Green Line Extension - Southwest LRT

Roads - Rails - Sidewalks - Bikeways
TroyGBiv
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby TroyGBiv » March 26th, 2014, 9:26 pm

The threats are what is pushing the Minneapolis City Council is spinning wheels trying to negotiate between the litigious Kenwood residents and the Freight Rail companies...

BigIdeasGuy
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby BigIdeasGuy » March 26th, 2014, 10:49 pm

What a nightmare. The new tunnels under the channel are estimated to cost $270-345 million depending on the length.
Honest question, can anyone ball park what it would cost to tunnel under Hennepin from the Midtown Greenway to 94? It couldn't be *THAT* much more that $345M could it?

nate
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby nate » March 27th, 2014, 8:28 am


The Metropolitan Council is considering two options for the SWLRT, and they both include running the line right through the Kenilworth Corridor bike trail between Lake of the Isles and Cedar Lake. It is a pristine, wooded area and many people in the area, including the city of Minneapolis, oppose the idea of running the SWLRT line side-by-side with the existing railroad tracks next to the bike trail.
Solid reporting.

Sara Bergen

Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby Sara Bergen » March 27th, 2014, 8:36 am

Were there EP representatives at this meeting? I was noticing that it seems like a lot of the delay and extra cost could come from the mitchell road station. Did they have any comment on this or are they OK with scrapping it for now?

On a similar vein, what was the reaction from Minneapolis? I really don't see anything gained from the Long, below channel tunnel option over the shorter and cheaper "deep shallow" option.
The Mayor of Eden Prairie was there and is a regular member of the CMC. In the beginning, after McLaughlin issued his admonishments about all of the delays, she spoke up about Eden Prairie's desire to have the Mitchell station re-added to the route. She said from a regional perspective it provides access to 5,000+ jobs, more than most of the other proposed station. She also expressed thanks for the re-done plans for the southwest station.

None of the discussions about delays seemed to have anything to do with adding the Mitchell station. The delays seemed to be solely based on what is decided for the colocation/reroute segment of the line. 2019 is when line would open if original shallow tunnel options are chosen, 2020 for the new deeper shallow tunnels options (there are two---a short one and a long one, the short one would include the 21st street station), and 2021 if the reroute is chosen.

holmstar
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby holmstar » March 27th, 2014, 9:20 am

What a nightmare. The new tunnels under the channel are estimated to cost $270-345 million depending on the length.
Honest question, can anyone ball park what it would cost to tunnel under Hennepin from the Midtown Greenway to 94? It couldn't be *THAT* much more that $345M could it?

It seems like I saw somewhere that the difference in cost was around $400M some years ago. Probably more now.

acs
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby acs » March 27th, 2014, 10:46 am

If NIMBYs from this small of a neighborhood can delay a project and make it cost this much, I don't even want to think about how much any kind of uptown alignment would cost. Planners assumed overwhelming support and few technical challenges for the current alignment and rushed ahead. I'm not willing to wait another 15 years only to make the same mistake again.

David Greene
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby David Greene » March 27th, 2014, 11:03 am

What a nightmare. The new tunnels under the channel are estimated to cost $270-345 million depending on the length.
Honest question, can anyone ball park what it would cost to tunnel under Hennepin from the Midtown Greenway to 94? It couldn't be *THAT* much more that $345M could it?
I think BigIdeasGuy is including delay costs in the Kenilworth tunnel costs, so for a fair comparison you'd have to include delay costs for a Hennepin Ave. tunnel, which would be *much* greater than what we're seeing with Kenilworth. Starting over has huge inflationary costs.

the kid
Block E
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby the kid » March 27th, 2014, 11:26 am

there's always moving the bike trail.....

talindsay
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby talindsay » March 27th, 2014, 11:28 am

They should tunnel the bike trail!

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FISHMANPET
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby FISHMANPET » March 27th, 2014, 12:45 pm

Can we put the residents of Kenilworth in a tunnel? That would solve an awful lot of problems.

exiled_antipodean
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby exiled_antipodean » March 27th, 2014, 12:51 pm

It seems that the city of Minneapolis has hitched its wagon to the demands and desires of wealthy people who have lived near a freight rail line for more than a century, lived near a designated light rail corridor for nearly thirty years, and now want to kill the project outright, or make it exceedingly expensive.

That has hampered their negotiating position, since the option of moving the bike trail is a simple one, and the cheapest.

Archiapolis
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby Archiapolis » March 27th, 2014, 1:06 pm

If you look at the list of core names in this "smart SWLRT" group they are all well versed in legal issues (lawyers and corporate executives) and I feel like this was a strategic move to force the MetCouncils hand in a last minute effort to save the decode worth of work on this line… really disappointing.
Of course it was deliberate. Powerful people know how to use power.

EDIT: I'm unable to find information about this lawsuit. Do you have a pointer?
Not to dance on the grave because I feel like it is still being dug but do you STILL think this is just "part of the process" and/or "business as usual" involved with any LRT project?

HiawathaGuy
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby HiawathaGuy » March 27th, 2014, 1:12 pm

Not to dance on the grave because I feel like it is still being dug but do you STILL think this is just "part of the process" and/or "business as usual" involved with any LRT project?
I don't think anyone could have predicted this mess, but I still believe this is part of the process. Minneapolis will want Met Council to move forward after they withhold consent. It's my belief that this allows City and State leadership to save face (al la: "we did everything we could to get your requests taken into consideration..."), and the evil Met Council takes the blame for promoting a regional system that affects a very small, but vocal, group of influential people.

But, I may be wrong and this line may ultimately never get built.

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mister.shoes
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby mister.shoes » March 27th, 2014, 1:26 pm

How do we make it cheaper and less disruptive to tunnel under Hennepin Ave from the Greenway to the Triangle? By tunneling under Emerson for half the way instead!

Image
Click to embiggen

  • For those who would object to the line veering west along Dunwoody instead of straight to the CBD along Hennepin, I've added a theoretical Hennepin Ave streetcar. Because why not?
  • Two (three?) ways to connect from the Sculpture Garden LRT stop to the theoretical Loring Park streetcar stop: existing pedestrian bridge, improved sidewalks under 94 at Dunwoody(, a new culvert-style direct connection tunneled under 94).
  • I'd prefer to run the line under Fremont and have the Subway stop at 26th instead of 24th and then add another Subway stop at Franklin, but I'm being conservative due to travel time issues.
  • That and I don't want to delay Mozaic Phase 2, whereas this would give an excuse to do a full redevelopment of the PP block.
  • Van White is still ripe for redevelopment. If anything, it's more valuable with an LRT link to both Downtown and Uptown.
  • A West End line could easily be added from Van White to Penn and beyond.
  • If and when 94 is deep bored from 35W to MN55 *rimshot* this line could stay underground through the Triangle with a proper Subway stop thereabouts.
I didn't bother showing street rearrangements, but there would only be a few.
  • Hennepin/Lyndale through the Triangle would have to lose a lane in either direction, but judging by where lanes are currently added/dropped, it seems rather arbitrary at the present.
  • Hennepin between Vineland and Dunwoody would have to be realigned a little bit. NB would slide over to its original diagonal alignment and give the streetcar a nice triangular-shaped plaza for it's last stop. SB would have to hug 94 to make room for the LRT and Sculpture Garden platform.
  • The goofy left turn lane from NB Hennepin/Lyndale to WB Vineland would cross the LRT tracks just north of Groveland and hug the SB lanes. If my guesstimations are correct, the trains could slip through the Vineland intersection during the left turn phase.
  • Only one bridge in the Triangle would need to be replaced: SB Lyndale. The other two under which the LRT would travel seem to have wide enough spans to fit the tracks next to the lanes. Vertical clearance TBD.
OK, unrealistic dreaming done. Resume realistic complaining :lol:
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Anondson
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby Anondson » March 27th, 2014, 1:35 pm

That's a nice fantasy line!

David Greene
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby David Greene » March 27th, 2014, 1:42 pm

Not to dance on the grave because I feel like it is still being dug but do you STILL think this is just "part of the process" and/or "business as usual" involved with any LRT project?
I don't think anyone could have predicted this mess, but I still believe this is part of the process. Minneapolis will want Met Council to move forward after they withhold consent. It's my belief that this allows City and State leadership to save face (al la: "we did everything we could to get your requests taken into consideration..."), and the evil Met Council takes the blame for promoting a regional system that affects a very small, but vocal, group of influential people.

But, I may be wrong and this line may ultimately never get built.
This is all still part of the process. Lawsuits are expected with projects like this. We'd get lawsuits with 3C too.

That said, it doesn't appear that any lawsuit has actually been filed yet. That KSTP report was from last September.

I fully expect Minneapolis will deny municipal consent at least once. That's also pretty standard. It happened with the Crosstown Commons rebuild/I-35W access project, for example.

David Greene
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby David Greene » March 27th, 2014, 1:47 pm

That's a nice fantasy line!
I can agree with that. Unfortunately, I don't see any hope of anything like that ever happening. Certainly not in time for when we need something, which is now.

If we were to put a "streetcar" (meaning an LRV) on Emerson/Hennepin/whatever, it seems like it'd be natural to interline it with both the Midtown line and the SW Line at Van White, essentially following the route proposed by mister.shoes.

mattaudio
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby mattaudio » March 27th, 2014, 2:03 pm

So. Let's say the Met Council et al decide to proceed with Kenilworth over Mpls denial of municipal consent. Could they then do the at-grade colocation and save $300 million? Seems like a winner of a plan to me.

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mister.shoes
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby mister.shoes » March 27th, 2014, 2:04 pm

That's a nice fantasy line!
I can agree with that. Unfortunately, I don't see any hope of anything like that ever happening. Certainly not in time for when we need something, which is now.
Thanks, guys. I don't see this happening any time soon either.

BUT, if we were to take mattaudio's suggestion of single-tracking through Kenilworth and ditching the 21st St station, 3A could be up and running faster than a Kenilworth tunnel or an SLP reroute. The $200MM saved by not tunneling goes toward this idea (or 3C, whatever) and a reuse of the Penn Ave station as the first stop on a short line to the West End [and eventually points beyond].

Gah. Ninja'd by matt. We're on the same page ;)
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moda253
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby moda253 » March 27th, 2014, 2:53 pm

Remind me why we can't move the stupid bike path?


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