Green Line Extension - Southwest LRT

[twincitizen]

Comparing the location of the OMF next to an apartment building to blasting I-94 through Saint Paul really does a disservice to the people of Saint Paul who have had to suffer with the massive gash through their neighborhood. Let's not diminish actual widespread distruction and pain with wild analogies. Not everything is Rondo.

Thank you!

[David Greene]

Comparing the location of the OMF next to an apartment building to blasting I-94 through Saint Paul really does a disservice to the people of Saint Paul who have had to suffer with the massive gash through their neighborhood. Let's not diminish actual widespread distruction and pain with wild analogies. Not everything is Rondo.

I wasn't attempting to equate the two, simply pointing out that political expediency often leads to poor decisions.

[Viktor Vaughn]

I wasn't attempting to equate the two, simply pointing out that political expediency often leads to poor decisions.

Political expendiency leading to poor decisions... SW Transit thread...hmmm... You mean like skipping urban nieghborhoods to route a train through a lightly populated railroad corridor?

[UptownSport]

Why not?
And do the same on the Bottineau!
And if you complain, you'll get called a racist.

[UptownSport]

What does CAC mean? I am sure whatever CAC is and their supporters read every post from UrbanMSP and are very offended by the musing of one Chauncey87. Chauncey87 better say he is sorry to the hyperbole lady and to his better, a one Mr. David Greene.

Seriously, quit taking yourself so seriously on an internet forum. Its bad enough you make up stuff (3A alignment is a boon to N MPLS, sales taxes are actually not regressive) and acting like you know more than everyone else. It is really silly. People come on here to exchange ideas and look at development stories and pictures. Not to have some dork try and talk down to them.

You forget that criticizing Southwest is racist and routing Botteneau thru where people live will cull hundreds of homes.

And overall, most of these folks are 'Professionals', with superior intellect- In short, you, mpls, just don't have capacity to understand.

[mulad]

This would probably be expensive, but a lot of it would be on Mn/DOT's land, who I blame for causing the whole reroute mess in the first place. Reroute TC&W trains over the North Cedar Lake Trail from US-169 & Excelsior up to Victoria Lake to connect to BNSF's Wayzata Subdivision. In this scenario, I'd have a bridge go over the lake to reach the BNSF line, since Victoria Way appears to have been built right on top of the old right-of-way.

Much of the bike trail would be rerouted onto surface streets, but it would have the (sort of) benefit of bringing riders along a path that makes the Knollwood-area stores visible from the bike path. Maybe others know about that shopping area, but I had no idea.

There is unfortunately an apartment building right smack on top of the former railroad ROW along Phillips Parkway, but there is probably enough room to relocate it to the opposite side of the building.

On the whole, it still doesn't seem like there's a lot of room along this old rail corridor either, but probably marginally more than what's on the MN&S line.

[twincitizen]

In a perfect world where the tracks weren't ripped out and apartment buildings placed in the old ROW, yes it would seem a no-brainer to relocate the freight traffic here.

[David Greene]

Why not?
And do the same on the Bottineau!
And if you complain, you'll get called a racist.

You keep saying this, but I *never* said any such thing. What I said is that institutional racism exists and we have to deal with it. Institutional racism is not the same thing as personal bigotry. I couldn't care less what views of race some individual has.

[mulad]

[I've had to put UptownSport on my "enemy" list since I can't parse his posts most of the time.]

[woofner]

Mulad, cool idea, but two issues that I see:
-Is there really room for an affordable overpass on the south end? I'm assuming to clear the cloverleaf you'd have to start the incline north of 2nd St, and I wonder whether the grade to then join the mainline east of 169 would be too steep.
-There would probably need to be parkland/school grounds takings at Aquila park/school, so it may be just as politically contentious.
Otherwise I'd say the routing of the trail wouldn't much worse than the current routing, which is pretty terrible through the Knollwood area anyway.

We literally don't have the money to build SW LRT and Bottineau LRT. CTIB has bonded against all of their sales tax already. That's why the legislature's inaction was so very frustrating.

Huh? Source please. First of all, the legislature acted on SWLRT to the tune of $30m. Second, CTIB has plenty more bond issues to come, and I really doubt they've committed so much that they can't reallocate to SWLRT if necessary. Not that they should be the sole local match, but they could be if it came down to it. Third, the state has an enormous amount of bonding capacity and there is no reason to expect that they won't use it in the future to support SWLRT, a project that has widespread support in the metro. I agree that it would have been nice and politically expedient if the 2013 session had worked out a stable operating and capital funding source for transit, but to say that we don't have the money and that the Transit4MN bill was our one chance of funding LRT is an exaggeration on the order of claiming that SWLRT will serve the Northside.

..unless you're talking about the 2011-12 legislature's inaction, which could be construed as a factor, but was ultimately a political hiccup due to the bizarre national politics and is unlikely to be repeated.

I have to disagree with you that the TC&W relocation isn't the real reason for delay. Literally and explicitly the only loose thread in the Federal process is the rail relocation, which was arbitrarily placed on the SWLRT project by Peter Rogoff (maybe you and I can agree that transit always seems to lose in games of political hot potato). As mulad suggested, the compunction for this falls squarely on MnDot and our culture's mode bias is the only reason they aren't the ones who have to deal with it. (To be honest, incompetent contract-writing by Hennepin county is probably another big reason.)

[David Greene]

Ok, I made the statement based on an off-hand conversation I had some months ago. You are probably right that it's not as dire as I made it out to be.

But we certainly do have a transitways funding deficit. It's clear we can't rely on the state to be a reliable partner.

The delay really is based on funding. We're just barely squeaking by in the federal process with a drip, drip, drip of bonding from the state. Yes, freight rail is going to be a big headache but to me the funding is the more critical piece at the moment. We have enough to live for another year, but that's it. I don't think CTIB is going to float money to keep SW LRT moving if the state doesn't come through.

There has been some discussion at the CAC about re-routing freight further west (I'm sorry I don't have the details) but it seems like that notion wasn't taken very seriously by the project office. Why, I do not know.

[gpete]

A new article on this very subject: http://www.southwestjournal.com/news/ne ... light-rail

Apparently the suggestion of deep tunneling was brought up as a way to keep freight and SW in the Kenilworth corridor. But that's never going to happen.

[RailBaronYarr]

If they're cool deep-bore tunneling in Minneapolis, why would they not route through Uptown?? All the arguments of disrupting existing service during construction, ROW acquisitions, disrupting critical auto corridors, etc would be out the window at that point.

I'll also point out that, yes, this would never happen in Kenilworth or through Uptown, at least not with our population and expected ridership.

[gpete]

Not cool with the idea. They're cool TO the idea, meaning they're totally not into it.

[mattaudio]

My interpretation of that article is that the city would be keen to the idea in theory if it mitigated their concerns with colocation, but they are realistic that it would not be feasible due to cost or geology concerns.

[Tcmetro]

Here is a very informative presentation about the new options for rail relocation, including lots of maps and diagrams and whatnot:

http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/www/gro ... 109397.pdf

[twincitizen]

Damn you! I have stuff to do tonight!

1. It seems from this document that the LRT will in fact use that existing spur track to get closer to Methodist hospital, with the station lying fully east of Louisiana Ave (not a split platform like many on CCLRT). This is a hugely positive change, however there will be commercial property impacts in order to get the LRT track back into the "mainline" corridor.

2. Not knowing the SLP area well enough, it's hard to say what those property impacts will be like. If they could come up with a freight alignment that will make some neighbors happy and actually improve the area for the better, then that's probably all we can ask for. The current freight alignment seems like a detriment to the area as it is. Is it possible that a new freight alignment could actually be an improvement, despite the increase in daily trains?

3. We're going to knock out a ton of property value (tax base) with whichever option is chosen. I think it's imperative that we pick the one that leaves the most opportunity to redevelop the fragmented parcels that are left in the wake. That goes for co-location or re-location.

All that said, co-location seems like the far easier choice. Only a short stretch of the Kenilworth corridor (identified as 'B' in the document) has the ROW constraints that are throwing a wrench into the whole damn project. When it comes down to it, Minneapolis is not going to stand in the way of knocking out a few dozen (extremely nice) townhouses if it put the whole line in jeopardy. Lisa Goodman won't vote for it, but a majority of the council probably will. Property values & tax base will be lost and lives will be altered, but it is all residential. In the long run, those units will be replaced elsewhere in Minneapolis. Heck, they could be replaced elsewhere in the neighborhood if the townhome owners' very own neighbors (CIDNA) didn't stand up against every proposed development.

[David Greene]

I don't know. There's a *lot* of history to the Kenilworth freight line. Mn/DOT screwed it up and apparently there was some kind of vocal agreement that St. Louis Park would take the line when the time came. Of course, such "agreements" don't mean much 20 years later. But the CIDNA folks remember and aren't going to let the city back down.

The way the city council works, if Goodman doesn't want it, the others will probably fall in line. I am moderately hopeful that we will get several new council members who won't be as beholden to past practice.

To me, the jury's still out. It does seem like co-location is easier from a technical perspective but somehow the cost of co-location ended up higher than re-location. I'd like to understand that better.

[twincitizen]

The way the city council works, if Goodman doesn't want it, the others will probably fall in line

That seems to be the rule for development projects like a noisy bar or scary dense apartment coming to the neighborhood, but this has regional significance to the Nth degree. A majority of councilmembers would be brought along to make the "correct" vote just like they were for the Vikings stadium. There would be political hell to pay and little gain for a Minneapolis councilmember to vote against SWLRT over the loss of 54 townhomes in some other ward.

I don't think the "13 mayors" scenario plays out in this instance.

[David Greene]

That seems to be the rule for development projects like a noisy bar or scary dense apartment dwelling scum coming to the neighborhood, but this has regional significance to the Nth degree. A majority of councilmembers would be brought along to make the "correct" vote just like they did for the Vikings stadium. There would be political hell to pay and little gain for a Minneapolis councilmember to vote against SWLRT over the loss of 56 townhomes.

Yeah, you're probably right. It would be an interesting dynamic for sure.