Streets and highways are near or at capacity, and buses are full, sometimes 'Army' full!
Transit increases on surface streets must negotiate this load.
Our weather stalls all traffic, causes accidents and makes waiting for transit simply miserable.
It needs to be a major consideration for the city's future.
There seems to be little interest in elevated systems.
Worldwide underground systems are widespread and highly successful.
One only needs on ride on Washington D.C.'s brilliant Metro system to be convinced- or travel in Germany with layers of underground trains in areas.
Does Minneapolis/St. Paul have density/ridership that would justify a big dig?
How does our geography affect tunneling?
From Wikipedia:
Where would it go? UofM, downtowns, North and South Minneapolis and airport would seem hard to leave out.The land of the area sits on top of thick layers of sandstone and limestone laid down as seas encroached upon and receded from the region
Because it is comparatively easy to dig through limestone and there are many natural and man-made open spaces, it has often been proposed that the area should examine the idea of building subways for public transportation. In theory, it could be less expensive in the Twin Cities than in many other places, but the cost would still be much greater than surface projects.
Last, instead of starting another fantasy thread, how much does tunneling cost? Is there even enough money to get a start- Say from South Minneapolis through downtown (across a massive river) to North?