Green Line Extension - Southwest LRT

[mattaudio]

I wonder that if, instead of building a viaduct southwest of the rail crossing for the trains to enter the MN&S line, they brought the rail under Hwy 7 and Southwest LRT into a short cut and cover tunnel under Brunswick Street, then emerging north of Lake Street.... it would move the big expense of the viaduct to an area where it would serve a second purpose of getting rid of some nasty grade crossings.

[mulad]

The "StribCast" from today says that the $123 million price differential between routing through Kenilworth versus St. Louis Park is erroneous -- apparently it's only $23 million more expensive to go through Kenilworth than SLP, which is much more in line with what the previous study said. This is reportedly a typo.

I think it was the third part of this video:

http://www.startribune.com/video/181029241.html

[twincitizen]

I think you have it backwards. Co-location is $23MM cheaper than the re-route. That would seem to make sense, infrastructurally speaking.

http://www.startribune.com/local/west/181051951.html

Interesting comment by "liberalelite" (one of my favorite prolific Strib commenters):

The expense of relocating trains out of the Kenilworth corridor should NOT come out of the LRT project's budget because the LRT project did not cause this mess. A highway project did.... When MnDOT grade-separated Hiawatha and Lake over a decade ago as part of the upgrade of MN 55, they severed the ex-Milwaukee Road trackage used by TC&W. The "interim" solution was to use the Kenilworth corridor, which had already been purchased by the Hennepin County Regional Railroad Authority. This is another example of a cost caused by a highway project being transferred to transit project funding.

Is it possible liberalelite is an UrbanMSPer? And how accurate is his comment? I'm confused as to where the trains would go once north of Lake Street in his scenario, had the track not been severed. (mulad or mattaudio probably know!)

Also, can anyone answer definitively if the reroute would be necessary if we 3C had been chosen? I'm thinking no. In that case, my sympathy level for St. Louis Park is near zero. Anyone care to illustrate the difference between how freight is routed currently vs. the re-route in Google?

[mulad]

I'm still baffled why we aren't being given actual costs for either route, only differences. And apparently the new study has increased the costs over the old study by at least $80 million, making these options 3 to 6 times more expensive than they were originally believed to be (costs which already seemed rather high to me, but what do I know...)

Anyway, here's a map of the freight rerouting. The orange line is where the Milwaukee Road used to go through the 29th Street corridor and across Lake Street with a little curve just south of 28th Street. I suppose I should add a MN Commercial line to this to show where that goes today...

TC&W is in brown (though some of their route is owned by CP and HCRRA, if I understand things correctly), CP/MN&S is in red except for the reroute segment, which I put in yellow. BNSF's Wayzata Sub is in sky blue.

[mulad]

Hmm.. I suppose the $100 million error may have caused one of the alternatives to work out to a negative cost.

There was a cost estimate in 2011 that said routing through SLP would cost $76.7 million (well, including a 30% contingency, which is unlikely to be reached, so it the project would probably come in "under budget").

Assuming that re-re-studying the route came up with a similar cost, I suppose the Kenilworth option may have worked out to something like $53 million, which is well within the 2009 study's numbers, which gave a huge range of $20 to $120 million for Kenilworth.

Still, the reroute through SLP should only need about 2000 feet of single track with no fancy signaling or electrification, so how the hell it could come out at $53 million is beyond me. Staring at this preliminary design from 2010, I see some possible reasons -- they want to overlay this new junction on top of the spur that currently exists, when at least the northern leg should probably be deleted entirely (which would remove the need for two bridges and shorten a third), and there's a significant length of a second track south of the "Iron Triangle" junction with BNSF which could probably be placed in the empty BNSF corridor rather than the backyards of houses (though I think there probably used to be a second track there).

Of course, this track went in around 1918 and the houses came a few decades later. I posed some questions to a local railroading mailing list and it was pointed out that the original rail line was meant to be an electrified interurban rather than a steam/diesel freight line, so it doesn't have the same amount of right-of-way as other corridors around here do, but we're still fighting over some spacing decisions made long ago and which are probably irrelevant anyway (most structures that are really "in the way" are garages or sheds rather than houses, and nothing is physically in the way -- just in the potential right-of-way where some train might derail eventually, possibly. In the old days, large rights-of-way made sense for steam locomotives spewing burning embers, but that's generally not a problem with diesels.)

[Andrew_F]

Wait... If colocation is cheaper than the reroute, why is the reroute being chosen? I was always under the impression that the reroute was cheaper than colocation. What are the arguments against colocation? Just that freight is unpleasant?

[mulad]

This was the cost summary table from the 2009 study, which looked at 6 options.

[table=border-collapse: collapse; border: 1px solid #888888;][tr=][td=border: 1px solid #888888; font-weight: bold; text-align: center]Alignment[/td][td=border: 1px solid #888888; font-weight: bold; text-align: center]Cost[/td][/tr]
[tr=][td=border: 1px solid #888888; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em;]Kenilworth Corridor - Existing Alignment[/td][td=text-align: right; border: 1px solid #888888; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em;]$20,000,000 - $120,000,000[/td][/tr]
[tr=][td=border: 1px solid #888888; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em]Midtown Corridor[/td][td=text-align: right; border: 1px solid #888888; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em]$136,000,000[/td][/tr]
[tr=][td=border: 1px solid #888888; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em]MNS Sub Alignment through St. Louis Park[/td][td=text-align: right; border: 1px solid #888888; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em]$48,000,000[/td][/tr]
[tr=][td=border: 1px solid #888888; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em]Chaska Cut-Off[/td][td=text-align: right; border: 1px solid #888888; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em]$105,000,000[/td][/tr]
[tr=][td=border: 1px solid #888888; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em]Old Railroad Alignment along Hwy 169[/td][td=text-align: right; border: 1px solid #888888; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em]$120,000,000[/td][/tr]
[tr=][td=border: 1px solid #888888; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em]Western MN Connection with BNSF[/td][td=text-align: right; border: 1px solid #888888; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em]$60,000,000[/td][/tr][/table]
The Kenilworth alignment always had the possibility of being cheaper ($20 million low end). The 2009 study attributes the high-end cost to the need for property takings, but I suppose that value never should have passed an initial smell test -- say, 20 properties at $5 million a pop, or 100 properties at $1m each, for instance? Pretty unlikely.

But just looking at the raw prices doesn't take into account how the railroads themselves operate. I'm not sure if they've been involved as much as they should have been -- Twin Cities & Western typically exchanges cars/trains with Canadian Pacific, and the new junction in St. Louis Park would allow them to send trains up to CP's Humboldt Yard in North Minneapolis rather than all the way out to the St. Paul Yard east of the Union Depot. TC&W would probably benefit a lot from reduced operating costs, and they wouldn't have to negotiate to travel on BNSF's tracks as often either -- they'd only have to talk to CP most of the time. (Hmm... Don't anyone tell Golden Valley, Crystal, or Brooklyn Park about the scary new 4 trains/day...)

[MNdible]

The City of Minneapolis comments to the SW LRT DEIS are now available. There's some good information in there regarding the freight co-location and also regarding a possible location of the Operations and Maintenance Facility in the North Loop. (Spoiler alert -- the city doesn't like either of those things).

The report also includes this interesting fact:

All five (5) proposed stations in Minneapolis are essential to the success of the line. Removing any of the stations from the scope of the project will deny the benefits of the project to low income and minority populations identified in the diagrams shown in the Environmental Justice Chapter. The Royalston and VanWhite stations are adjacent to higher concentrations of minority populations and the Penn Avenue, 21st Street, and West Lake stations are adjacent to higher concentrations of low income populations.

[Andrew_F]

Thanks for the link.

I find this section particularly interesting:

The alignment of the Locally Preferred Alternative arrives at The Interchange via a tunnel under
7th Street North. Since the time that Hennepin County completed the conceptual engineering this DEIS, they subsequently learned through the Interchange design process that a tunnel under 7th Street is not feasible. The project office must evaluate the other options of an at-grade crossing or a bridge based on traffic issues, visual quality, access for all modes of transportation, and development potential. This analysis should be accomplished with consideration of a Bottineau alignment

I wonder why it's not feasible.

[MNdible]

Yeah, I was wondering that myself. I wonder if it's because of the way that the new Interchange tail tracks bridge over the entrance to the HERC, raising the grade at that point such that they can't subsequently dive under 7th Street? If so, that would seem to be a case of the tail wagging the dog. It's hard to say -- the grades over there are already strange, or it could be that there are some major underground utilities that we don't know about.

[UptownSport]

The report also includes this interesting fact:

All five (5) proposed stations in Minneapolis are essential to the success of the line. Removing any of the stations from the scope of the project will deny the benefits of the project to low income and minority populations identified in the diagrams shown in the Environmental Justice Chapter. The Royalston and VanWhite stations are adjacent to higher concentrations of minority populations and the Penn Avenue, 21st Street, and West Lake stations are adjacent to higher concentrations of low income populations.

Bah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Bah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Bah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Bah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Bah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Bah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Bah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Bah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Bah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Bah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Bah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Bah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Bah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Bah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Bah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Bah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Bah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Bah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Bah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Bah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Bah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Bah-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Wow, if you work for the State, you can just say whatever you with absolute impunity!

[web]

probably a hired out of town consultant

[twincitizen]

Thanks for the link.

I find this section particularly interesting:

The alignment of the Locally Preferred Alternative arrives at The Interchange via a tunnel under
7th Street North. Since the time that Hennepin County completed the conceptual engineering this DEIS, they subsequently learned through the Interchange design process that a tunnel under 7th Street is not feasible. The project office must evaluate the other options of an at-grade crossing or a bridge based on traffic issues, visual quality, access for all modes of transportation, and development potential. This analysis should be accomplished with consideration of a Bottineau alignment

I wonder why it's not feasible.

In other words it will be built at grade, just effing wonderful. How many times will that intersection (7th-Olson) get torn up? Once for Southwest and again for Bottineau? Could we possibly coordinate a single damn thing related to transit in this town? I know the Interchange project was short on money and needed to be built in a hurry to open 2014, but this crap is getting ridiculous. First we built the tail tracks that lasted <3 years...now this to look forward to.

[mattaudio]

I think this is an opportunity to completely rework the 7th/Olson/Royalston corner.... ideas?

[twincitizen]

^Now I was just thinking that!

With a proper road diet on 7th and Olson (or just call it 6th Avenue and ditch the name "highway" until west of I-94), you could really urbanize the area. That Royalston + frontage road area is a disaster and does not complement a future LRT station and the types of development we hope it would attract.

[MNdible]

In other words it will be built at grade, just effing wonderful.

Or built as a bridge, as they suggested. Holy glass half empty.

It may well be that the reason that the Interchange elevated those tail tracks was to accommodate a bridge over 7th Street once they realized that a tunnel wasn't viable. The dog wagging the tail.

[twincitizen]

I'm normally impossibly optimistic, but I just can't be when it comes to grade separating LRT, based on recent history.

If we couldn't grade separate Snelling Avenue Station, or ANY parts of the LRT downtown, why would we do it here? Have you seen how many tunnels and bridges are proposed for Southwest, mostly in the suburban portion? There's so much "potential" to water this thing down to the point of not being a competitive transportation choice, it's depressing.

[woofner]

The City is going to sling whatever BS it needs to so that the high-donor neighborhoods get their private train stations. Although it's just as bogus to say that the Penn and West Lake stations have high concentrations of low income population. Looks like the rates in the three census tracts that surround those three stations range from 2% to 5%.

I'm pretty sure that the PE plans for Southwest I saw about 5 years ago showed pretty much the same alignment as they're building for the Interchange. I'd guess it's a utility or cost issue. I think there is a major sewer interceptor beneath 7th St, maybe they either forgot about it or it's shallower than they expected. I agree that it's not a huge deal - so a few more seconds are added to the cycle time, if anything it will make the intersection safer to not allow people to whip around the corner at high speeds like they do now.

Also, I came up with a plan for redoing the Royalston area a couple years ago - I'll try to post that tonight.

[David Greene]

Any idea why we are planning two lines that will each have stops at Van White and Penn? Seems like overkill... one of the reasons why the now-LPA was chosen was because it supposedly served transit lacking North Mpls (even TLC was all over this lousy claim).

It is not a "lousy claim." It is the truth. I have been working up in Harrison for a couple of years on this. Please go TALK to some residents in North Minneapolis and ask them how they take transit out to the jobs at Opus, Golden Triangle, UHG, etc.

Guess what? They _can't_. There is *no* reasonable transit option from N. Minneapolis to jobs in the SW suburbs. That's why the Kenilworth alignment is so damn important.

Uptown has plenty of transit options. N. Minneapolis has none in the direction of the Green Line.

Who is going to take a bus up Nicollet and transfer to LRT to go downtown? No one. Businesses would suffer with LRT down Nicollet. There would not be enough stops and it would destroy on-street parking.

An Uptown alignment for SW LRT never made sense and never will. A streetcar is much more appropriate. A Greeway streetcar crossing a Nicollet streetcar could work very well.

Incidentally the same arguments can be made about why a Broadway/Penn alignment for Bottineau doesn't make sense. Though I think it's a much bigger fight to get a Broadway streetcar due to the history of neglect by the city. That's my only hesitation about making that argument.

That and the fact that Broadway is plenty wide to handle LRT down its entire length to Washington. It's only travel time considerations that have prevented this option from being seriously explored.

[min-chi-cbus]

I'm normally impossibly optimistic, but I just can't be when it comes to grade separating LRT, based on recent history.

If we couldn't grade separate Snelling Avenue Station, or ANY parts of the LRT downtown, why would we do it here? Have you seen how many tunnels and bridges are proposed for Southwest, mostly in the suburban portion? There's so much "potential" to water this thing down to the point of not being a competitive transportation choice, it's depressing.

It's almost unreal to me that the City did not dig underneath the street on 5th Street for what is going to be a heavily-traffic'd two-track corridor! With continuing growth in ridership and the possibility of additional lines, there is almost no way that I can see an at-grade track remaining as a solution indefinitely, and I expect the City to rip up and redesign this stretch within 20 years -- what a waste! But I guess it's very normal for things to be built this way.....I mean you can have a great idea but if you don't have the funds up front then you have to settle for what you CAN afford.