The mayor of Robbinsdale mentioned during the Corridor Management Committee meeting today that he doesn't think the current city council will vote to give municipal consent to the Blue Line Extension. They want to re-engage BNSF and put the alignment back in the rail corridor so the train doesn't "tear Robbinsdale in two." A city councilor concurred and declared that he does not want ground level or elevated rail on Bottineau boulevard and will be fighting any effort to put it there.
I feel like that battle was already lost with Bottineau being as wide as a freeway, but I guess somehow rail is more threatening.
If Robbinsdale is gonna throw a fit, the line should just end at North Memorial. The Minneapolis portion will probably generate enough trips to justify the price on its own.
Offer Robbinsdale a station and all the redevelopment opportunities that come with it, but don't spend years trying to convince them when they ultimately reject it (especially on such nonsense grounds.) It's time to stop begging suburbs to love transit.
Obviously, this would screw over Crystal and Brooklyn Park, but Minneapolis needs the line more than they do. Maybe the threat of losing the line would encourage other suburbs to put pressure on Robbinsdale leaders.
(At the end of the day, I imagine Robbinsdale will cave - that's how these things usually happen, especially to small suburbs.)