Green Line Extension - Southwest LRT

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

Postby twincitizen » April 10th, 2014, 5:00 pm

Businesses owners seek SWLRT changes: http://finance-commerce.com/2014/04/bus ... t-changes/

Nothing that will hold up the line, but certainly this line (especially the non-colocated portion though Mtka & EP) is going to see a lot of tweaks and shifts through final design. I feel like that part of the routing has serious potential for cost overruns, because there are so many unknowns. Just cut the Mitchell Station now...EP was ready to give municipal consent without it. I dare anyone to argue otherwise.

twincitizen
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby twincitizen » April 10th, 2014, 8:24 pm

How dafuq did we miss this Lileks column: http://www.startribune.com/local/254832121.html

That is the greatest thing anyone has ever written, regarding our favorite little engine that might.

David Greene
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby David Greene » April 10th, 2014, 8:50 pm

Just cut the Mitchell Station now...EP was ready to give municipal consent without it. I dare anyone to argue otherwise.
Strangely, it was Dayton who insistend on putting it back in.

http://www.startribune.com/politics/sta ... 69331.html
On a related issue, Dayton said he insisted on restoring service and a station at the end of the Southwest line in Eden Prairie cut from earlier plans to save money. He said the extended line and additional station were consistent with a goal of the project “to connect suburban cities with Minneapolis and St. Paul.”
I'm really curious what his political calculation is here. Did he hear something from the city or businesses in EP? It seems like such a random thing to insist on given everything else.
Last edited by David Greene on April 11th, 2014, 10:31 am, edited 1 time in total.

twincitizen
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby twincitizen » April 11th, 2014, 10:15 am

I rode my bike on the Kenilworth trail yesterday. Crossing Cedar Lake Avenue is scary! Traffic calming needed there for sure...and it wasn't even busy. I hope that the bike trail is planned to be elevated over the intersection, along with the LRT.

There was a rendering of the bridge posted a while ago (though it doesn't include the freight track, which would remain at grade): https://forum.streets.mn/viewtopic.php?f=18& ... 340#p20068

sad panda
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby sad panda » April 11th, 2014, 11:16 am

LRT is in the southern shallow tunnel at Cedar Lake Ave/Parkway. The municipal consent plans show the trail at grade and the roadway being 32' wide, 1 lane each direction. Would be nice if they'd add a bump-out at the crossing to narrow the roadway at the very least. Looks like it's something for Minneapolis to ask for in consent process.

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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby Anondson » April 13th, 2014, 8:00 am

SWLRT must be generating huge page views for the Star Tribune. They got another one counting up council votes.

http://www.startribune.com/local/west/255042221.html

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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby froggie » April 14th, 2014, 5:26 am

Maybe they could put in a HAWK signal for the Cedar Lake Pkwy/Kenilworth Trail crossing? Or maybe even a full signal with bike signals for the trail....pretty sure the bike counts would support a signal per standard signal warrants (as odd as that may sound).

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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby Mdcastle » April 14th, 2014, 5:34 am

Maybe they could put in one of the new microwave pedestrian sensors so bicyclists and pedestrians wouldn't suffer the supreme indignity of having to push a button.

mattaudio
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby mattaudio » April 14th, 2014, 6:42 am

Refuge island. Good for rail crossing too. No signal needed.

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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby mattaudio » April 14th, 2014, 8:00 am

Although a refuge island would channelize crossing traffic, likely allowing for a FRA horn waiver. But maybe we shouldn't pursue one, so that we can get loud and lengthy horns on the TC&W trains moving at grade past Kenilworth.

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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby David Greene » April 14th, 2014, 10:24 am

TakeAction MN and ISAIAH lay out some negotiating points.

http://strib.mn/1n1FR9R#MIupxHEqodyumuCw.01

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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby FISHMANPET » April 14th, 2014, 10:41 am

What's the diesel train storage thing at the end of the article?

And I don't really think fares should be lower, we just need some way further subsidize the fares of low income people. Though maybe that would be a beucratic nightmare that would cost more money to administer than it would earn through increase overall fares, compared to just lowering fares.

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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby David Greene » April 14th, 2014, 11:06 am

What's the diesel train storage thing at the end of the article?
The county wants to put a passenger rail diesel train layover/maintenance facility in Linden Yard East, very close to the Van White station. Harrison and Bryn Mawr put together the Bassett Creek Valley Master Plan over a decade ago and got it passed into the Minneapolis comprehensive plan. The train facility would eliminate hundreds or thousands of affordable housing units from the plan and would also eliminate some office/retail space. It would be yet another pollution source in an area that has historically been a dumping ground for the city.

Harrison has fought against this for years and never even got so much as a commitment to do an environmental study of the proposal, or to consider other locations for the facility. Basically, it's been a prime example of business as usual where poor, minority neighborhoods get to bear a disproportionate share of the burden of transportation investments.

I mean, we're building an LRT with a station that will serve low-income people looking for jobs, a place near downtown that is already zoned and planned for housing/office/retail and we're going to put a diesel train facility in it? Really?

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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby FISHMANPET » April 14th, 2014, 11:08 am

How many jobs would be at a train maintenance facility?

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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby David Greene » April 14th, 2014, 11:09 am

How many jobs would be at a train maintenance facility?
Not enough to justify the pollution and slap in the face to the communities who actually engaged their members (unlike most neighborhoods) and collectively produced a plan they want to see happen.

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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby FISHMANPET » April 14th, 2014, 11:13 am

Yeah I don't actually disagree with you, I'm just being trolly I guess

I just hope there's some transit accessible place we can put a facility like that, so that people actually can reach it, because I'm guessing train maintenance jobs are pretty good jobs, and they don't require college degrees, which sounds great for low income populations.

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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby mattaudio » April 14th, 2014, 11:15 am

The city studied air rights on top of the layover facility, right? Even so, it's a bad idea. And who knows when we'll get our next commuter rail line - Northstar has been a failure, and the prospect of spending tens of millions more on heavy rail trainsets that idle near downtown all day while waiting to bring commuters home seems like a stupid idea on so many levels.

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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby FISHMANPET » April 14th, 2014, 11:23 am

And hopefully the next time we grow our commuter/regional rail fleet, it will be with DMUs.

Bi-level DMUs exist (or really, just one exists) but since most places that can use a DMU can't physically accommodate a bi-level one (the UK), I don't see why the market wouldn't expand if there was demand for it.

But this has nothing to do with Southwest (unless I propose to operate Southwest as a commuter line with bi-level DMUs).

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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby David Greene » April 14th, 2014, 12:49 pm

The city studied air rights on top of the layover facility, right?
"Studied" is a bit of a stretch. "Looked at" is probably more accurate. Even with the most optimistic assumptions, you still lose all of the housing and some of the office and retail.

The latest I've heard is that the plinth option is horribly expensive and not really practical.
And who knows when we'll get our next commuter rail line
My understanding is that HSR would be the trigger line for this. Of course the county and city have changed their stories so many times on this, it's hard to know what the truth is.

I've never really understood why we need HSR to Minneapolis when we just built a $1 billion LRT to connect the cities. If HSR were proposed to go to St. Cloud that would be a different story, but as far as I know that isn't on the table. The St. Paul-to-Minneapolis HSR seems like another ego-driven project like Target Field Station.

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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby David Greene » April 14th, 2014, 12:56 pm

I just hope there's some transit accessible place we can put a facility like that, so that people actually can reach it, because I'm guessing train maintenance jobs are pretty good jobs, and they don't require college degrees, which sounds great for low income populations.
Sure, there will be some good jobs there. To my untrained eye there are a lot of good places for this to go that wouldn't impact community development plans.

Of course certain other locations for this are off the table because, you know, rich people. Not that I think this should be located in those places, I'm just commenting on the business-as-usual aspect.


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