Northstar Commuter Rail

[DanPatchToget]

The federal government didn't provide enough money to connect to St. Cloud back when the line didn't exist and it was unknown whether that ridership would be high enough to justify the full route, but projected not to be enough.

Now that the line does exist, we absolutely know that ridership does not justify the extension.

So in a world where cities and municipalities are competing for the same pool of federal transportation funds (assuming we don't change this paradigm for one where states make their own decisions in the near future), does it make sense to compete for $600 million in funding for a project that will never be worth the cost, or to compete for funding for projects like the Blue Line Extension, BRT routes, or infrastructure updates to help establish state supported Amtrak routes? As an aside - we spent around $50 million on improvements for Borealis, and we shared that cost with WSDOT and federal partners. Spending $600 million because maybe that'll help a Borealis extension to Fargo is just not a good use of money.

I'm sorry, there's just not going to be a world where this is ever going to be worth it. If there was a way to use the St. Cloud Amtrak station, skip Becker, and not have to do any sort of capacity expansion to the tracks, it would be one thing. But it seems, for one reason or another, that this isn't an option.

That's to say nothing about what we'd actually be buying for that money - say you make St. Cloud into an affordable bedroom community for Minneapolis with convenient service of 6-8 trains a day that gets a lot of love and ridership. St. Cloud's current parking regulations call for 2 parking spaces per unit. Their comprehensive plan cites proposed township annexations as a way to facilitate growth, and says explicitly that "single family homes will remain the dominant land use in the city."

If you had to choose to make it easier and more affordable to live in St. Cloud and commute to work by transit to Minneapolis, or make it easier and more affordable to live and commute to work by transit in Columbia Heights, Richfield, St. Louis Park, or Robbinsdale, what makes the most sense from an ecological or urbanist perspective? Hint - it's not a $600 million dollar bailout to sprawl in Stearns County.

Since you've already unreasonably concluded that Northstar is a failure, I'll just leave you with this:
Do you think the Borealis would be as successful as it is if it only went slightly over half way between Chicago and the Twin Cities, and in the small town of Tomah passengers had to transfer to a bus to reach the Twin Cities? Would you consider it a failure and not worth saving because it didn't reach ridership expectations and more funding would be needed for the Borealis to reach the Twin Cities? By your logic, why bailout the sprawling Twin Cities just so some tourists can ride a train instead of driving to Chicago for their weekend trips?

[BikesOnFilm]

If someone had genuinely set up a train route between Tomah and Chicago with the expectation that people from the Twin Cities would need to ride it in droves in order to justify expanding it, and fifteen years later it had a fraction of the ridership it had when it first opened and now would cost $600 million to finish, then yeah, I would want that train shut down.

Also I'd hope whoever was responsible for such an idea was fired, because they somehow managed to make a project that cost $50 million in our reality cost $600 million.

I don't think it's unreasonable to conclude Northstar is a failure. The data speaks for itself.

[Korh]

https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews ... uter-rail/
Looks like it's the annual empty threat to "kill Northstar" again
I swear there has been an attempt even year or so and I take them as seriously as when someone pushes a bill to expand it to St cloud

[BikesOnFilm]

I do like that it's conditional on the FTA grant being forgiven. That's my usual frustration with the budget hawks saying "cut Northstar, cancel SWLRT," etc. At least this legislator recognizes that the are potential consequences that would need to be addressed or mitigated before we could just cancel the train.

I'd say if we could get FTA permission to avoid having to repay the grant, this legislator agrees to vote to preserve the transit funds Walz is trying to cut, and a conversation opens up to try and transfer the equipment to Amtrak for regional rail service, that's not a bad deal. It's certainly better than pretending that we're ever going to extend this or that the current status quo is a good use of resources. DMUs can be more efficient than gasoline cars, but not if they're running empty.

[Bakken2016]

https://x.com/callaghanpeter/status/189 ... 81587?s=46

They just announced they are planning to transition to bus service in the Northstar Corridor.

[Korh]

https://x.com/callaghanpeter/status/189 ... 81587?s=46

They just announced they are planning to transition to bus service in the Northstar Corridor.

Again gonna take this with a bucket of salt because how many studies have there been to shake up the status quo in the 2ish decades since it opened be it expanding one train a day to St Cloud or making it an express bus route .
Anyone know the exact details of the federal grant and what would would be have to do exactly that Washington would start asking for the money back because tbh I think they might make it a mixed corridor with 1 or 2 trains during the busiest weekday hours, and buses to cover the rest of the day.

[EOst]

Are there any technical reasons the Northstar train sets couldn’t be reused for a different longer route, especially NLX? It’s been discussed here before how agonizingly long the wait time is for trains.

[thespeedmccool]

I think it's pretty clear that the DFL isn't willing to fight for Northstar and Met Council sees the writing on the wall. It's something Dems can let Republicans win on and pay little to political costs.

DFL will let Republicans pass the "kill Northstar" bill, and the administration will try to save face by making it look like they've been planning to do this themselves anyway.

RIP Northstar. I mostly blame MNDOT for never really putting their weight behind a St. Cloud extension and for their never-ceasing commitment to widen 94 and US 10.

[BikesOnFilm]

I think it's pretty clear that the DFL isn't willing to fight for Northstar and Met Council sees the writing on the wall.

I'd go a step further and say I would have been upset if the DFL wasted limited political capital fighting for this. This was always where we were heading from the day it was decided to not build the entire train to Saint Cloud.

This is a project that in its current form is mostly useful for the residents of Anoka and Sherburne Counties, two places that either wasted the opportunity to develop around station areas and build transit ridership, or were actively hostile to the concept. The lesson that I would hope our leaders learn (though I won't hold my breath) is that sometimes the federal one-size-fits-all guidelines for funding are not rational. This was true under the Bush FTA that gave us this grant, and it's especially true under the current FTA that claims it will prioritize funding projects in areas with high marriage and birth rates.

If the federal partners tell us to do things like only build half the train in order to qualify for the grant funding, we should probably find some other funding stream or not build the train.

[angrysuburbanite]

https://www.house.mn.gov/members/profil ... 5436/50198

Direct link to house bill for those interested.

While ridership has never met expectations, it plummeted from 767,000 in 2019 to just 275 daily riders in 2022.

This so misleading... not only is it not the most recent count, it portrays 2019's YEARLY ridership as the daily ridership. As if 760k people in this metro area would ever ride transit of any kind.

[mattaudio]

With the "Northstar Reimagined" or Borealis extension options, they should really consider infill stops at Little Falls, Wadena, Perham etc.

[Tcmetro]

Interesting development. Northstar in it's current form only works with strong downtown employment. A lot of investment is needed to make it a real all-day option.

I would at least be interested in seeing the subsidy cost of the train compared to the total number of bus trips that would need to be added and a comparison on the capital needed (e.g. the additional buses) to the sunk costs of the rail infrastructure.

At a minimum, the Riverdale station can/should be repositioned for Amtrak to use.

[Silophant]

Did MnDOT actually release the overarching corridor study that they were supposed to be done with by Feb 1st, or did they just decide not to bother?

[wingedmolotov]

Is this the one you're talking about?

[Silophant]

It is! Thanks for the link, my Google skills were not up to the task.

[Didier]

What’s Peter Callaghan still doing on Twitter?

[DanPatchToget]

If Northstar is replaced by a bus service, I would hope there would be plenty of advanced notice, as I'd like to get video of Northstar trains all along the route, and of course ride it.

Also if this does actually happen, shame on the FTA/DOT/whoever for deciding it would be better to half-bake Northstar, and shame on MnDOT, Met Council, the counties, etc. for doing squat to fix it when it was clear from the beginning that it was a half-baked project.

[Korh]

Someone who actually remembers this stuff probably should chime in but from what I've heard 2nd hand from older coworkers, Ventura was all for it and if he had a 2nd term it probably would of gotten to St. Cloud. But Pawlenty didn't want it at first and only changed his mind after mndot proposed a scaled-back version that a) would be a good bargaining chip with the DFL and b) would get bush era funding

[DanPatchToget]

Out of curiosity I looked at the travel time of Northstar vs bus between Big Lake and downtown Minneapolis (using Government Plaza Station as a reference point). Northstar + light rail takes an hour, while a hypothetical bus replacement serving all the Northstar stations except Target Field would take 68 minutes under ideal conditions. Unlike Northstar though, the bus is at the mercy of traffic, weather, road construction, etc., and even if there's a shoulder lane to bypass traffic congestion it would still be going far slower than the train. This also doesn't take into account other stops a possible bus replacement could make such as Anoka Tech, which could maybe bring in more riders, but also makes the travel time longer.

Just food for thought. There's a lot of questions to be answered about the Met Council/MnDOT's apparent plan to replace Northstar with a bus, and they should be very transparent about it as well as giving the public plenty of time and opportunity to speak out about it before moving forward with any plans.

At the very least, if Northstar gets replaced with a bus, they should keep the trains and the Big Lake maintenance facility, so if our supposed pro-transit policymakers have spines they'll fund a new use for the trains like more intercity service along part of the existing Empire Builder route.

[mattaudio]

What would it take to rehab these trainsets for more regional use, maybe operated by Amtrak? Rehab existing coaches with better seating? Maybe one upstairs on each trainset could be a cafe/lounge? Maybe others as business class?