Blue Line Extension - Bottineau LRT

Roads - Rails - Sidewalks - Bikeways
Tcmetro
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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby Tcmetro » January 25th, 2021, 2:06 pm

Gentrification is a real issue for the north side just as it is for Frogtown. These are largely single family home neighborhoods and landlords/homeowners are going to cash out by raising the rent or selling to someone that wants to live near light rail.

The LRT and local bus/BRT have similar travel times to downtown. There's not really any traffic congestion on the bus routes, and the BRT upgrades will make boarding faster and skip some of the stops. Light rail isn't going improve service that much for north siders going downtown.

The benefit of the LRT going through North Minneapolis is to connect north side residents to the suburbs better. The LRT line will stop at 85th Ave which is where North Hennepin Community College is. There's an industrial park around 93rd Ave, and probably in the future at Oak Grove. There's a big retail node at Brooklyn Boulevard that will have bus connections to Maple Grove and Hennepin Technical College. There's some small retail nodes at Bass Lake Road and Robbinsdale.

DanPatchToget
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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby DanPatchToget » January 25th, 2021, 2:15 pm

Gentrification is a real issue for the north side just as it is for Frogtown. These are largely single family home neighborhoods and landlords/homeowners are going to cash out by raising the rent or selling to someone that wants to live near light rail.

The LRT and local bus/BRT have similar travel times to downtown. There's not really any traffic congestion on the bus routes, and the BRT upgrades will make boarding faster and skip some of the stops. Light rail isn't going improve service that much for north siders going downtown.

The benefit of the LRT going through North Minneapolis is to connect north side residents to the suburbs better. The LRT line will stop at 85th Ave which is where North Hennepin Community College is. There's an industrial park around 93rd Ave, and probably in the future at Oak Grove. There's a big retail node at Brooklyn Boulevard that will have bus connections to Maple Grove and Hennepin Technical College. There's some small retail nodes at Bass Lake Road and Robbinsdale.
Let's not forget the southern half of the Blue Line: Mall of America, the airport, VA Center, etc. Just because it might not significantly improve travel between the Northside and downtown doesn't mean it won't improve travel between the Northside and several areas of the region.

Tcmetro
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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby Tcmetro » January 25th, 2021, 2:46 pm

That's true. The transfer penalty is a good 5-15 minutes between the north side and the light rail because of the walk between 5th and 7th-8th.

alexschief
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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby alexschief » January 25th, 2021, 2:59 pm

This is a can of worms, but we should be really clear about some things.

1. I repeat myself, but starving an area of high-quality services because you are afraid that creating those services will lead to gentrification is completely the wrong policy. The right approach is to ensure that high-quality services are abundant, so that there is less of a price premium to access them. For better or worse, that's already happened, since North Minneapolis will one of the last areas of the city to get LRT or BRT service. To the extent that scholars have studied the effects of making investments in low-income neighborhoods, they have overwhelmingly found that displacement becomes less frequent, because nothing is more destabilizing than poverty.

2. That being said, there is not really a substantial indication that light rail is some kind of irresistible force of gentrification. The low-incomes areas through which the Blue and Green Lines pass still are disinvested in to this day. To the extend that redevelopment has and will change these areas, it takes a long time. Decisions about the locations of transit lines should be made based on where there is transit demand today, and not to jumpstart or to avoid some hypothetical real estate play. A train is a train, not a magic wand that can reverse centuries of disinvestment and segregation. Routing this train through the heart of the northside would provide meaningful accessibility gains to Northsiders to areas both NW and SE of downtown Minneapolis, which cannot be otherwise achieved by bus.

3. The demographic fact is that North Minneapolis (and the northern suburbs) has gotten poorer and less white in the twenty-first century. By any definition of gentrification, it is not occurring in North Minneapolis. My own research has found that an average of 157 new units of housing have been proposed per year in Wards 4 and 5 combined over the past ten years. That's equal to just over 4% of the development in the entire city, for wards that have 15% of the city's population. The overwhelming problem in the Northside is underinvestment and disinvestment, not predation by rapacious developers. To the extend that redevelopment is occurring in this area, it's homegrown.

I expect that, if the new LPA is routed through North Minneapolis and along Broadway, there will be efforts to ensure that the city or community gets a say in new development, in order to ensure that it leaves space for current residents. That's fine, and not an issue to gloss over. We have the tools to make sure the community benefits not just from the amenity itself, but from any ancillary benefits that the amenity might bring with it. But the notion that these concerns justify light rail avoiding this area entirely is completely wrongheaded. Repeating myself again, but that's how you get concentrated, multi-generational poverty and segregation. The only difference is that by making it about "gentrification" you put a weird left-leaning sheen on a deeply exclusionary and reactionary policy.

tmart
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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby tmart » January 25th, 2021, 3:04 pm

On a different note, denying services to lower income areas because they might gentrify if they got something nice is the absolute wrong way to think about planning a city. That's how you get concentrated, multi-generational poverty and segregation.
Yes, precisely. Disinvestment is not an acceptable tool for preventing gentrification. We should provide the best possible transit for Northsiders, and separately from those decisions, take measures to mitigate displacement.

Just brainstorming what some of those measures could be--and I'm sure some of these are better ideas than others:

- Zoning for lots of new, walkable, urban mixed-use and housing near the suburban stations to ensure that (re)development isn't all concentrated in North

- Pairing the opening with upzoning wealthier neighborhoods, or ideally with another LRT project through wealthier neighborhoods

- One-off rent control for any renters who lived within 1/2 mile of a station when it opened

- Strengthening tenant protections (automatic lease renewals, making evictions more difficult, etc.)

- Subsidies for existing local-owned businesses during construction and for some years afterward

etc etc etc

SurlyLHT
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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby SurlyLHT » January 26th, 2021, 12:56 pm

You all don't get it. Once word gets out that this will require tearing down homes or businesses it will be seen as an intrusion by outsiders and bring back memories of 94. Policy talk and city planning best practices, wouldn't change this view. I'm sure people were told the same things when 94 was put through. Why should Northsiders believe any experts who have pre-conceived notions of what's best for others? The idea that somehow the effects of this won't be severe on the Northside and that a few better transit connections will make it worth it is wishful thinking. Especially, if they end up deciding Olson Memorial-> Penn --> W. Broadway given that the C Line already runs on this and that stretch of Penn is already seeing TOD and has character via some very nice homes lining the road. (This is probably the most likely route)

Bakken2016
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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby Bakken2016 » January 26th, 2021, 1:14 pm

You all don't get it. Once word gets out that this will require tearing down homes or businesses it will be seen as an intrusion by outsiders and bring back memories of 94. Policy talk and city planning best practices, wouldn't change this view. I'm sure people were told the same things when 94 was put through. Why should Northsiders believe any experts who have pre-conceived notions of what's best for others? The idea that somehow the effects of this won't be severe on the Northside and that a few better transit connections will make it worth it is wishful thinking. Especially, if they end up deciding Olson Memorial-> Penn --> W. Broadway given that the C Line already runs on this and that stretch of Penn is already seeing TOD and has character via some very nice homes lining the road. (This is probably the most likely route)
You seem to be the only one in disagreement. The planners have also said they are looking at routings that compliment the C and D Lines, I don't see this going up Penn Ave. It will most likely use North Lyndale to West Broadway or some form of tunnel. Also if you attended the meeting i discussed earlier that sparked all this conversation, the Northside wants this project and they want it done correctly.

uptownbro
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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby uptownbro » January 26th, 2021, 1:32 pm

Agreed, no one this saying its possible to sell the community on I-94 2.0
I think either some form of tunnel/elevated option would be a easy sell to many people and light rail has proven to be popular in MN.
Just eyeing it, why couldn't it take 7th from target field to Lyndale to West Broadway.

DanPatchToget
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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby DanPatchToget » January 26th, 2021, 2:12 pm

Even if the Blue Line Extension required tearing down homes and businesses in the Northside, which it definitely won't, there's a big difference between a double-track electric light rail and an interstate highway with thousands of GHG emitting cars and trucks. But I want to emphasize that the Blue Line Extension will NOT require taking homes and/or businesses. They can shoehorn the light rail on existing roads, or tunnel under the Northside. Preferably the latter.

tmart
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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby tmart » January 26th, 2021, 2:30 pm

You all don't get it. Once word gets out that this will require tearing down homes or businesses it will be seen as an intrusion by outsiders and bring back memories of 94. Policy talk and city planning best practices, wouldn't change this view. I'm sure people were told the same things when 94 was put through. Why should Northsiders believe any experts who have pre-conceived notions of what's best for others? The idea that somehow the effects of this won't be severe on the Northside and that a few better transit connections will make it worth it is wishful thinking. Especially, if they end up deciding Olson Memorial-> Penn --> W. Broadway given that the C Line already runs on this and that stretch of Penn is already seeing TOD and has character via some very nice homes lining the road. (This is probably the most likely route)
You seem to be the only one in disagreement. The planners have also said they are looking at routings that compliment the C and D Lines, I don't see this going up Penn Ave. It will most likely use North Lyndale to West Broadway or some form of tunnel. Also if you attended the meeting i discussed earlier that sparked all this conversation, the Northside wants this project and they want it done correctly.
Yeah, like IIRC, Jeremiah Ellison (the CM for this ward) was among those pushing super hard for a reroute that would be more centrally-located in North. That's not to say he speaks for everyone in North, but it's a very good sign.

SurlyLHT
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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby SurlyLHT » January 27th, 2021, 4:29 pm

Time will tell. It's better to listen to Phillippe than Jeremiah. I've been to 3 community meetings with him in 2020 and each one he was screamed at by irate residents. One of them the residents had to organize him and his staff so that they whole thing wasn't Jerry Springer. It was for a homeless shelter being proposed, I'll never forget he was asked about the current shelters in the Ward, said he didn't know and referred to the County. (He had called the meeting to talk about a shelter.) Residents ended up getting the County Commissioner to stand up and speak and she did a better job. But, she pulled the proposal a few days later. The county failed at the engagement.

There is no way this is going in without tearing something down. The prior analysis showed where homes would be torn down on Penn Ave. This isn't a 6 lane freeway, but it is a wall, you can't cross the tracks wherever you wish. W. Broadway currently has many lights and intersections, a number of those would have to be closed segregating North ironically along the border of the Highs and Lows gangs.

DanPatchToget
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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby DanPatchToget » January 27th, 2021, 4:37 pm

Well then you should be advocating for a tunnel option like I am.

SurlyLHT
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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby SurlyLHT » January 27th, 2021, 4:46 pm

A tunnel is a waste of money. A point I was trying to make is that the cost that would need to be spent in the Northside, isn't worth the benefits they will get. The Northside would be better off if the local portion of the $$ was used for youth centers and on the Office of Violence Prevention and on making sure we have enough MPD staffing to do community programs like PALS. (At a mtg last night they said they didn't.)

The Northside has competent and at times pretty nice transit, it feels like we're at the bottom of Maslow's Hierarchy of needs and this LRT is a few levels up. People need to feel safe, their kids needs to few safe and people need food and housing before they need a tunnel going through their neighborhood and fancy LRT. It isn't hard to get Downtown or to the Brooklyn's. (Getting to South Mpls is hard though.)

Bakken2016
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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby Bakken2016 » January 27th, 2021, 4:52 pm

A tunnel is a waste of money. A point I was trying to make is that the cost that would need to be spent in the Northside, isn't worth the benefits they will get. The Northside would be better off if the local portion of the $$ was used for youth centers and on the Office of Violence Prevention and on making sure we have enough MPD staffing to do community programs like PALS. (At a mtg last night they said they didn't.)
You make it seem like we can't do both. I would also remind you dollars that are earmarked for transit both at the local level and federal level can only be spent on transit.

There are also many Northsiders that would like to see MPD have less money, and have city funds put towards other public safety initiatives.

Tcmetro
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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby Tcmetro » February 4th, 2021, 9:54 am

There are meetings today and tomorrow for the Blue Line extension:

https://metrocouncil.org/Transportation ... rials.aspx

Silophant
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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby Silophant » February 11th, 2021, 3:10 pm

Joey Senkyr
[email protected]

tmart
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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby tmart » February 11th, 2021, 3:21 pm

Not an expert on how these things work but if they're expecting to get through all that process by the end of the year, I have to imagine that the new alignment is probably not gonna be radically different from the options that were presented before.

SurlyLHT
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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby SurlyLHT » February 11th, 2021, 3:30 pm

They should be posting today's Mtg soon. I listened to part of it before going to a different meeting. CM Cunningham and Mayor Frey had alternates, Ellison wasn't there and didn't have an alternate. I presume they were invited given the LRT is likely going through Ward 5?



http://metrocouncil.granicus.com/ViewPu ... ?view_id=2

uptownbro
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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby uptownbro » February 11th, 2021, 3:34 pm

What were the old alternative options for the line?
Maybe they are dusting off one of those.

SurlyLHT
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Re: Bottineau LRT (Blue Line Extension)

Postby SurlyLHT » February 11th, 2021, 3:53 pm

What were the old alternative options for the line?
Maybe they are dusting off one of those.
They looked at Penn Ave/ Queen Ave's the most.

https://metrocouncil.org/Transportation ... tives.aspx


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