As the first $205 million heavy construction contract for the Central Corridor light rail line was awarded this week, St. Paul leaders kicked in a small but noteworthy adjunct to the project — funding for 24 off-street parking lots along the University Avenue route.

Loss of most on-street “free” parking on University has been a major concern for some residents and businesses about the light-rail project that will link the Minneapolis and St. Paul downtowns, as well as the State Capitol complex and the University of Minnesota Minneapolis campus.

As I noted in a recent web posting, parking isn’t really free anywhere, although drivers seldom pay the cost. St. Paul taxpayers will put up $1.3 million in loans to owners of 24 University Avenue-area lots to improve them for parking. The no-interest loans will be forgiven if parking is maintained on the properties and nearby businesses can share it. City leaders developed the project after the Metropolitan Council, which is building the light-rail line, found no room in its $957 million budget to replace on-street parking.

While 21st-century transit projects such as the Central Corridor are designed to reduce the need for automobile use, the St. Paul parking initiative makes sense as a way to help University Avenue businesses survive three years of construction when street parking will disappear but trains won’t yet be running. Work on the parking lots must begin by early fall, while most of the track and station construction work awarded to Walsh Construction of Chicago won’t start until next year.

This is an important project for our community and a good example of how municipal leadership can help bridge divides.

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This may rank up there with Steve Martin’s glee in “The Jerk” because the new phone books were out, but it’s worth noting that the Central Corridor light rail project received permission today (May 25) from the Federal Transit Administration to enter final design, the last step before awarding a $480 million grant to foot half the cost of the biggest public works project in Minnesota history.

Of course, as anyone knows who’s navigated downtown St. Paul work zones, construction has been underway for a year under federal waivers. And contracts are already let  to begin laying track in St. Paul in August and in Minneapolis in September. That work is expected to continue through 2012. The first trains are scheduled to run between the downtowns in 2014.

Upon today’s announcement, Metropolitan Council officials immediately applied to the FTA to complete the funding process. Besides the 50 percent federal share, the quarter-cent Counties Transit Improvement sales tax will pay 30 percent of the project costs, state bonds 10 percent, Ramsey County 7 percent, Hennepin County 3 percent, plus lesser amounts from St. Paul, the Met Council and the Central Corridor Funders Collaborative.

“The FTA’s approval represents another important step in transforming this project from a 20-year-old dream into reality,” Met Council Chairman Peter Bell said in a news release. “It will mean improved access for thousands of metro area residents to employment, educational and economic opportunities all along the corridor and beyond.”

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It’s well established that rail transit can provide environmentally friendly mobility when compared with driving fossil fuel-burning vehicles. State-of-the-art light rail, such as the planned Central Corridor linking the Twin Cities downtowns, runs on electricity, not gasoline or diesel. Depending on how the power is generated, that can mean essentially zero air emissions.

With sufficient ridership, light rail also drubs driving when it comes to energy efficiency. The Central is projected to carry at least 40,000 passengers a day, but don’t be surprised if the actual numbers far outstrip that estimate, as we’ve seen with the region’s first light-rail line, the Hiawatha.

But the Central will do its part to conserve our resources long before the first train pulls out in 2014. According to the Metropolitan Council, which is developing the corridor, thousands of tons of recycled materials will go into construction scheduled to begin this summer. Here’s a rundown issued today by the council:

* Recycled steel will comprise 95 percent of the project’s 4,300 tons of rebar, more than 85 percent of the 2,540 tons of trusses needed to retrofit the Washington Avenue bridge and at least 30 percent of the 12,300 tons of rail.

* Copper with recycled content of up to 45 percent will go into station roofs.

* Recycled bituminous may be used under the tracks.

* Energy-sipping LED lights will brighten station areas.

* And the Central’s operations and maintenance facility will be the vacant former Gillette Co. warehouse in Lowertown St. Paul, recycling more than 6,000 tons of concrete, thousands of pounds of steel and 50,000 lineal feet of foundation pilings.

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Yesterday, Minnesota 2020’s Tuesday Talk segment, “Do Central Corridor Objections Make Sense?”, generated vigorous public policy debate. It was exactly the discourse that we hope to facilitate. Thank you.

Thank you, Minnesota, for a thoughtful, engaged public policy debate. If you read the comments, note strong feelings are omnipresent; that’s the way it should be. More importantly, though, was the debate’s civil tone.

People hold strong opinions. Minnesota 2020 Conrad deFiebre’s article, Central Corridor Foes to Reap Biggest Transit Rewards, anchoring yesterday’s discussion, reminded us that politics are, in fact, local. Even among mass transit expansion supporters, critical issues like route designation and station siting, stir strong reaction.

The University of Minnesota and Minnesota Public Radio weighed in, through institutional representatives. As has been widely reported, both organizations are deeply engaged with the LRT Central Corridor issue. I’m tickled that they’re following your responses through MN2020’s forum and taking them seriously.

We can disagree and still keep a civil tongue in our head. Yesterday’s exchanges reminded all of us that Minnesotans are engaged by public policy decisions. I’m looking forward to more vigorous debate on the issues that really matter: education, healthcare, transportation and economic development.

Thank you, again, Minnesota 2020 readers. You’re moving Minnesota’s public policy debate forward.

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As the Central Corridor project moves forward, some of its vocal opponents are those who stand to benefit the most when the light rail project is complete. As MN2020 reports today, the University of Minnesota, Minnesota Public Radio and residents and businesspeople along University Avenue in St. Paul have been involved in Central Corridor litigation despite the fact that organizations near the new light rail line are likely to see huge economic benefits ranging from increased commercial traffic to a sharp rise in property values.

To prove the point, a Center for Transportation Studies report found that homes and apartments within a half-mile of Hiawatha light rail stations in Minneapolis increased in value by $47 million after the line opened, appreciating about 20 percent faster than comparable properties further away.

Why are the Central Corridor’s future neighbors objecting to a transit project that will benefit their organizations a great deal? Do their objections make sense?

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Spring is in full swing, which means it’s now safe for Minnesotans to emerge from our winter bunkers and start to enjoy the outdoors again.

Minnesota 2020 has noted in previous articles that Minneapolis ranks as the second best American city for bicycle travel. Well, that was before. This year, Minneapolis cruises to the front of the pack, reigning over notable bike towns such as Portland (#2) and Austin (#11).

The news comes from a recent issue of Bicycling Magazine (via City Pages). The magazine says that “[d]espite the cold wintertime climate, Minneapolis has a thriving bike community. It has 120 miles of on- and off-street bicycle facilities, plus indoor bike parking and other cycling-friendly facilities.”

Minnesota now stands to build on this strong base if Congress passes the Active Community Transportation (ACT) Act. The bill would further integrate active transportation options with public transportation networks. It notes that “90% of public transportation trips are accessed by walking or bicycling” and that “[n]early half of the trips taken in the United States are within a 20-minute bicycle ride.”  And so, the act would upgrade existing bike lanes, trails, and sidewalks and provide funding for new projects “that connect people with public transportation, workplaces, schools, residences, businesses, recreation areas, and other community activity centers” including areas within a half-mile radius for pedestrians and three miles to provide for bike transport.

If passed, the ACT Act will further enhance the Central Corridor, making a complete system based on active transport cutting through a main artery of Minneapolis and St. Paul. It will be a boon to both the residential areas and businesses along the corridor. However, the Central Corridor path is already pedestrian and bicycle friendly, and many people already navigate the route without cars. The true test of the ACT Act’s effectiveness will be determined by the proposed SW Corridor line. The SW Corridor will cut a path into the suburbs, less friendly territory for bikers and pedestrians.

Minneapolitans, and all Minnesotans for that matter, have reason to take pride in our love of active transport. From leisurely rides along the Willard Munger or Lanesboro bike trails to the urban Twin Cities commute, the state is at the vanguard of adopting healthier, greener methods of travel.

Minnesota’s citizens have made it clear we favor strong transportation options. The crowning of Minneapolis by Bicycling Magazine  as best bike city should be celebrated, but why stop there? If Minneapolis wants to remain on top, we must continue to maintain, grow and improve cycling and transit options around the city and the state.

Bicycling Magazine’s findings can be found here

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In his Barataria blog St Paul’s Erik Hare provides a detailed follow up to Minnesota 2020’s article on light rail in the Twin Cities and Charlotte, North Carolina.

Whereas Minnesota 2020 sought to make the case for the necessity of an improved rail and bus network in the Twin Cities metro, the Barataria piece highlights the need to streamline the process in order to deliver a better product.

Erik further shows that a reliable rail network is not the bottomless investment it is sometimes framed to be. He notes that the Charlotte Blue Line runs seventy percent faster than the proposed Central Corridor line. It also made use of existing infrastructure and was completed in only five years.

From the blog:

“Taking 20 years to get where we have in this corridor has been incredibly long in comparison to the experience of other cities as well.  It is clear that the top-down approach taken by our Metropolitan Council has not only produced an inferior product to the cities we compete with, it is also very slow.  While this extended process has produced many extremely large documents, other cities have successfully put steel in the street.”

It’s time Minnesota gets serious and puts steel in the streets of the Twin Cities. The demand is there. Now it’s time we build it.

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The last several months have painted a grim picture for construction of the Central Corridor light rail line beginning this summer as previously thought. Two lawsuits: one filed by the University of Minnesota in September 2009, and another just filed by Rondo neighborhood in January might result in a stalemate.

These lawsuits will definitely be resolved at some point, but any delay in the project results in an increase for materials and construction. Sadly, what both the U of M and the Rondo neighborhood don’t seem to understand very well is the deadline imposed on the Metropolitan Council by the Federal Transportation Administration. If the mess isn’t resolved by late February with a Memorandum of Understanding from both parties, then the whole process will have to wait another year and risk funding competition from other projects nationwide, thereby putting the project’s existence at stake.

The right question to ask is not why should be build the Central Corridor, but what will it do for the Twin Cities? The answer is multi-fold: it will bring development, decrease traffic congestion, create new jobs, bring private investment, remake University Avenue into a more pedestrian-friendly street, and increase transit use by traditional auto-users. The argument for the corridor is not an argument of trains vs. buses vs. cars, but an argument of what the train will provide. For instance, publictransportation.org states that for every $1 invested in public transportation, $4 is generated in economic returns. Benefits like these are foolish to ignore.

The beauty that density provides along the University Avenue corridor is that individual travelers can choose the best mode for each trip, which is not possible in automobile-dependent communities. Transit competitive trips, that is, trips where transit can compete with auto trips is where transit, and most specifically rail-transit is needed. People won’t use the Central Corridor just from getting downtown St. Paul to downtown Minneapolis, but from downtown St. Paul to the airport, from the University of Minnesota to the Mall of America, and between many other places. Not linking the densest parts of the state by rail transit would be foolish and would not be tolerated in other parts of the world.

Fixed-guideway transit such as light rail spurs development and captures more riders than buses. Rail transit tends to provide better service quality that attracts more riders, particularly discretionary users. For example, a free bus line to downtown Tacoma, Washington attracted less than 500 daily riders, but when it was replaced with a light rail line, ridership increased to more than 2,400 a day. Here in the Twin Cities, 62% of Hiawatha Line riders are choice riders, whereas 52% of bus ridership comes primarily from captive riders – riders who have no other choice.

Attracting more people to transit is one of the things that the Central Corridor light rail line will accomplish if it is built, however there is good news that might make it possible to start construction this summer. On January 13, 2010 U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced new guidelines for transit projects to based on livability issues such as economic development and environmental benefits, in addition to ridership and trip times. “Our new policy for selecting major transit projects will work to promote livability rather than hinder it,” LaHood said. “We want to base our decisions on how much transit helps the environment, how much it improves development opportunities and how it makes our communities better places to live.”

It’s time for both the U of M and the Rondo neighborhood to work out their differences with the Met Council so that the Central Corridor can break ground this summer. It is said that change is inevitable, thus with a little work both the University and St. Paul’s Rondo neighborhood can benefit tremendously, if they evolve and embrace the changes about to come their way.

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News of a civil rights complaint by Asian business owners along University Avenue over the planned Central Corridor light-rail project has whipped Minnesota conservatives into a bloviating frenzy, albeit one marked by confusion over which of their prejudices to focus on.

Do we deprecate another minority group claiming special privileges to petition the government? Or, on the theory that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, do we grab one more opportunity to rip into a 21st century transit improvement that will boost the Twin Cities’ global competitiveness? It’s hard to tell which reactionary theme is at the heart of many of the 50+ reader comments appended to the startribune.com  report of the complaint.

The 30-member Concerned Asian Business Owners and their right-wing cheerleaders are upset over traffic disruption light-rail construction will cause and the loss of most on-street parking. Those worries are legitimate to a point, but they ignore the considerable mitigation efforts already underway as well as the proven benefits to residents and businesses along light-rail lines.

Only the hopelessly auto-centric deny that increased traffic via light rail will enhance business prospects in the corridor. The thousands of riders projected for the Central won’t need those lost parking spaces to patronize the restaurants, groceries and beauty salons on University. And more traffic means, as repeated studies have shown, that property values will increase for businesses and homes alike. What’s wrong with that?

Yes, four years of construction will bring some hardships before the benefits accrue with the line’s scheduled opening in 2014. But both government and the private sector are committed to helping businesses of all ethnicities through the tough times. Ten foundations have pledged at least $5 million to a 10-year effort  to mitigate adverse effects of the project. Organizers hope to raise $15 million more. The money will go to preserving affordable housing, counseling businesses, improving their marketing and possibly offering them stipends to replace lost sales if construction keeps customers away.

Asian entrepreneurs aren’t the only group standing in the way of the Central LRT. Other minority residents and the University of Minnesota have lodged their own federal complaints, despite significant concessions already granted them. It would serve all of them and the rest of Minnesota to get off the victimization track and board the train to a prosperous future.

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It should come as no surprise, nor even a cause for great concern, that the University of Minnesota has sued the Metropolitan Council to halt work on the Central Corridor light-rail project through the U’s Minneapolis campus. The litigation preserves the university’s leverage in ongoing negotiations over adverse impacts on nearby research facilities, rights that would have expired this week without a formal challenge to the Met Council’s Aug. 26 adoption of the project’s final environmental impact statement.

The U isn’t off-track in vigorously guarding the public’s  investment in its 80 laboratories scattered among 17 buildings near the Washington Avenue light-rail route. That said, neither should the university lose sight of the benefits its large commuter campus will gain should the trains start running as scheduled in 2014.

Unfortunately, at times that has seemed to be the case. The U pushed for a subway tunnel under the campus, then a reroute through Dinkytown. Both those options proved economically prohibitive. Moving the dispute to the courtroom threatens the project’s skin-tight budget with inflationary delay if a prompt resolution isn’t reached.

Met Council Chairman Peter Bell says the university’s worries will be addressed in the project’s final design phase next year. The council has already compromised with Minnesota Public Radio and St. Paul residents over other light-rail controversies. And Bell noted “significant progress on all of the outstanding issues” with the U. His pledge to reach a full agreement should be beyond question.

Both Bell and university attorney Mark Rotenberg say this latest escalation of hostilities won’t stop the Central. We hope that’s true, because even a year’s delay would add at least $30 million in costs, threatening federal funding of half the $900 million-plus construction budget. But if the U protects its turf to the point of derailing the project, it and all Minnesotans will pay an even steeper price in lost opportunity for an efficient 21st century transportation link.

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