Met Council’s LRT budget shakes out

by DENNIS GEISINGER

The Metropolitan Council voted on Feb. 27 to approve its final $909.1 million design for the construction of a light rail project to connect Minneapolis and St. Paul via the University of Minnesota. Construction for the new train route is set to begin in 2010 and passenger service made available by the end of 2014, with projected weekday ridership of 38,000 by 2020 and nearly 44,000 by 2030.
Expenditures for features advocated by various community and civic groups put the cost of the project around $1.25 billion and would have lost federal matching funds because of a Federal Transit Administration (FTA) cost-effectiveness index that divides operating and capital costs by travel time saved by riders.

The final design plan saves a projected $147.6 million by going with a street-level route on a transit/pedestrian mall along Washington Avenue through the University’s East Bank instead of tunneling under the street as called for in the original design. Additional modifications to the Washington Avenue bridge will mean $25 million more than the original $5 million Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) estimate.

The tunnel was a feature that was heavily lobbied by the University because of anticipated traffic congestion caused by a surface route. According to new plans, diverting autos would remove more than 90 percent of the traffic from Washington Avenue. The Met says project engineers are studying 48 intersections on campus and in the surrounding area to determine what traffic mitigation measures would be necessary.

The issue of whether the Washington Avenue transit mall will be open to buses is still unresolved. The University wants all buses removed from Washington.
“There is still more work to be done, particularly in regards to the University,” said Met Council Chair Peter Bell in a story published in the Minnesota Daily on the day after the vote.

A cost increase of $4.1 million was allowed to prepare underground foundations for transit stations along University Avenue at Hamline, Victoria and Western Avenues. These could be added later rather than building them now, as some community groups and local elected officials would have liked. According to the Central Corridor Management Committee, one of the stations could be added to the project yet this year should project costs go down or the FTA increases the cap on its cost-effectiveness index.

Fifteen transit stations will be built along 11 miles of track, from one at the new downtown Twins ballpark on the west that also will serve the Northstar commuter rail line to the St. Paul Union Depot on the east. From $32 to $58 million in savings were realized by terminating the line at a station in front of the depot rather than extending service to a station at the rear concourse. A diagonal route was decided upon in downtown St. Paul through the vacant Bremer Bank building and the block bounded by Fourth, Fifth, Minnesota and Cedar Streets.
Improvements penciled in for the line’s connection near the Metrodome with the Hiawatha LRT add $1.7 million to the original DEIS plan.

A proposed vehicle maintenance facility located on Ramsey County-owned land near Union Depot south of Kellogg Boulevard replaces plans for the trains to use the Hiawatha LRT operations and maintenance facility in Minneapolis and increases the cost by $20 million more than the original DEIS plan of $23 million. Building a double-track connection to the facility will increase costs by $8.5 million.
Traffic, noise and other mitigation efforts that would be required by the project increase costs by $20 million more than in the original DEIS budget, allocating a total of about $39 million for mitigation.

An additional $15 million will build three-car platforms so the line will have the capacity to expand from two-car to three-car trains in the future. Plans for public art to be included in the LRT line will cost $3.7 million, the same as in the original DEIS plan.