Green Line Extension - Southwest LRT

[David Greene]

I'm very puzzled by these responses. What is wrong with a line that is anticipated to serve lots of riders in a commute-heavy corridor? Just the fact that it doesn't go directly through Uptown? Something else? That suburban commuters will use it? Oh the horror!

Really, $1.5 billion is not that much to spend on this given the cost of, for example, the Stillwater bridge to serve many, many fewer people.

It's easy to nitpick and complain but I am honestly interested to hear concrete. realistic ideas of how to do things better. What exactly is wrong with a viaduct over Excelsior Blvd/Jackson Ave./Milwaukee St./BNSF? Thomas Lowry built the same for his streetcars. Simply complaining isn't helpful.

[David Greene]

It's easy to nitpick and complain but I am honestly interested to hear concrete. realistic ideas of how to do things better.

I'll add my two cents. I do believe there is too much parking in this project and we could shrink the budget by cutting a lot of it. There's a tension between this and ridership projections and I'd like the engineers to explain this dynamic more before I make any decisions. There's also tension between surface and structured parking.

That's the thing that sticks out for me. All of the other changes in the document seemed reasonable given the presentation at the BAC/CAC.

I do wish the alignment went down Main St. in Hopkins but the construction of 169 back in the '80's pretty much prevented that. Such a change isn't realistic.

[mulad]

I do wish the alignment went down Main St. in Hopkins but the construction of 169 back in the '80's pretty much prevented that. Such a change isn't realistic.

Well that drives me nuts. You're saying this little half-cloverleaf is an insurmountable obstacle?



There's an old rail alignment running southeast/northwest through the city which could allow a train to run under 169 from Minneapolis and then turn northwest to cross Excelsior and reach Main Street without much trouble, and there could be a number of other options.

[RailBaronYarr]

What amount of the total project cost is handling everything west of downtown Hopkins? Park and rides, flyovers, stations, etc. Makes up 7 of the 17 stations (not including the Interchange which is being developed separately).

[David Greene]

Really, $1.5 billion is not that much to spend on this given the cost of, for example, the Stillwater bridge to serve many, many fewer people.

Ok, so that bridge is so bad it's really a strawman. Here's a more relevant statistic. We're spending $1.5 billion over, say, a ten year project to bring high-capacity, rapid transit to a heavily used corridor. $150 million a year on aversage. The state of Minnesota spends roughly $2 billion *every year* on trunk highways. I think spending 7.5% of our annual highway budget on a transit project of major regional significance is not terribly burdensome.

[David Greene]

Well that drives me nuts. You're saying this little half-cloverleaf is an insurmountable obstacle?

No, I can't say that since I haven't seen studies of it. My intuition says it'd be pretty costly though, yes.

There's an old rail alignment running southeast/northwest through the city which could allow a train to run under 169 from Minneapolis and then turn northwest to cross Excelsior and reach Main Street without much trouble, and there could be a number of other options.

You'd still need a flyover over CR3 and the BNSF. Remember the LRT is south of the freight line approaching from the east.

I would love to see a Main St. alignment and I've talked to a few people about it. Ain't gonna happen, unfortunately. Maybe if someone had advocated for it early on we could have explored it but it's way too late now.

Although it does argue for my dream of recreating the Como-Harrier alignment from Minneapolis to Hopkins.

[David Greene]

What amount of the total project cost is handling everything west of downtown Hopkins? Park and rides, flyovers, stations, etc. Makes up 7 of the 17 stations (not including the Interchange which is being developed separately).

I agree that we can cut down on Park & Rides, but those bridges and stations serve major job centers. We want those included. No, Eden Prairie is not the urbanists dream, but it has the potential to develop some pretty nice compact, dense spaces. I don't know if future city council's will do it but haven't we always argued that rail promotes density?

I don't think Hopkins alone is a big enough anchor on the west side. We need those commuters to and from the EP area and beyond.

[RailBaronYarr]

Based on what you've seen of the station location, surrounding land-use, and abutting freeways/wetlands/etc, do you really think that there's a strong chance of compact urbanism? Or will it be a single apartment building surrounded by shared surface lot parking serving a couple strip restaurants? We're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars to continue to grow the SW suburbs as if our only choices are medium-speed rail or freeway lane/interchange expansions. Howbout, stop fueling growth in the first place and put that money in to making Minneapolis and St Paul proper more connected? I understand the reverse commute argument, but it is a very small piece of the puzzle. We could literally build affordable housing in EP near the job sites and run cheap circulator buses and have leftover money. It just seems like a colossal expense to mainly make suburban commuters lives easier.

[David Greene]

Surface parking can be developed. I agree it's not ideal but it's not like it's locked in place for a century.

We already have the commuters. We can either expand freeways or build rail. I know which I prefer. It's not realistic to expect people to move. And really, growth itself isn't bad. Done properly and densely, it can limit sprawl. Yes, I do believe we can get density in EP given the station areas.

Finally, it's pretty tough to tell someone to move so they can have affordable housing. You're asking them to give up networks of support built over years or decades.

[Anondson]

The Excelsior crossing shows the bike trail crossing at Excelsior being eliminated. I believe Three Rivers is even advocating that because of all the bike crossing problems, I've seen so many cyclists take a tumble when their tires get caught in the freight rail tracks. Seems all trail traffic will be routed to the trail in front of the Cargill campus and all the trail traffic will cross at the 169 on/off ramp then through The Depot parking lot.

That might get delicate.

[Anondson]

I'm pleased the Blake Station is leaving Lucé intact and is driving the trail into a tunnel crossing. Frightening crossing that. And I see the ROW the city hopes to acquire to start the road they've wanted to provide access to the interior of this mega block. Hopkins' East End vision has this block developed with dense residences, retail, and offices. The station will jump start that, but an access road to the center of the block is necessary.

[RailBaronYarr]

Surface parking can be developed. I agree it's not ideal but it's not like it's locked in place for a century.

We already have the commuters. We can either expand freeways or build rail. I know which I prefer. It's not realistic to expect people to move. And really, growth itself isn't bad. Done properly and densely, it can limit sprawl. Yes, I do believe we can get density in EP given the station areas.

Finally, it's pretty tough to tell someone to move so they can have affordable housing. You're asking them to give up networks of support built over years or decades.

Those are not the only options. Stop pretending they are to improperly frame the discussion.

My personal experience with suburban transit station catchment areas across the country says that what we'll get is tons of surface parking the the near (0-20 years) term, with the possibility of auto-oriented development in the longer term (15-40 years) with the reality being that it won't drastically alter the growth pattern of the suburb or change people's daily mode choice for most of their needs. Fairfax VA (or any suburban station on the DC Metro outside Arlington), Walnut Creek CA (again any suburban SF/Oakland station), current limitations on Maryland Purple Line station developments, the EP/Chan/Chaska bus stations, the placement of and resulting development around Northstar stations, all show me that building successful walkable places that act as mini communities within suburbs is extremely difficult because the location/orientation of the site to begin with was auto-oriented to begin with (and thus the station relies on an auto-sized catchment area).

[mullen]

still having people drive a car to park in a surface lot or ramp is not good land use. you provide a good explanation as to why making this land non-auto oriented is difficult. it's like a disney fantasyland of the urbane. here's a train...poof you're a dense "city" now.

so why build this rail out there in the first place? we already have commuter buses doing a good job of transporting these commuters. unfortunately this line is so far down the process it doesn't seem feasible to reverse direction.

[David Greene]

Those are not the only options.

So what are the other options?

[David Greene]

we already have commuter buses doing a good job of transporting these commuters.

*For some people.* Those buses don't serve reverse commuters, or commuters to points along the corridor that are not downtown.

[RailBaronYarr]

we already have commuter buses doing a good job of transporting these commuters.

*For some people.* Those buses don't serve reverse commuters, or commuters to points along the corridor that are not downtown.

So why are they living where they can only get to their job by car on freeway? Maybe they can move to a place that allows them to walk, bike, or drive on local streets to their job. I propose we loosen housing regulations to allow more people to live in places like this.

[RailBaronYarr]

Those are not the only options.

So what are the other options?

One problem statement is "congestion on freeways at peak hours" Solutions: increased bus frequency to downtown, congestion pricing on freeways (which affects downtown commuters but also people going other places in where they choose to live/work), increased allowed development (office, residential, etc) in Minneapolis (with drastic improvements to city transit and bike facilities), better land-use in the suburbs to allow people to live and work more easily. I could go on.

[David Greene]

So why are they living where they can only get to their job by car on freeway?

See above. You're being pretty judgmental here.

[FISHMANPET]

On a micro level, not everybody can move every time they get a new job so they can access it via transit. But on a macro level, we can build our communities such that fewer and fewer people are put in these kinds of situations. While you seem to be advocating for the individuals that are put into this situation, David, RailBaronYarr is advocating for a society where these choices don't need to be made.

They're not necessarily diametrically opposed, but spending nearly 2 billion dollars to entrench the current situation is probably not a good idea, when so many better things can be done with that money in a more local level.

[David Greene]

One problem statement is "congestion on freeways at peak hours" Solutions: increased bus frequency to downtown, congestion pricing on freeways (which affects downtown commuters but also people going other places in where they choose to live/work), increased allowed development (office, residential, etc) in Minneapolis (with drastic improvements to city transit and bike facilities), better land-use in the suburbs to allow people to live and work more easily. I could go on.

Increased bus frequency doesn't necessarily improve access. The corridor needs more stops.

I fully support congestion pricing, but people still gotta go where they gotta go.

Increased development in Minneapolis would make more jobs available to city residents. I'm all for that of course. But this is a very long-term process. We need a solution to handle the situation today and into the future.

Better land use in the suburbs is not only a great idea, it's going to become absolutely necessary. But again that will take a long time. With rail there's something to build around, potentially jump-starting the process.

I don't see a viable way to meet today's and near-future travel needs without significantly upgrading the transportation infrastructure in some way. To me rail by far makes the most sense, for a number of reasons. I could maybe see BRT working, but if the ridership justifies rail, why not do the higher-quality service? Doing BRT at a similar quality to rail ends up costing the same anyway.