Green Line Extension - Southwest LRT

[orangevening]

I will say, it would be pretty silly if we were running light rail at-grade in downtown, through the University, at Snelling and in DT St. Paul but running it through a tunnel on a stretch of dedicated rail ROW out in a relatively low-density residential district. I think the U's former VP, Kathy O'Brien, might come back to the meetings just to kick some people's rear ends over that.

I completely agree. I'm a resident who will be served by the 21st St. Station and all the yard signs in the neighborhood calling for a deep tunnel strike me as silly and naive. There are many other areas that would have been better served by a tunnel.

Saving a important, busy and beautiful bicycle corridor/connection, one that I personally use frequently and vote as my favorite bike trail in Minneapolis, I hardly find silly and naive. Building a lrt station at a location with currently very little bus service, the lowest density in the city (& little options to increase density) and change even further the one beach in town that has some character left, to me, doesn't make sense.

[alleycat]

Kenilworth alignment would open up completely new transit options for North Minneapolis.

For 4k Harrison residents out of 60k residents in north. That means ~56,000 will require a transfer from bus service (hopefully aBRT) to Van White station. What bus line goes to Glenwood? How is that substantially better than taking the 5 or 19 to Target Field station and transferring to the applicable line for most in north?

A few years later they'll be another two stations just north at Olson Highway. Again most northsiders will have to take bus service to even transfer to said service since Bottineau will also skip the densest census tracts. I see one explicit winner in this alignment: Developers. Yes north needs development badly, but we need to focus on Broadway, Lowry, Lyndale and Penn. Glenwood has so much potential, but it should not be at the expense of Nicollet. I guess it's a moot point with the streetcar...in theory.

[mplsjaromir]

Kenilworth alignment would open up completely new transit options for North Minneapolis.

For 4k Harrison residents out of 60k residents in north. That means ~56,000 will require a transfer from bus service (hopefully aBRT) to Van White station. What bus line goes to Glenwood? How is that substantially better than taking the 5 or 19 to Target Field station and transferring to the applicable line for most in north?

A few years later they'll be another two stations just north at Olson Highway. Again most northsiders will have to take bus service to even transfer to said service since Bottineau will also skip the densest census tracts. I see one explicit winner in this alignment: Developers. Yes north needs development badly, but we need to focus on Broadway, Lowry, Lyndale and Penn. Glenwood has so much potential, but it should not be at the expense of Nicollet. I guess it's a moot point with the streetcar...in theory.

This is exactly is what always confused me about the North Minneapolis argument. Bryn Mawr and Harrison are the only North Minneapolis neighborhoods within walking distance of a new LRT station. At minimum its 0.57 mi from the Van White station to Olson Memorial Hwy and its more than mile from the Penn Ave station to Olson Memorial Hwy. The population that could viably walk to these stations seems thin. Is there going to a thorough reworking of the bus system so that people can connect to SW LRT? Are new bus routes a good idea if most still want to go downtown. If the argument is that residents in North Minneapolis will be able to commute to jobs on the SW corridor then I say the line is a boon to Northeast, Southeast and South Minneapolis residents. Not to mention those along the Green Line east of DT MPLS.

[RailBaronYarr]

If the end result is that we get a SWLRT through the trail (somehow), a Midtown corridor bus or streetcar (on LRT gauge) and an improvement to Hennepin and/or Lyndale transit (dedicated lane) AND Nicollet streetcar/BRT... fine. To say Uptown area is heavily served ignores that it is more heavily populated than the transit facilities is has. Making them slow, unreliable, and thus not a great first choice for most people. I have strong doubts that within the next 20 years we'd see all those other improvements to the Uptown area.

Can I just put it out there that relying on federal funding for transit projects, with all the rules, timing, fighting, justifying, etc it comes with, severely limits us? I'd rather them be cut out of the equation.

[Ubermoose]

I was at the meeting yesterday as well and I came away cautiously optimistic that the shallow tunnel might be the preferred choice, but what bothered me was that several times Munt said that this was a top 5 FTA project with the freight reroute in it the plan. To me that says that the FTA likes the reroute, so we'll go through the motions of all of these meetings to get public input, but we are going with the one we like. I am just having a hard time trusting the Met Coucil.
With the passion that my neighbors feel about the reroute, I thought the crowd was very well behaved, even if there were a few comments from the crowd. The majority of the people there were respectful and really still trying to figure out all of the updated plans. The SWLRT people were very helpful and really handled a lot of tough questions from the people there.

[artful-dodger]

Saving a important, busy and beautiful bicycle corridor/connection, one that I personally use frequently and vote as my favorite bike trail in Minneapolis, I hardly find silly and naive. Building a lrt station at a location with currently very little bus service, the lowest density in the city (& little options to increase density) and change even further the one beach in town that has some character left, to me, doesn't make sense.

I agree with you orangevening. I think the trail/nature corridor needs to be preserved; it's one of the more unique aspects to Minneapolis. In what other big city can you see fox, deer, possum, etc. on a daily bike commute through lakes and forest? Plus, it does not make much sense to displace one means of alt-transit in favor another. But there are better options for preserving the corridor than spending a hundred million on a tunnel.

Also, even though I'd be served by the 21st Station, I have to concede it makes no sense at all.

[David Greene]

As far as federal funding is concerned, it is well served.

I'm personally of the opinion that Uptown would be much better served by improving service on Lyndale and Hennepin with dedicated transit lanes for local service.

That's exactly right. If you stop and think about it, it makes sense. Given the existence of the 4, 6 and 17 and 18, who would actually use an Uptown alignment? Those coming from south Minneapolis heading downtown will simply stay on the bus. Ditto the return trip. No reason to transfer. Those in Uptown would have a choice of bus or rail to get downtown. While some would choose rail over bus, that number would not be 100%. You're really only going to choose the rail if you're relatively close to Lake & Hennepin or Lake & Nicollet.

Now let's look at trips outside Minneapolis. Those from the SW 'burbs who want to go to Uptown would obviously take the rail. HOWEVER, they'd still take the rail with a Kenilworth alignment and transfer to a bus at West Lake. They would do so because there simply would be no other option. The same goes for people in Uptown who want to go out to the southwest. They'll take a bus to the West Lake station. Will that cause some people to drive rather than take transit? Maybe, but I don't think it would have a huge impact and the studies agree with that.

The incremental improvement in transit service by bringing rail to Uptown does not justify the cost.

Those who want a 3C alignment must prove that the models, which have been intensively scrutinized and tweaked over a couple of decades, are fatally flawed and must convince the FTA the problem is so egregious it justifies canning the project. The chances of that are slim to none.

[Ubermoose]

As far as federal funding is concerned, it is well served.

I'm personally of the opinion that Uptown would be much better served by improving service on Lyndale and Hennepin with dedicated transit lanes for local service.

Those who want a 3C alignment must prove that the models, which have been intensively scrutinized and tweaked over a couple of decades, are fatally flawed and must convince the FTA the problem is so egregious it justifies canning the project. The chances of that are slim to none.

I would agree that this is not an option. They were pretty clear last night that they won't be revisiting the Uptown option because they don't want to drop back in the federal transit money queue.

[David Greene]

Kenilworth alignment would open up completely new transit options for North Minneapolis.

For 4k Harrison residents out of 60k residents in north. That means ~56,000 will require a transfer from bus service (hopefully aBRT) to Van White station. What bus line goes to Glenwood? How is that substantially better than taking the 5 or 19 to Target Field station and transferring to the applicable line for most in north?

Bottineau serves a completely different travelshed and isn't really relevant here.

You ask a fair question about a downtown transfer. Right now, it is pretty tough to get downtown from much of North. Sure, there's service but the 5 and the 19 are the only Hi Frequency buses that run up there. And even on those lines it takes a while to get downtown. Glenwood is not served well at all. That would hopefully improve with a bus realignment around the rail. Here's what the LPA transit accesses document has to say about it:

"The Royalston station is strategically important to achieving the objective of reverse commute travel within the corridor."

Van White is a fantastic development opportunity and it is a major equity win for the line the line but Royalston is the station that will serve most North residents (which is also an equity issue).

The document goes on:

"Trips downtown can take 20 minutes or more, depending on boarding location, from neighborhoods adjacent to downtown Minneapolis. Implementation of LRT service through this area would improve travel times for area residents, and provide a seamless connection with the regional transitway network."

It's not only about travel time. It's integration of North Minneapolis into the transitway network.

Finally, the ability to interline the Kenilworth alignment with Central Corridor is a win from an operational efficiency standpoint and is more convenient for transit riders.

There's a wealth of information at your fingertips here:

http://www.southwesttransitway.org/tech ... ments.html

It really is worth a read, even if it's just the summary sections.

[David Greene]

This is exactly is what always confused me about the North Minneapolis argument. Bryn Mawr and Harrison are the only North Minneapolis neighborhoods within walking distance of a new LRT station. At minimum its 0.57 mi from the Van White station to Olson Memorial Hwy and its more than mile from the Penn Ave station to Olson Memorial Hwy. The population that could viably walk to these stations seems thin. Is there going to a thorough reworking of the bus system so that people can connect to SW LRT?

Yes, there will be. Metro Transit has done the same around our other two lines. Penn and Van White will spur development. I hadn't really seen it at Penn until I took a tour with some Bryn Mawr residents. There are some interesting opportunities there. I think Van White is still the primary opportunity though.

Are new bus routes a good idea if most still want to go downtown.

My conversations with North residents leads me to believe that most do *not* want to go downtown as a destination. They want to go to the suburbs where the jobs are.

If the argument is that residents in North Minneapolis will be able to commute to jobs on the SW corridor then I say the line is a boon to Northeast, Southeast and South Minneapolis residents. Not to mention those along the Green Line east of DT MPLS.

It is!

[talindsay]

Can I just put it out there that relying on federal funding for transit projects, with all the rules, timing, fighting, justifying, etc it comes with, severely limits us? I'd rather them be cut out of the equation.

I've argued this very point, though it was so unsuccessful that I gave it up years ago. Without the feds involved, these projects could be done in less than half the time, for about 2/3 the price. Given that they pay half the tab when they participate, that would mean we'd have to pay a bit extra, but not double. The other thing is that there is precedent for cities who chose to go it alone on a line that the feds weren't going to allow to get done, using the *ENTIRE* cost of that line as the "local match" on a later line that the feds *did* pay for - Denver has done this, St. Louis used it to some effect (although they had some issues with this approach), and I believe Portland has too, although I'm not sure about that.

Of course, this seemed like a really good strategy at the height of Bush-era transit funding stupidity; right at the end of his term his FTA revised the CEI formula and it started getting better, and under Obama the strict formulas for federal funding have gotten quite a bit less strict, which I think is why we're not seeing this so much now. Heck, under the current rules we could have built Central with the full tunnel at the U the way it was originally envisioned with no trouble at all, I'm sure. Not that I want that - I think the current arrangement is better for the University since it forced them to address the poor way that Washington as an artery interacted with campus - but the point is that much more is allowed now than just a few years back.

[David Greene]

If the end result is that we get a SWLRT through the trail (somehow), a Midtown corridor bus or streetcar (on LRT gauge) and an improvement to Hennepin and/or Lyndale transit (dedicated lane) AND Nicollet streetcar/BRT... fine. To say Uptown area is heavily served ignores that it is more heavily populated than the transit facilities is has. Making them slow, unreliable, and thus not a great first choice for most people. I have strong doubts that within the next 20 years we'd see all those other improvements to the Uptown area.

Maybe I'm overly optimistic but I see all those things easily happening within 20 years.

Can I just put it out there that relying on federal funding for transit projects, with all the rules, timing, fighting, justifying, etc it comes with, severely limits us? I'd rather them be cut out of the equation.

I think you would find a lot of agreement and I share some sympathy with this view. But unfortunately we can't afford to build these things without federal money. And frankly, some of those requirements are *good*, especially the analyses required by NEPA.

[David Greene]

I was at the meeting yesterday as well and I came away cautiously optimistic that the shallow tunnel might be the preferred choice, but what bothered me was that several times Munt said that this was a top 5 FTA project with the freight reroute in it the plan.

I don't recall hearing that. I heard that the project is a top 5 federal project with the current LRT alignment. I didn't hear anything connected to freight wrt project ranking. But I was in the back feeding a baby and maybe missed something. I'd appreciate more detail here if you have it. It is certainly concerning if the feds give the project a high ranking because of freight reroute.

To me that says that the FTA likes the reroute, so we'll go through the motions of all of these meetings to get public input, but we are going with the one we like. I am just having a hard time trusting the Met Coucil.

You're not alone and I think this is a sane, justifiable response. The same is true of the CIDNA folks. Met Council has a huge PR problem they've ignored for a long time. It's not just on this project. They had the same issue on Central Corridor, and hear the same during fare hike hearings, etc.

With the passion that my neighbors feel about the reroute, I thought the crowd was very well behaved, even if there were a few comments from the crowd. The majority of the people there were respectful and really still trying to figure out all of the updated plans. The SWLRT people were very helpful and really handled a lot of tough questions from the people there.

Agreed! The crowd was pretty well behaved and the SWLRT project people are amazing.

[David Greene]

The other thing is that there is precedent for cities who chose to go it alone on a line that the feds weren't going to allow to get done, using the *ENTIRE* cost of that line as the "local match" on a later line that the feds *did* pay for - Denver has done this, St. Louis used it to some effect (although they had some issues with this approach), and I believe Portland has too, although I'm not sure about that.

This is *very* interesting. I had not heard it before. Do you know which lines were involved?

I ask because we had a *long* discussion on Central Corridor about getting funding for the three missing stations before the CEI rules changed. The idea of funding the stations with private money came up but was dismissed because even though the moeny was private, it would still count as part of the project budget and thus count under the CEI. With the scenario you're talking about and given the conversation around Central, I'd have assumed that the budget for the locally-financed project would have been added to the federally-funded project budget (since it would be the local match) and thus would have made it extremely difficult to accomplish the later due to budget explosion.

[David Greene]

The same goes for people in Uptown who want to go out to the southwest. They'll take a bus to the West Lake station. Will that cause some people to drive rather than take transit? Maybe, but I don't think it would have a huge impact and the studies agree with that.

I know this is anecdotal and extremely biased but I live in Uptown and work in downtown St. Paul. I used to take the 21/53/94 a lot. Since having a baby that is much more difficult due to the sheer travel time on those routes and my need to get home for the handoff from my wife when she goes to work the evening shift. Now I drive all the time and hate it.

I am thinking I *might* use Central Corridor from downtown Minneapolis simply because it's easier to get work done while riding the train, which effectively shortens the commute. When SWLRT comes online, I will absolutely take a Nice Ride to West Lake and hop on the train there. It would cut my effective commute time even more. That wouldn't be nearly as effective without interlining.

Yes, I think this particular route is rare but it does demonstrate the importance of access to the regional network, not just a single line or segment of a line.

[orangevening]

If the end result is that we get a SWLRT through the trail (somehow), a Midtown corridor bus or streetcar (on LRT gauge) and an improvement to Hennepin and/or Lyndale transit (dedicated lane) AND Nicollet streetcar/BRT... fine. To say Uptown area is heavily served ignores that it is more heavily populated than the transit facilities is has. Making them slow, unreliable, and thus not a great first choice for most people. I have strong doubts that within the next 20 years we'd see all those other improvements to the Uptown area.

Can I just put it out there that relying on federal funding for transit projects, with all the rules, timing, fighting, justifying, etc it comes with, severely limits us? I'd rather them be cut out of the equation.

As much as would hate to see that portion of Kenilworth fo, I would make this comprise myself

[David Greene]

I was at the meeting yesterday as well and I came away cautiously optimistic that the shallow tunnel might be the preferred choice

The best way for St. Louis park residents and officials to avoid a re-route is to support everything needed to do the shallow tunnel under Kenilworth. Minneapolis has signaled it's open to the idea. There's a big opportunity to do something in a partnership that makes 90% of the people happy. It is critically important *not* to villify Minneapolis, CIDNA residents, etc. I heard some of that last night ("why does Minneapolis get all the breaks!") and while I understand there's frustration around the issue, pointing fingers is not helpful and will only make Minneapolis hesitate to allow co-location with a tunnel.

The biggest issue by far with the tunnel is money. It's in the best interest of SLP residents to pressure their legislators to help fund a tunnel. We *can* make this work. It's going to take a huge effort but there is a good way forward.

[gpete]

I think you would find a lot of agreement and I share some sympathy with this view. But unfortunately we can't afford to build these things without federal money. And frankly, some of those requirements are *good*, especially the analyses required by NEPA.

A large transit project would likely require an EIS under the Minnesota Environmental Policy Act. So an in-depth analysis of environmental, noise, visual impacts etc would still need to be completed even without federal funding. MEPA would suffice in the absence of NEPA.

[talindsay]

This is *very* interesting. I had not heard it before. Do you know which lines were involved?

I don't recall now, I had an extensive conversation with VP O'Brien and others at the U about this back in 2005-2006 and we spent some time digging through all the various project documents on those. There's a good chance it's well documented on the Central Corridor thread at minnescraper, though I don't really remember - that's been a lot of years.

I ask because we had a *long* discussion on Central Corridor about getting funding for the three missing stations before the CEI rules changed. The idea of funding the stations with private money came up but was dismissed because even though the money was private, it would still count as part of the project budget and thus count under the CEI. With the scenario you're talking about and given the conversation around Central, I'd have assumed that the budget for the locally-financed project would have been added to the federally-funded project budget (since it would be the local match) and thus would have made it extremely difficult to accomplish the later due to budget explosion.

One thing to remember is that everything with Central was much more constrained because of the very *specific* time that this project was being funded - some would say the worst time in the last 30 years to be getting a project funded. As recently as 2003 there had been a great deal of flexibility, and most of this flexibility returned in late 2007 or early 2008, but the specific period this was being funded was the height of Bush's administration's push to make transit projects "accountable". The approach of funding a project entirely locally, then using its costs as the "local match" on a future project was certainly more dubious during that narrow window than either before or after.

Central would have looked very different if it had been funded before 2003 or after 2008. It's worth noting that Central was such a strong and obvious project that it secured funding during the most difficult period to secure funding, a time when neither Southwest nor Bottineau (nor Hiawatha, for that matter) would have gotten beyond the AA phase. Southwest is only on the feds' radar - never mind a top-tier project - because of the massive reforms to New Starts that happened in 2008-2010.

[woofner]

Perhaps there have been some updated plans, but if the ones from June are still valid, the option for all modes at grade would have only a minor impact to the trail (which would be 16' wide under this option instead of 20') for only about a quarter-mile, in the segment that already has little green space (between Cedar Lake Rd and Lake St). Cycling conditions will be more or less identical. In light of this, why is it reasonable to demand $100m more be spent on the significantly greater engineering challenge of the tunnel?