Green Line Extension - Southwest LRT

Roads - Rails - Sidewalks - Bikeways
fehler
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby fehler » March 28th, 2014, 3:33 pm

Choo Choo Bob.


Mdcastle
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby Mdcastle » March 28th, 2014, 10:18 pm

Is it just me or are other initial supporters of the line starting to question the wisdom of proceeding since we apparently can't either move the bike path a block over or buy out the townhouses, and the demands from the parties involved keep getting more expensive and outrageous?

Tcmetro
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby Tcmetro » March 28th, 2014, 10:36 pm

Moving the bike path or tearing down the townhouses still isn't going to appease the anti-LRT faction in the Kenilworth Corridor. Honestly, the only thing that's going to make them happy is the removal of all trains from the corridor. The mistake Met Council made was saying a tunnel of any sort was feasible. We've seen what was supposed to be a short cut-and-cover tunnel turn into a long cut-and-cover tunnel with demands for a bored tunnel.

Anondson
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby Anondson » March 30th, 2014, 10:47 am

StuartCo putting in a late bid to build a walk-up station next to apartments in Minnetonka in the gap between Shady Oak Road station and the Opus campus. Article behind a paywall, anyone get the article want to provide any details the summary doesn't mention? Don't think this has any chance.

http://finance-commerce.com/2014/03/stu ... t-station/

Sara Bergen

Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby Sara Bergen » March 30th, 2014, 9:29 pm

Choo Choo Bob.


This is great. Thanks for sharing.

Tcmetro
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby Tcmetro » March 31st, 2014, 7:12 am

The CMC will meet again this Wednesday. Listed on the agenda is "Staff recommendation on project scope and budget", so it seems we'll likely be moving forward.

http://metrocouncil.org/getdoc/be7139d3 ... genda.aspx

As for that additional station between Shady Oak and OPUS, I think it's a wonderful idea. There are a lot apartment buildings along 11th Avenue which could provide a lot of riders. Realistically speaking, because the project budget has become so inflated and the proposal comes late in the timeline, I have a huge doubt it will happen.

seanrichardryan
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby seanrichardryan » March 31st, 2014, 10:21 am

Q. What, what? A. In da butt.

mulad
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby mulad » March 31st, 2014, 11:21 am

That's more of a land bridge than a tunnel, since it sure looks like it raised up the "ground" level from what was there before (just look at the retaining wall by the Longfellow House). If you want to call it a tunnel, it'd be of the shallow cut-and-cover variety. Of course, 2/3rds of the tunnel is used by Highway 55 -- if the highway wasn't there with its continuous flow of high-speed, loud, and polluting traffic, I don't think the tunnel would be necessary.

I believe there are three small-scale tunnels currently proposed for SWLRT which would be more comparable to the Minnehaha tunnel, not including the potential set in Kenilworth. This video from 2012 shows tunnels at Eden Prairie at Prairie Center Dr, Flying Cloud Dr/Shady Oak Rd, and in Minneapolis at 7th St:



The Kenilworth tunnel as its being proposed is much closer to the airport tunnels in cost and complexity.

David Greene
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby David Greene » March 31st, 2014, 12:02 pm

Looks like dual shallow tunnels, as expected:

http://www.startribune.com/local/west/253217051.html

Record Machine
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby Record Machine » March 31st, 2014, 2:58 pm

Excuse my ignorance on the topic, but it seems odd this thing doesn't run down Hennepin, then Lake St / Excelsior.

mamundsen
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby mamundsen » March 31st, 2014, 5:15 pm

Excuse my ignorance on the topic, but it seems odd this thing doesn't run down Hennepin, then Lake St / Excelsior.
This is his first post.... (facepalm)

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Nick
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby Nick » March 31st, 2014, 5:49 pm

A little birdie sent me a link to this...
Southwest rail debate offers choice of philosophies - Speed for suburbanites vs. higher ridership in the city
Star Tribune: Newspaper of the Twin Cities - Saturday, December 26, 1987
Author: Steve Brandt; Staff Writer

There's been a sort of love-hate attitude toward rails in the Kenwood area of Minneapolis ever since James J. Hill's railroad bisected the isthmus between the Cedar Lake and Lake of the Isles in 1867.

That line, followed by a second railroad and eventually a streetcar in 1890, helped speed the neighborhood's development by connecting it with downtown.

But some residents remember laundry soiled by coal smoke from passing locomotives, sleep interrupted by boxcar switching and noses assaulted by cattle cars parked on sidings.

Now their neighborhood is a prime candidate for rail service of a different sort - light-rail transit that could run between downtown and the western suburbs in a few years.

This possibility has aroused intense interest and often opposition among some Kenwood and Cedar-Isles residents because of the potential effects of trains and fears of accompanying development.

Interest will rise in the next month or two as an advisory committee tells the Hennepin County Board whether Kenwood or neighborhoods further east are best-suited for rail transit. The board will decide where the county's first light-rail routes will run.

The committee is expected to decide soon between the Kenwood route or several options further east that would follow the 29th St. rail line and connect with downtown via an arterial street or Interstate Hwy. 35W. Nicollet Av. is considered the chief alternate.

The question of which route is chosen is important not only for the light-rail system Hennepin County wants to build, but also for the rest of the metropolitan area in terms of rail transit philosophy.

That's because this southwest route offers county commissioners a clear choice between offering suburban riders high-speed commuting to and from downtown jobs or providing slower service to more people through south Minneapolis neighborhoods.

[...]
The whole thing is available fo' free on the Hennepin County Library website, once you log in to the archive (you'll need a barcode) you can search by the date of the issue, December 26, 1987.

...1987.
Nick Magrino
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Silophant
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby Silophant » March 31st, 2014, 5:50 pm

Welcome to the forum, Record Machine!

I'm afraid you'll probably get some snark, since this thread is basically a two-year-long discussion of that very topic, but I hope you'll stick around. Always good to see new faces. Metaphorically, at least.
Joey Senkyr
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David Greene
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby David Greene » March 31st, 2014, 7:22 pm

A little birdie sent me a link to this...
Southwest rail debate offers choice of philosophies - Speed for suburbanites vs. higher ridership in the city
Which is not the choice at all. But you all know that.

ECtransplant
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby ECtransplant » March 31st, 2014, 7:59 pm

They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results . . .

Tcmetro
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby Tcmetro » March 31st, 2014, 10:22 pm

Met Council news release (and map sans 21st St Station):

http://www.metrocouncil.org/News-Events ... chann.aspx

Archiapolis
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby Archiapolis » April 1st, 2014, 7:56 am

A little birdie sent me a link to this...
Southwest rail debate offers choice of philosophies - Speed for suburbanites vs. higher ridership in the city
Which is not the choice at all. But you all know that.
Remember, this is YOUR position and not everyone agrees with you on this point. Some would say that if this situation had to be summed up in one succinct sentence this would a good way to do so.

twincitizen
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby twincitizen » April 1st, 2014, 8:26 am

Blame County-led planning: http://www.minnpost.com/politics-policy ... d-planning

I ♥ Steve Dornfield.

Here's another one he wrote in 2012 getting at the same thing http://www.minnpost.com/cityscape/2012/ ... l-railroad

County-led transit planning in the 7-county Met Council area needs to stop. It's not helping. The era of the Met Council being anti-rail (yes, they actually were once anti-rail) is long over and the County railroad authorities are mostly just stepping on toes these days. Both Southwest and Bottineau should have been Met Council led Alternatives Analyses. I don't know that things would have turned out differently alignment-wise, but at least there wouldn't be the awkward project handoff and abdication of responsibility for earlier bad decisions by the county.

David Greene
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby David Greene » April 1st, 2014, 11:52 am

Which is not the choice at all. But you all know that.
Remember, this is YOUR position and not everyone agrees with you on this point. Some would say that if this situation had to be summed up in one succinct sentence this would a good way to do so.
Likewise, SOME would agree with you. I'm simply pointing out that this is a complex project and simplifying it to one issue is misleading and counterproductive. It is not possible to sum up the project in one sentence.

David Greene
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Re: Southwest Corridor (Green Line Extension)

Postby David Greene » April 1st, 2014, 12:07 pm

Blame County-led planning: http://www.minnpost.com/politics-policy ... d-planning

County-led transit planning in the 7-county Met Council area needs to stop. It's not helping. The era of the Met Council being anti-rail (yes, they actually were once anti-rail) is long over and the County railroad authorities are mostly just stepping on toes these days. Both Southwest and Bottineau should have been Met Council led Alternatives Analyses. I don't know that things would have turned out differently alignment-wise, but at least there wouldn't be the awkward project handoff and abdication of responsibility for earlier bad decisions by the county.
While I agree somewhat with what you and Dornfeld have written, both of you are simplifying things a bit too much. Dornfeld has repeatedly demonstrated a lack of understanding of the nuance of transportation development.

Met Council could swing and become anti-transit (not just anti-rail) again. All it takes is an anti-transit idealogue in the Governor's office. We have plenty of that kind of candidate around. Until the mechanics around Met Council appointments changes, the counties still serve an important role as keepers of the transit vision.

Dornfeld incorrectly conflates the "Bennett Loop" with the three missing stations on University Ave. Everyone agreed that the missing stations needed to be put back in the project. Almost no one thought the loop was a good idea. The loop was obvious pandering. The missing stations were not.

The FTA muddied the waters when it required the freight issue to be budgeted as part of the SWLRT project. That put resolving the issue in the hands of the Met Council. While I would agree that that counties and especially Mn/DOT have the lion's share of the blame around the freight issue, it's not correct to say that they completely abdicated their responsibility. Their responsibility was taken away by the feds.

Northstar was crippled when the link to St. Cloud was severed. It probably should have been put on hold at that point but it's not correct to say the counties botched the plan. The legislature did.

Union Depot is still very much an open question. We don't even have the Green Line going there yet. Let's wait a few years before we pass judgement.

Rush Line and Red Rock were appropriately scaled back. It's not the counties' fault that the "expensive studies" determined rail isn't the right option at this time. That's *why* we do the studies!

The municipal consent laws aren't really the problem as far as canceled transit projects go (we haven't had any, by the way). It's the lack of political will to push projects forward. The consent laws allow moving forward without consent. We're seeing the political will to push hard for SWLRT and that's a good thing for the future of transit in our region. Minneapolis will undoubtedly get something out of the deal and that's a good thing too. The process is working as intended.


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