Oracle Online

The Ramsey County Regional Rail Authority, which will be making the recommendation to the CCCC, is managing a study of the environmental impacts and efficiency of the project. The committee is weighing two heavily debated transit options to help with the traffic congestion problems in the Central Corridor.

The first option is to implement a new system, called the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system, which would have buses running on a separate, dedicated right-of-way set of streets, or on city streets separate from traffic, according to the Central Corridor website.

The second option is to run the light rail down the center of University Avenue.

Light rail was introduced to the Twin Cities last year with the Hiawatha Line, which extends from the
Warehouse District on Hennepin Avenue to the Mall of America in Bloomington, spanning approximately 12 miles.

If light rail is introduced onto the Central Corridor, an area that includes Interstate 94 and University Avenue, it would span the 11-mile route connecting St. Paul and Minneapolis.

Reaching maximum capacity

Steve Morris of the Ramsey County Regional Rail Authority is a supporter of the proposed University

Avenue light rail transit system.

“The big deal is the capacity issue,” Morris said.

Evidence from prior planning shows that BRT will be obsolete by 2017, while light rail has the benefit of being able to add cars to the two-car train, he said.

According to Morris, the big issue is the expansion of the Twin Cities, and widening I-94 is not an option, he said, because of the cost.

“If there is going to be an increase in travel capacity,” he said, “it appears that some sort of high-density travel is the best way to do it.”

Morris advocates light rail transit because of the carrying capacity. “Even a two-car train can haul the same number of people as several buses,” Morris said.

Lori Fritts, president of the Midway Chamber of Commerce, has participated in the discussion of light rail transit for over two years.

“The only thing more complicated than healthcare and education is transportation,” she said.

For Fritts, light rail transit is a more economical and logical response to the congestion in comparison to BRT.

“Bus Rapid Transit would take up the same amount of space on the street,” she said. “There would be the same kind of construction concerns, they’d have to take up the whole street, but now have lanes dedicated to buses, which are louder, create more pollution, and simply cannot carry as many people as a train.”

Solving the traffic congestion is also a priority of the HamlineąMidway Coalition. The organization has not taken a formal position on the issue yet, because they have not been presented with a specific proposal.

But executive director Dave Gagne hopes that when the proposal is presented, it will include a solution to the growing traffic concerns of the public.

“For us, if it reduced auto congestion and allowed people to be car-free as they commuted, that would be a plus for our area,” he said.

Funding the high-speed trains

Commuters stuck in traffic shouldn’t expect relief anytime soon, however č the project is still in the early preliminary stages. Before any major planning can begin, the project needs funding for preliminary engineering, which is being considered in the current legislative session.

According to Fritts, there is money available, but another five million is needed.

“Beyond that, you’re going to have to have very large increments of money to cover each of the steps as they go along,” she said. “That’s part of why it is a very difficult thing č there are all these steps involved.”

The projected budget for the project is $840 million, assuming a 2008 opening. But that will be hard to achieve with the federal funding requirements, Morris said. About 50 percent of the project will be funded from federal grants, he said, and the rest will come from a combination of state and local funding.
Making the best of it

Some advocates of light rail transit on University Avenue see long-term benefits that could come to the area.

“It will completely change the visibility of the area,” Fritts said. “It could bring in new investments that would probably otherwise not come here.”

“One of the reasons many businesses and organizations have supported [light rail] is the increased travel opportunities for customers and employees,” Morris said. “Businesses that depend on customers and employees have the potential for benefitting.”

Solving the traffic congestion by way of implementing a light rail transit system is not without concerns and
voices of dissent.

“What we see, in Minneapolis, is that [light rail] appears to produce development around some of the stations and we see that some businesses dependent on walking traffic suffer; we’re concerned about that,” Gagne said.”

One area business owner strongly against bringing light rail to University Avenue is Tom Stransky, owner of Midway Book. Stransky, who has owned the store for 25 years, has been opposed to light rail transit since it was first mentioned in the early ’80s, he said.

“All that’s going to be left are two narrow lanes for traffic,” he said. “Once they narrow the lanes and put the stupid train down the middle, it’s going to be a nightmare. How are people going to cross the street? How are the handicapped and elderly going to cross the street? Where are the buses going to go?”