Green Line Extension - Southwest LRT

[Hamstirly]

I am one such Franklin and Lyndale rider who would benefit from a bus directly to W 21st for beach time. I took a look at the planned routing for the 2 extension from the 2015 service plan linked in the strib article and it roughly followed the 25 route: going up from the current layover spot at Dupont and Hennepin to Douglas, then west until Oliver/Penn, and down to W 21st by the school and commercial node before turning to the bus station. Having been to Thomas and W 21st many times in the last year I can confirm there's a pretty huge concrete sidewalk and bus pad for the W 21st St 25 stop on the southwest corner of the intersection, but pretty terrible options in the street grid for turning around. I would have to imagine a loop with W 21st, 22nd, and Kenwood Parkway, but that wouldn't be as convenient as the loop and Dupont and Hennepin.

I'd like to ride SWLRT from W 21st because it's the closest stop for me, but I think the point about more efficient routes wherever I'm going still works even for me because of the Douglas routing. If I'm heading toward Eden Prairie, it makes more sense to take the 17 to W Lake, and if I'm heading toward my normal commuting destination by Victoria St, it makes more sense to take the E into downtown and get on the green line at Hennepin than to backtrack through Lowry Hill.

I think we're all just disappointed at how suburban commuter focused the third light rail line in the metro is when more transit dependent communities are lacking.

[Tiller]

Having the 2 bus take Hennepin and Lake to the West Lake station does actually sound pretty nice

[commissioner]

The trench was a through-route for trains until the tracks on the east end were severed in 1998, and TC&W moved to what was planned to be a temporary routing in the Kenilworth Corridor. Also apparently a grain silo near Chicago Avenue was still being served by rail from the west until the very late 90s or very early 00s.
[/quote]

I can vouch for this, I was volunteering at Abbott Northwestern in 1999 and remember trains being there. I can't remember when the tracks were ripped out, probably before 2005, judging by Google Earth.

[quagga]

One under-acknowledged impact of 3C options was that the transition from the railroad trench into the cut-and-cover tunnel under Nicollet would have required bringing the trail up to surface level through the area, and possibly also rerouting it entirely up to 29th/Newman.

[mattaudio]

I had some major disagreements with how they engineered and presented the 3C options.
I also think it would have been worth exploring putting the rails in/under the 35W corridor when it was torn up between Lake and downtown. Could have had a stops at Nicollet/Greenway, Franklin/35W, and maybe even 26th-28th/35W, and wouldn't have torn up a business corridor.

[Mdcastle]

Or we could go back even farther in time and run light rail down the 35W median to Burnsville like we planned to in the 80s.

[twincitizen]

The Best Laid Plans

If you haven't read this comprehensive article by former forum poster Alex B, I think you'll enjoy it. Tons of old maps from several decades worth of LRT planning.

[Hamstirly]

The RSF in Hopkins appears to be done from the exterior.

https://imgur.com/a/8RAhufA

The huge piles of concrete rail ties suggest to me they're going to do something more with the pocket track they have there right now.

[twincitizen]

FOX 9: Southwest LRT project nears completion, opening date announcement expected this fall
*Testing for the Southwest Light Rail extension is on schedule, with completion expected by November or December.
*Metro Transit plans to announce the official opening date this fall, with the line set to welcome riders in 2027.
*The final phase includes extensive safety tests and hiring, with the last major construction in the Kenwood neighborhood.

The last one is a bit of an understatement as catenary wire still has not been installed through much of the Kenilworth corridor.

[phop]

Returning to the Kenilworth corridor tree discussions, they've since done some really high quality tree plantings along the trail. I think it will look very nice in 5-10 years.

[Wezle]

Sounds like we'll know the SWLRT opening date on September 26th! Lots of good info about the status of the Green Line Extension in tomorrow's presentation to the Met Council.

https://metrocouncil.org/Council-Meetin ... ation.aspx

[Oreos&Milk]

How do you build a train station in the woods and design it in a way that makes it impossible for there to be a bus connection

It's not "in the woods" the woods JUST hide the beach on the lake that is frozen and not usable for most typical people who don't enjoy freezing and playing on top of a frozen lake 7-9 months out of the year.

There is gonna be TENS of people using this station on the weekly. Maybe even 12!

Also hover buses could simply fly over the woods. Hope that solves that!

[Wezle]

If the city council has any sense, they'll push for upzoning around the station in the 2050 plan, but I'm guessing that Elizabeth Shaffer will be an obstacle in making that happen.

Interior 2/Urban neighborhood zoning around a station for a $2.9 billion transit project in Minneapolis would be such a waste of potential.

[Hamstirly]

Everybody ought to campaign hard to reelect Katie Cashman if they want it upzoned.

With the 25L branch through Kenwood being eliminated in the network now amendment, the already very low chance Metro transit changes course and the route 25 platforms at W 21st St Station get upgraded for route 2 aBRT service becomes even lower.

[Bakken2016]

Everybody ought to campaign hard to reelect Katie Cashman if they want it upzoned.

With the 25L branch through Kenwood being eliminated in the network now amendment, the already very low chance Metro transit changes course and the route 25 platforms at W 21st St Station get upgraded for route 2 aBRT service becomes even lower.

I’m not sure Katie will run for re-election in 2029, she actually works for Metro Transit now.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[BikesOnFilm]

If Katie Cashman wanted to seek re-election, this is literally the last thing she would champion because it would ensure every single one of these people emptied their wallets to ensure Shaffer would hold this seat for as long as Goodman did.

Longer, even. No patronage city job for you, Elizabeth. You're needed to hold the line against the urbanists.

[J. Mc]

https://www.metrotransit.org/news/green ... ning-date/

[twincitizen]

The Green Line opening in 2014 was a much bigger deal to the general public than SWLRT due to connecting the two downtowns and the U, and IIRC they didn't market the announcement itself at all. We had known for a while that it would open in summer, but the exact date (June 14) wasn't announced until January 22, which they just announced online with minimal fanfare.

If they're gonna hold an in-person event just to announce the opening date, it damn well better be good news. Holding this event to announce anything later than June will invite mockery. If SWLRT follows the Green Line precedent of announcing the opening date ~five months in advance, we'd actually be looking at a February-March opening. That would be something to celebrate with an event like this. But that seems extremely unlikely... Are they even doing powered test runs of the full line yet? Safe to assume there will be about six months of 'full run' testing.

[angrysuburbanite]

I'm placing my bets on June 12th, 2027. I'd love to see a spring opening, but it appears that the Blue Line will be closed basically through the whole spring. It will still be closed partially until August, but I feel like Metro Transit wouldn't want to open SWLRT without access into downtown Minneapolis or a Blue Line connection.

As an aside, it really sucks that the full extent of the LRT system won't be available for use until the very end of 2027 (and still without two of the busiest stations, Franklin Ave and Lake/Midtown until 2029). Renew the Blue is necessary but is occurring at probably the absolute worst time in the system's history. While I'm looking forward to SWLRT opening and it is going to be incredibly useful for so many residents, the system really can't be partially closed since it will make all of the "SWLRT fails to meet ridership expectations" or "LRT ridership declines despite SWLRT's opening" headlines overtake the truly positive impact it will have on the metro area. If the Central Corridor can barely reach 25,000 daily rides these days I'm not too confident SWLRT will even come close to the original projections. I bet KSTP, the Star Tribune, etc. are already cooking up their anti-LRT stories to suck all of the excitement of a new train line opening.

I've been watching this thing get constructed since elementary school and I'm really looking forward to riding it, though. I think I can speak for all of us that it will be a good feeling to have this project's saga firmly behind us. Hopefully the Bottineau extension goes smoothly enough that everyone can forget about SWLRT just like they forgot about both Central Corridor and Hiawatha's stellar initial performance.

[BikesOnFilm]

I’m going to throw out a potentially controversial opinion: as long as we resolve whether or not we’re building the Blue Line Extension before this opens, I do not care whether SWLRT is perceived to be a success by the public or our local media or not.

The well of public opinion on our light rail system in general and SWLRT specifically is so thoroughly poisoned that short of an overnight, impossible to ignore blockbuster success, the people who sell papers and get clicks by creating comment section arguments over transit projects are not going to judge the addition fairly or even handily.

If we’ve already got the funding for BLE in hand, great. If not, we probably didn’t figure out the funding shortfall or the FTA refused to give us the matching funds. At that point, BLE likely isn’t going to happen no matter even if we see 75,000 riders on SWLRT a day.

BLE aside, there isn’t going to be a next LRT line for a generation unless we radically change how we fund and build them, and unless the voting public of the Twin Cities suddenly starts behaving like Central MN voters, there is no chance elected leaders will ever allow our LRT to meet a similar fate to Northstar.

In other words, the difference between SWLRT being panned as juice not worth the squeeze and SWLRT being an overnight metro game changer is the headlines on articles that will be forgotten after a month anyway.

It’s too much to hope that this project is so successful that it immediately erases the memory of the struggle to get it built. That’s just not going to happen. The best thing we can hope for is that in a generation, we’ve built enough housing around our train lines that people who didn’t grow up with a chip on their shoulder about Kenilworth and delays and the price tag just know it as the train that takes them downtown.