urbanMSP

As others mentioned, the threshold for departing from grade seems to be less in the suburbs than in the city, which is backwards.

I think they'll find more political opposition to elevated than to tunnel, and with good reason. Although tourists love the feel that the El gives Chicago and that the elevated lines in Paris give, they really do divide communities and darken the streets that people live and walk on. Those are much denser cities than we're talking about here, so I fear we'd end up with something like the pit that's Lake Street under Hiawatha.

The "right" answer is a deep-bore tunnel under Broadway, because it can be built and operated with minimal disruption, without negatively impacting the neighborhoods it passes through either during construction or in operation. Stations can be built in conjunction with redevelopment of buildings at station sites, so the extra 60 feet of vertical dig is less onerous. But of course deep-bore tunnels are expensive, and deep-bore stations are both expensive and difficult.

We end up only discussing cut-and-cover tunneling because it's an order of magnitude cheaper than deep-bore tunnels. But cut-and-cover tunnels are massively disruptive during construction, essentially requiring the entire length of the project to be destroyed and rebuilt, which rightly irritates the community. A couple miles of deep-bore tunnel would get rid of a lot of the difficult political trade-offs that have to be weighed when choosing among surface, elevated, or shallow-tunneled rail.

I think they'll find more political opposition to elevated than to tunnel, and with good reason. Although tourists love the feel that the El gives Chicago and that the elevated lines in Paris give, they really do divide communities and darken the streets that people live and walk on. Those are much denser cities than we're talking about here, so I fear we'd end up with something like the pit that's Lake Street under Hiawatha.

The "right" answer is a deep-bore tunnel under Broadway, because it can be built and operated with minimal disruption, without negatively impacting the neighborhoods it passes through either during construction or in operation. Stations can be built in conjunction with redevelopment of buildings at station sites, so the extra 60 feet of vertical dig is less onerous. But of course deep-bore tunnels are expensive, and deep-bore stations are both expensive and difficult.

We end up only discussing cut-and-cover tunneling because it's an order of magnitude cheaper than deep-bore tunnels. But cut-and-cover tunnels are massively disruptive during construction, essentially requiring the entire length of the project to be destroyed and rebuilt, which rightly irritates the community. A couple miles of deep-bore tunnel would get rid of a lot of the difficult political trade-offs that have to be weighed when choosing among surface, elevated, or shallow-tunneled rail.

I think they'll find more political opposition to elevated than to tunnel, and with good reason. Although tourists love the feel that the El gives Chicago and that the elevated lines in Paris give, they really do divide communities and darken the streets that people live and walk on. Those are much denser cities than we're talking about here, so I fear we'd end up with something like the pit that's Lake Street under Hiawatha.

The "right" answer is a deep-bore tunnel under Broadway, because it can be built and operated with minimal disruption, without negatively impacting the neighborhoods it passes through either during construction or in operation. Stations can be built in conjunction with redevelopment of buildings at station sites, so the extra 60 feet of vertical dig is less onerous. But of course deep-bore tunnels are expensive, and deep-bore stations are both expensive and difficult.

We end up only discussing cut-and-cover tunneling because it's an order of magnitude cheaper than deep-bore tunnels. But cut-and-cover tunnels are massively disruptive during construction, essentially requiring the entire length of the project to be destroyed and rebuilt, which rightly irritates the community. A couple miles of deep-bore tunnel would get rid of a lot of the difficult political trade-offs that have to be weighed when choosing among surface, elevated, or shallow-tunneled rail.

Comparing an elevated rail over north to lake street and hiawatha is apples and oranges. How many feet wide is the train bridge and how many feet wide is the hiawatha highway bridge. Elevated rail doesn't have to be intrusive. Look at the skytrain in vancouver or some of the bridges on the green line currently under construction. Comparing modern elevated rail to what is seen in chicago is night and day. The elevated portion can be built in the median of the street and doesn't have to divide anything more than the cars that drive on broadway currently do. If anything it would divide it less then at grade rail does.

We've seen university since the green line was built. You can only cross the street at specific places. With elevated you can pretty much cross everywhere and the supports will only come down every hundred or few hundred feet.

Yes we would all love a deep bore tunnel. But this would absolutely never happen here. For a variety of reasons.

That side-running concept should be ruled out by the side road closures alone. That would absolutely divide the neighborhood in half.