urbanMSP

Today the Blue Line Extension held another corridor management committee meeting. I think I was the only person not on the committee to call in, so that's moderately embarrassing. I'd invite others to tune in. This is important stuff.

Governor Tim Walz was on the call. I wonder if he decided to drop on after the last call was fairly contentious, with some recriminations about the failure to negotiate with BNSF.

- Walz started the agenda with some remarks. He said, "I believe in the Blue Line Extension... I want to be absolutely clear that our administration believes in [this project]." He thanked the members of the CMC and defended the decision to step away from the BNSF corridor. He said, "I do not believe they will change their position on this now or ever... Let's not be dependent on the whims of [BNSF]... This is a project that is worthy of a long term investment."

- Several committee members chimed in to reinforce the governor, expressing continued support for the line. Mayor Frey, in his comments, spoke about how a realignment of the project could provide a real opportunity to better serve North Minneapolis.

- A representative from the Business and Community Advisory Committees gave a report. People are disappointed by the delay of the project, but resigned to it. Some people who made unspecified investments based on the original alignment are unsurprisingly unhappy. People were frustrated by the lack of communication from the Met Council during the period of negotiation with BNSF.

- A representative from the Harrison neighborhood spoke about how the proposed alignment increased property values and rent in the neighborhood and has led to displacement. Some of the station areas were zoned for TOD, and a small affordable apartment building was replaced by a market rate building (not sure which one) that was allowed by that zoning. The neighborhood is also concerned that a changing alignment will eliminate any opportunity to improve safety on Olson Memorial Highway (although didn't MnDOT already kill opportunities to reduce lanes on the road?). Near-neighbors off of the proposed Van White and Penn Stations want attention paid to what has changed in their neighborhoods.

- Met Council will launch a new engagement process in January 2021, in partnership with The Alliance and Juxtaposition Arts. Effort will be online. Some questions about whether it is possible to do COVID-safe in-person engagement. Options are open to do that. The process will be iterative and can change as conditions change.



- Project staff have created principles for their continuing work, which are pretty obvious. Robbinsdale still wants an effort made towards negotiating with BNSF. I think Robbinsdale said they wanted the "criminal" impacts of the line to be studied? Could I possibly have heard that right? Golden Valley is waiting to comment, understands that the line may be moved out of their territory entirely (yes, it should).

- There was a presentation on the structure of the advisory process for the project. Staff thinks there is an opportunity to reboot committees where appropriate, giving municipalities an opportunity to appoint new people, for a meeting in January or February of 2021. Certainly hope that anyone on here who lives in the project area would consider applying. Golden Valley hops on again to remind people that a changing alignment will probably change the roster of stakeholders somewhat (although there should be more addition than subtraction), and suggests that some of the connections to places like Wirth Park should not be lost in the shuffle.

Next meeting is December 10th.

Would it be safe to assume then this would serve more of north Minneapolis? If so thats a huge win for the city and its north side residents.

Great news as I know where was talk in August when everything fully broke down of this possibly better serving the north side. Well maybe BFSN had the cities best interests all along! Mostly kidding.

From a story in august on this"Golden Valley Mayor Shep Harris, who led the charge to keep negotiating with the railroad, albeit in a more-aggressive fashion, said he was disappointed with the vote."
Sounds like they knew if they ended talks this could be the result