions you'd see that the "No Rush Line Coalition" actually did a lot of engagement and had hundreds of surveys filled out by Maplewood residents. Granted, they could have had a more diverse audience (most respondents were retirees or approaching that age and most were women). But, the bottom line is that Maplewood was caught off guard.
There was absolutely no lack of public engagement. What happened was that when it looked like this was actually possible, the anti-transit folks started dialing up the rhetoric. It was Diane Longrie's ONLY campaign platform. And I don't know if you looked at those "survey" questions, but they were ridiculously worded to lead people to the answers NRLC wanted and were clearly not written by the guidance of a statistician looking to eliminate bias and get a statistically accurate sample. The Met Council surveys, which I believe to be far more accurate (and also seem to reflect the voting patterns in Maplewood) showed a far more even balance of those for and those against.
Inevitably, the people yammering about using the BVT ROW will likely be equally as upset if WBA gets dedicated bus lanes thereby reducing the space for car traffic. Dedicated lanes are the only way to have a true BRT experience that doesn't get delayed by traffic. And as Juenemann said at a previous meeting in her very blunt way (paraphrasing), "The point of this line is to have rapid transit. I don't think anything will be moving down White Bear Avenue rapidly."