Green Line Extension - Southwest LRT

[mattaudio]

To think we had dedicated electrified rail transit right of way from 31st and Irving all the way out to downtown Hopkins up until about 60 years ago...

[mulad]

Ah, right, my mind blitzed on that one.

[David Greene]

To think we had dedicated electrified rail transit right of way from 31st and Irving all the way out to downtown Hopkins up until about 60 years ago...

Actually, all the way from downtown St. Paul through the U and out to Lake Minnetonka!

It was the Central Corridor of its day, the backbone of the streetcar system that intersected almost all of the major lines. It had three minute headways at peak travel times.

Pretty sad that we now consider 15 minute headways "high frequency."

[twincitizen]

I think Hopkins will benefit enormously from LRT. Their plans are to focus commercial activity near 8th & Main, and hope to have mixed-use development along the 8th St Corridor to the LRT Station. Hopkins is located right in the middle of the SW corridor, with access to jobs downtown or in EP in under 20 minutes. I'm sure there will be some kind of Hopkins circulator to bring folks outside of walking distance to the station.

Hopkins is pretty unique in the Twin Cities. Sure, there are other former towns that have become suburbs, like Hastings and Stillwater, but they are way too far away. The Twin Cities would a way better place if more suburbs had Hopkins-like walkable centers with a true main street.

[mattaudio]

I'd love to see a streetcar connection from SW LRT through Hopkins. Maybe it could go up 8th Ave then west on the old RR ROW to Excelsior!

Then, at Hopkins, it could run east on SWLRT to Louisiana, where it could cut through that old connection MN&S/MILW connection past Methodist Hospital. Then east down 39th St, crossing Hwy 100. It could run on Excelsior and then connect in to West Lake station. From there it could even interline with a Greenway streetcar!

It would also be sweet if there was some way to link up SWLRT north to West End, but I think it would ultimately be easier to build something that branches off from the Penn station west along the BNSF to West End.

[twincitizen]

URS was not awarded a contract! Whoa...huge loss for them.
http://finance-commerce.com/2012/12/urs ... rt-work-2/ (unlocked article)

Kimley-Horn will design the eastern half (Mpls Interchange to Shady Oak)
AECOM will design the western half (post-Shady Oak to Mitchell Road)

There will be an additional contract awarded in May for another firm to "peer-review" these two projects, as a result of the URS fallout. For those not up to speed, URS was previously in line for a contract to prelim- engineer the whole line until the Sabo Bridge fiasco. They still submitted new bids for the eastern and western halves of the project, but ranked lower than Kimley-Horn and AECOM, respectively.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say URS won't get the peer-review contract either

[mattaudio]

Key task for Southwest light rail engineers: Reroute
http://finance-commerce.com/2012/12/key ... s-reroute/

I was thinking about the existing reroute plan, which involves an expensive flyover bridge yet still has the less than ideal alignment crossing W. Lake St and Wooddale near the H.S.

I wonder why a cut and cover alternative has not been examined: http://goo.gl/maps/p8vBb This would fly the rail underneath MN-7 and Wooddale, then northbound underneath Brunswick in line with the existing alignment. With the crazy expense of the existing two options, it doesn't seem unreasonable to ask how much this alternative would be.

[fehler]

I don't see what the map is trying to accomplish. So to keep freight traffic from disrupting a high school, you propose moving it adjacent to Methodist Hospital?

[mattaudio]

You're right, the proposed reroute of the CP to take advantage of the cut-under tunnel would bring the CP trains about 470 feet closer to Methodist than the current MN&S routing.

The CP could stay on the existing MN&S alignment, even if the TC&W connected under Brunswick Ave, which would save even more expense and likely make this alt more cost competitive with the proposed spendy flyover. It would mean the status quo as far as trains through the Lake/Wooddale grade crossings (a couple CP trains a day).

I also thought the old "industrial loop" alignment should be preserved down the line, as it could actually serve Methodist with a streetcar feeder. Imagine Greenway streetcars continuing southwest from West Lake, then running down Excelsior Blvd. Before the Hwy 100 mess, they fly over 100 and run down W. 39th St. (which I'm sure the neighbors would love ) then past the NE corner of Methodist, to the Louisiana stop. Interline with SWLRT from Louisiana to Hopkins, then run north through DT Hopkins to the old RR ROW, then connect to Minnetonka Mills or beyond. Legit!

[seanrichardryan]

http://www.thejournalmpls.com/news/news ... ght-rail-0

(lthey finally updated their horrible site)

[twincitizen]

Ah, that's why I couldn't get the article to load earlier. Their website finally looks better than the one I made in high school...in the year 2000...in the year 2000.

[Ubermoose]

So it appears that even the railroad sees how unsafe and unacceptable the reroute would be. They pretty much mirror what Safety in the Park and so many residents have been saying all along. It seems that maybe colocation might get another look after all. http://kstp.com/news/stories/S2885814.shtml?cat=127

[Le Sueur]

Anyone else think the woman on the trail was a rail engineer? "I don't even know how they would get trains up there?"
I think discourse is great, but isn't there a reason the preliminary engineering is something like $32million.

[VAStationDude]

Freight rail companies stridently defending their turf isn't news. SLP rail opponents are in no way validated.

[Ubermoose]

Freight rail companies stridently defending their turf isn't news. SLP rail opponents are in no way validated.

Really?! I think that this is more than a freight rail company wanting the pot sweetened. The very legitimate concerns are clearly stated here http://finance-commerce.com/2013/01/rer ... led-risky/

[twincitizen]

Anyone else think that co-location means the 21st St Station would bite the dust?

21st can't be anything more than an at-grade walk-up station anyways, but that doesn't seem to mesh with an active rail corridor. Obviously I have an agenda wanting 21st St to be mothballed, and it might be anyways, but I thought it was worth consideration.

On the flippy-flip, I wonder what co-location means for the Midtown streetcar trackage that would terminate at/near West Lake Station. Is there room for freight, trails, LRT, and streetcar under the Lake Street Bridge? I suppose, at worst, Midtown streetcar would terminate north of the bridge and folks would have to walk a very short distance to Westlake LRT platforms.

[min-chi-cbus]

Aren't there only like 4-6 trains per day on this section of the SW Corridor? Is that REALLY an isssue? I realize that it could disrupt the schedule of departures for LRT but it seems like something that could be worked around. How does North Star do it? Doesn't it run on the BNSF super-busy corridor?

[mattaudio]

But I'm fairly certain if there was any track integration between LRT and the freight rail network, it would open an entire can of worms with FRA regulations, waivers, etc. It seems more common for longer-distance standalone DMU lines like San Diego or New Jersey have. Not feasible here, at least in the current regulatory alignment.

I wish they'd give study to the cost of routing TC&W *under* MN-7/Wooddale and two blocks of residential streets, then a portal to approach the existing grade (as described elsewhere). The idea does sound crazy and expensive, but I'd like to know how relatively crazy and expensive (or cheaper) it is than the existing flyover proposal.

[mulad]

No matter which route is chosen, I'm sure the LRT tracks are going to be completely separate from the freight tracks, so they both should be able to operate without any worries about what's going on with the other service.

There are a few examples of LRT sharing tracks with freight in the U.S., but I think they work out a schedule so that freights only operate in the overnight hours when LRT isn't running. There's a line or two in Salt Lake City that comes to mind. NJT's River Line LRT from Camden to Trenton, NJ is designed to co-mingle with freights, though I'm not sure if they've actually operated in that manner due to FRA regulations. That line uses DMU (diesel multiple-unit) trains, so there isn't any catenary overhead.

The MetroRail commuter line in Austin, Texas uses rolling stock that's similar to the NJT hardware (Stadler GTW), and apparently they've been granted the ability to share tracks with freights at any time of day, but they're running a commuter-style schedule which goes down to once-hourly frequencies during midday.

Regarding the TC&W's concerns, I have definitely wondered if the curve radius and grade on that junction is satisfactory or not. It doesn't necessarily translate, but I remember playing with my family's model train set as a kid and causing the whole thing to come crashing down as it pulled uphill around a sharp curve -- I probably just tried to make it accelerate too quickly, and the little plastic rail cars likely had a different center of mass than real ones do, but a train being pulled is always going to try to straighten out. The wheels and rails can only withstand so much lateral force before cars jump the tracks.

While that's a worry, I presume that an actual engineer who knows what they're doing has been involved with this design and has validated that it can be operated safely. It'll be something different for TC&W, which has a pretty simple flat, straight route today. It's a new hill where they'll push their locomotives a bit harder than normal and be aware of how to operate on sharper turns, but that's about it as far as I can tell.

[Ubermoose]

No matter which route is chosen, I'm sure the LRT tracks are going to be completely separate from the freight tracks, so they both should be able to operate without any worries about what's going on with the other service.

There are a few examples of LRT sharing tracks with freight in the U.S., but I think they work out a schedule so that freights only operate in the overnight hours when LRT isn't running.

Running them on the same track has never been an option that I am aware of. The only option for both using the Kenilworth Corridor has been colocation.