Green Line Extension - Southwest LRT

[twincitizen]

As time goes on, it gets more obscured how the current mess is the result of a series of 3 (or more) bad decisions. But specifically, the final bad decision alone is the one that resulted in the massive cost-overruns related to the tunnel. Bad decisions #1 & 2 certainly led to the dumb tunnel near the lakes, but they didn't require it.

Bad decision #1: Choosing the Kenilworth route over literally any other alternative (circa 1986-2009*).

Bad decision #2: Not re-routing Kenilworth freight trains (1-2/day?) onto the N-S running rail line through St. Louis Park (circa 2012-13), even though decision #1 was predicated on this happening! (It turned out that it maybe wasn't even geometrically possible, let alone strongly opposed by the RR operator TC&W, as well as SLP residents). In a better world, this action should have resulted in re-opening the routing alternatives analysis. Reference from someone who was there: https://www.minnpost.com/community-voic ... ail-route/

Bad decision #3: Once the above happened, Minneapolis was going to withhold municipal consent unless the tunnel near the chain of lakes was included to mitigate the new reality that LRT, freight, and trails all had to share the corridor. As folks discussed in the last couple comments above, there were alternatives! Ideas that were thrown out: just squeezing everything in at-grade (technically this was possible), single-tracking LRT for <1 mile, relocating the trail, putting the trail on an elevated bridge above the rail tracks, or tearing down a few townhomes. Any of these would have been less than a billion.



*Since Hennepin County bought Kenilworth corridor FOR LIGHT RAIL back in 1984 and put out their first LRT vision map including Kenilworth in '86, it was unlikely they ever seriously considered alternatives. And during the Alternatives Analysis for the current project, the City of Minneapolis was opposed to the Greenway-Nicollet option, as they wanted to "save" Nicollet for streetcar (which we decided not to build a decade and a half later). In retrospect, we (online nerds) were probably too naïve circa 2009-13 in thinking there was any chance a non-Kenilworth route would be chosen. How many stupid meetings did some of us attend back then?

[HuskyGrad]

single-tracking LRT for <1 mile

TriMet is currently adding a second track where the decision was made to single track two segments of the Red Line that opened in 2001. It continually caused operational issues that is now being rectified. Single track should be avoided at all costs and if it you must, it should be near the terminus.

[twincitizen]

I'll attempt to rank the possible alternatives to the tunnel, in terms of cost-benefit ratio. Hindsight being 20/20, I'd maybe have gone with:

1. Put everything at grade and call the bluff of Minneapolis (Hodges administration, c. 2014-15) to deny municipal consent. In this scenario, Met Council / Governor Dayton administration puts their foot down that there will be no tunnel, and instead they have to throw some money at Minneapolis for other...stuff (streetcars? who knows). SWLRT begins service later this year (if not sooner) in this scenario. The condo people and rich people around the lakes probably still file many of the same lawsuits delaying construction start into 2018/19, as actually happened. This alternative adds no costs to the project (payoff$ to Minneapolis would have come from state coffers), but the finished product, especially the trail and any possible replacement trees, would be a downgrade from what we're getting.

2. Trail alternatives study: Study the elevated trail idea (if even permissible under FTA/FRA rules) and study the option to reroute the trail on city streets for a few blocks at the pinch point. Re-routing the trail would have caused a firestorm with current users and the bike lobby at-large, but I doubt their political power at this point in time was enough to stop it from happening. I don't have a clue what a >half-mile long elevated trail bridge would cost, but I bet it's not a billion! Probably less than the original $300M estimate for the tunnel.

3. Buy out or eminent domain some or all of the 1980s townhomes (which never should have been built in the first place). Clearly this would have been superior to the option that was ultimately chosen. There's no evidence that Hennepin County ever seriously considered buying these properties. Maybe they would have if Minneapolis had rejected municipal consent to putting everything at grade. It would have been expensive, but not a billion dollars. In that real estate environment (2014-15ish), it would have been ~500k/unit x 57 units. Let's round up to $40-50MM to leave room for lawsuits and relocation fees, etc. If they had wiped out the entire complex, there would be land left over for development. If they only took out some units as-needed, you can lower the acquisition costs somewhat.

4. Buy out Twin Cities & Western railroad entirely. I recall someone on the forum pointing out that the entire value of the company at the time was like $200-300 million, or roughly the same as what the tunnel was originally forecast to cost. Freight rail can then be removed from the corridor. Design-wise, this is probably a preferable outcome to #2 and #3, but the cost is greater. I don't know if the politics of it would have been easier or harder than the eminent domain of the townhomes, or how the FRA would have responded to that idea, etc.

Unranked: single-tracking LRT through Kenilworth, due to the comment above. Met Transit has enough difficulty getting trains through the downtown commons on schedule. Introducing unreliability due to a single track section just west of downtown would have made it even more difficult to keep Green Line trains on schedule across a very long route from Eden Prairie to Lowertown. Then throw Riverview LRT/Streetcar into the mix, touching the Blue Line between Ft. Snelling & MOA, and the Green Line in Downtown St. Paul. It's very likely for the best that single-tracking through Kenilworth wasn't supported.

[DanPatchToget]

I can 100% guarantee buying out TC&W would be a no-go. A lot of towns in western Minnesota and across the border in South Dakota rely on TC&W for shipping freight.

[commissioner]

I can 100% guarantee buying out TC&W would be a no-go. A lot of towns in western Minnesota and across the border in South Dakota rely on TC&W for shipping freight.

I believe he meant the line going from St. Louis Park to Minneapolis. Another reason why this wouldn't have happened is the fact that unless a new connection was put in between the MN&S line and the BNSF line, trains would have had to go up to crystal to connect with the CP because there's no other connections, TC&W would not have been happy about this

[MNdible]

For what it's worth, the argument went that should buy the railroad so that TC&W wouldn't be a stumbling block in negotiations, not that they would shut it down. They could have done the necessary reroutes and then resold it to a private company as-is, or hired somebody to operate it on their behalf.

[HuskyGrad]

For what it's worth, the argument went that should buy the railroad so that TC&W wouldn't be a stumbling block in negotiations, not that they would shut it down. They could have done the necessary reroutes and then resold it to a private company as-is, or hired somebody to operate it on their behalf.

Additionally, if the were to buy TC&W and propose to remove freight surface corridor it would require approval from the Surface Transportation Board, which would not be guaranteed.

[mattaudio]

Oh yeah I wrote this 9 years ago https://streets.mn/2014/02/11/southwest-lrt-plan/

[Nick]

Yeah, I mean the main point of the project at this point is teaching me personally that there’s no upside to being right about things and no downside to being wrong about things. Which they could have done for less than $3 billion :-/

[Hero]

Just imagine how much bike infrastructure could have been built with the money used on that tunnel.

[Oreos&Milk]

I'll attempt to rank the possible alternatives to the tunnel, in terms of cost-benefit ratio. Hindsight being 20/20, I'd maybe have gone with:

1. Put everything at grade and call the bluff of Minneapolis (Hodges administration, c. 2014-15) to deny municipal consent. In this scenario, Met Council / Governor Dayton administration puts their foot down that there will be no tunnel, and instead they have to throw some money at Minneapolis for other...stuff (streetcars? who knows). SWLRT begins service later this year (if not sooner) in this scenario. The condo people and rich people around the lakes probably still file many of the same lawsuits delaying construction start into 2018/19, as actually happened. This alternative adds no costs to the project (payoff$ to Minneapolis would have come from state coffers), but the finished product, especially the trail and any possible replacement trees, would be a downgrade from what we're getting.

2. Trail alternatives study: Study the elevated trail idea (if even permissible under FTA/FRA rules) and study the option to reroute the trail on city streets for a few blocks at the pinch point. Re-routing the trail would have caused a firestorm with current users and the bike lobby at-large, but I doubt their political power at this point in time was enough to stop it from happening. I don't have a clue what a >half-mile long elevated trail bridge would cost, but I bet it's not a billion! Probably less than the original $300M estimate for the tunnel.

3. Buy out or eminent domain some or all of the 1980s townhomes (which never should have been built in the first place). Clearly this would have been superior to the option that was ultimately chosen. There's no evidence that Hennepin County ever seriously considered buying these properties. Maybe they would have if Minneapolis had rejected municipal consent to putting everything at grade. It would have been expensive, but not a billion dollars. In that real estate environment (2014-15ish), it would have been ~500k/unit x 57 units. Let's round up to $40-50MM to leave room for lawsuits and relocation fees, etc. If they had wiped out the entire complex, there would be land left over for development. If they only took out some units as-needed, you can lower the acquisition costs somewhat.

4. Buy out Twin Cities & Western railroad entirely. I recall someone on the forum pointing out that the entire value of the company at the time was like $200-300 million, or roughly the same as what the tunnel was originally forecast to cost. Freight rail can then be removed from the corridor. Design-wise, this is probably a preferable outcome to #2 and #3, but the cost is greater. I don't know if the politics of it would have been easier or harder than the eminent domain of the townhomes, or how the FRA would have responded to that idea, etc.

Unranked: single-tracking LRT through Kenilworth, due to the comment above. Met Transit has enough difficulty getting trains through the downtown commons on schedule. Introducing unreliability due to a single track section just west of downtown would have made it even more difficult to keep Green Line trains on schedule across a very long route from Eden Prairie to Lowertown. Then throw Riverview LRT/Streetcar into the mix, touching the Blue Line between Ft. Snelling & MOA, and the Green Line in Downtown St. Paul. It's very likely for the best that single-tracking through Kenilworth wasn't supported.

Wait regarding number 2..

We could have had an elevated bike trail that started just south of Cedar Lake Pkway (that allowed Cedar lake Pkway trail access via an onramp/offramp) that continued over the Keniworth channel with elevated views and have had an overview from a balcony like Hennepin has or at least like the bike bridge on the midtown greenway crossing Hwy 55 with a few benches. Then continuing forward and decending back under the Burnham Rd. BUT potentially an elevated exit ramp that connected to Burnham Rd. and connected directly to the southern sidewalk that already existed! THAT would have been cheaper than the what, the at grade crossing, we still kept at Cedar Lake Pkway and the poor trail connection to the Grand Rounds trail via Dean Pkwy.

oh we facked up.

[Anondson]

My memory of the elevated bike bridge was that Minneapolis Parks vetoed it because there would be elevated views into the back yards. It was only needed for the stretch between Lake St and Burnham Re. Otherwise there was enough space.

[Tom H.]

The MN River Bluffs trail has views into my backyard. I see bikers and walkers out my bedroom window all the time. Maybe I should sue

[SurlyLHT]

There's a bike trail down there? I've forgotten it's been closed for so long. I also rarely go on the opened segments of the Cedar Lake Trail.

Also the detoured segment from Downtown to Van White got taken out by a plow truck a month ago and has been partially reincorporated back into Dunwoody Blvd.

[Korh]

They repaired it awhile ago and I swear they also extended it a bit since I swear it used to end at buff creek dr but now it goes all the way down to chaska and maybe carver.

[Bakken2016]

https://www.minnpost.com/state-governme ... l-transit/

[DanPatchToget]

Some observations and updates:

Is RailWorks part of the light rail construction or are they only doing construction involving freight rail along Southwest? They were doing track work at Blake Road today, which seemed odd to me since I can't recall construction on Southwest LRT being done on a Sunday.

The trail bridge over Belt Line Boulevard is already being used by people even though on the east side it dumps you in the middle of construction work.

OCS poles are already up along the tracks in Eden Prairie.

[Tom H.]

As mentioned, poles are up in EP near Southwest Station and the power station is in place. Not totally sure but it looked like caternary wire might have been getting prepped to string right outside of SWS today.

[Tom H.]

As of about 2 weeks ago, the expanded parking ramp at Southwest Station looks functionally complete - seems to just be missing stripes to define parking spaces and a few other finishing touches. I wonder if they will keep it mothballed for now though - SWT riders don't even come close to filling up the original parking structure, so there's probably no need to open the expansion.

I was able to pop over for a little unsanctioned look-see into the elevator / stairwell area, and got a nice little shot of the progress on the trackwork, TPSS and caternary, and even the finishing touches on the Hwy 212 off-ramp.

PXL_20230427_134657310.MP.jpg

[Trademark]

As of about 2 weeks ago, the expanded parking ramp at Southwest Station looks functionally complete - seems to just be missing stripes to define parking spaces and a few other finishing touches. I wonder if they will keep it mothballed for now though - SWT riders don't even come close to filling up the original parking structure, so there's probably no need to open the expansion.

I was able to pop over for a little unsanctioned look-see into the elevator / stairwell area, and got a nice little shot of the progress on the trackwork, TPSS and caternary, and even the finishing touches on the Hwy 212 off-ramp.

PXL_20230427_134657310.MP.jpg

I think it's open now