Is SWLRT worth the Chain of Lakes?  

Why not put the transit where the people are?  

By Susu Jeffrey  July 6, 2015

Reviving from a $341 million “funding gap” Southwest LRT proponents reduced the scope of the project by $250 million while cobbling monies together to keep the priciest ever state public works plan on track. Sticker shock from the announced $2 billion budget even drew news of criticism from Democratic Farmer Labor Governor Mark Dayton.

Searching for a quick $90-million the Southwest LRT Corridor Management Committee (CMC) announced on July 1, a proposed $38 million funding package from Hennepin County. The county would offer $8 million cash plus a $30 million land contribution. This largess would trigger $38-million in federal matching funds however “contributions” do not count as cash money. So $8 million plus $38 million equals $46 million.

A bookkeeping “adjustment” reduced the $90 million to $80 million, thus reducing the gap to $34-million. Municipal representatives spoke about offering additional money or contributions. Nevertheless a $17-million funding gap remains.

The Metropolitan Council is expected to vote on CMC recommendations July 8. The rush is on because Congress will allocate federal transportation funds only to projects that have solid financial agreements in place. Deadline for completing a money package for congressional approval for this cycle of funding is August 3.

NO NEW CONSENT PROCESS FOR MINNEAPOLIS

The old plan is pretty much the new plan minus $250 million by cutting one end-of-the-line station, deferring another and slashing frills like landscaping, public art and reducing suburban park-and-rides. If SWLRT is built future riders will condemn the artless ambiance and undersized parking that would drive LRT riders to park cars in neighborhoods.

To avoid triggering another consent process in Minneapolis the under-populated stations at 21 Street and Penn Avenue must remain. Penn Avenue is a particularly exotic design, a walkway thrust above and over the freight tracks and an elevator (or 90 steps) down into the former Cedar Lake wetland.

Penn Station would be a set-up for trapping riders in off hours to the point that the Minneapolis City Council discussed posting police there. (After the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit, “BART,” was constructed burglary statistics in the suburbs went up.)

The contentious Minneapolis consent was approved only after reputed threats and promises; for example, a park board funding cut and the promised removal of heavy freight rail beside the LRT path called “co-location.” But newly elected Mayor Betsy Hodges relented after campaigning against co-location and voted for SWLRT.

Some blame former Mayor R.T. Rybak who apparently failed to follow the process to stop heavy and light rail together in the Kenilworth/Cedar Lake bike corridor—the land between the lakes.

Part of the revival funding is $5 million in grants from the county’s Environment and Remediation Fund. Since Hennepin County is already developed the easiest available land is parkland and wetland. Construction on wetlands is pricey and requires permanent dewatering or land fill and groundwater rerouting.

Honest examination of the wet soils along the proposed SWLRT route is what ballooned the cost estimate explosion and brought cries of “you knew about the soil problems long ago” from environmentalists.

Parks don’t vote. It may not be cheaper in the long run but it is faster at this point to theorize about re-mediating squishy lands when the clock is running out on federal matching funds.

Taking private land for public benefit is the other method of land acquisition in already developed areas. Condemnation, government seizure of peoples’ homes and businesses, is unpopular and time consuming.

Water obeys gravity. Minneapolis storm water flows into Minnehaha Creek and into the lakes with lawn fertilizers, goose and duck poop, and road toxins with heavy metals that adhere to dirt particles carried by runoff. The waterways fill up with silt and pollutants carried in storm water runoff. Eliminating wetlands, nature’s water cleansing mechanism, is slow death to clean lakes and creeks.

THE TUNNEL

The SWLRT was predicated on removal of heavy rail out of Minneapolis because there is not enough room for heavy rail and light rail and the Kenilworth bike trail. The “shallow” tunnel was a late comer to the plan.

A half-mile tunnel would be inserted (after tree removal) between Cedar, Lake of the Isles and Calhoun, and then covered over. Solid steel walls would be sunken 55-feet down for the length of the tunnel to anchor the 35-foot wide structure. Otherwise it would float up or down with fluctuating underground water levels.

Because the three lakes are artificially connected they are at the same above ground level. Hydro consultants say there is no lateral groundwater movement to be interrupted. Other experts say the hydrology is helter-skelter, complicated in a way that would only become evident during construction after excavation, when it’s too late, when mitigation becomes the fix.

Water would be pumped out of the tunnel since the weight and pounding of transit breaks down the surface and support structure allowing cracks where leaks begin and grow with freeze and thaw. Rainwater would also have to be sucked out of tunnel entrances and exits,

Obviously underground electric trains and water are incompatible. Tunnel dewatering, especially during rain events, would amount to 15,000 gallons per day according to the Burns and McDonnell Engineering Company water study for the Metropolitan Council. That contaminated water would be piped into the sewer system to Pig’s Eye treatment plant.

Groundwater circulating outside around the tunnel would remove another 9,000 gallons of water per day to be diverted underground which, the water study warns, might cause local flooding. Why flooding?—because the tunnel is submerged into the water table and there is nowhere for that water to move but up.

Withdrawal of as much as 24,000 gallons per day would slow the flow into and out of the lakes allowing more contaminants and particulate matter to fill in and remain in our public waters. We are already warned not to swim in city lakes for three days after a rain event. All this to keep commercial rail traffic co-located in the light rail corridor including ethanol cars which put the LRT in the “blast zone.”

Is SWLRT worth the Chain of Lakes?

EQUITY

The “equity” argument for the SWLRT was a brilliant public relations program to silence guilt-prone white people. Equity is P.C. The pitch was that underserved black Northsiders would get transportation to jobs in the Minneapolis southwest suburbs. Like the promise to move heavy freight with dangerous ethanol traffic out of Minneapolis, the equity promise lapsed.

The current SWLRT plan is to bus Northsiders south on Penn Avenue and then east to the proposed Royalston station near Olson Memorial Highway (55) and 7th Street. Royalston is about two and a half blocks away from the Target Field baseball station with connections to the Northstar and blue lines.

Transit riders of color spend longer commute times than do white transit riders according to a recent report, “It’s About Time: The Transit Time Penalty and Its Racial Implications.” Latino transit riders actually spend more commute time than black riders. Other transit studies report that each transfer loses up to 50-percent of ridership; however, that study did not differentiate white from people of color.

Meanwhile the densely populated Uptown area was not considered for an LRT stop. Instead the proposed 21st Street Station (at Thomas) a.k.a. Hidden Beach, is about a mile and a half walk from Lake and Hennepin in an upscale residential area with very little parking. Hidden Beach has been a party site for years.

Since the last millennium neighbors, cops and the Minneapolis Park Board have tried to restrict privacy at Cedar Lake East Beach with buckthorn removal and to restrict hours with posted signs. Hidden Beach is a sub rosa venue and could potentially become a youth vs. cops battleground.

If SWLRT is not servicing black Northside or white Uptown populations who is the system working for? Build it and they will come. Developers—trickle down economic theory. Growth. Increase the tax base.

Why not put transit where the people are?

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PROXY APOLOGY  (Updated 7/5/2015)

Peter Wagenius, Senior Policy Aide to Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges apologized at the “final” Southwest LRT public hearing June 18. The SWLRT budget hovering near $2-billion is the largest public works project ever proposed in Minnesota. Construction problems would undoubtedly increase the cost.

Wagenius focused on reneged promises by the Metropolitan Council and Hennepin County Commission to present the actual plans for municipal consent and to remove freight rail co-location. Post-consent ridership estimates for Minneapolitans have been reduced by 22 percent for the proposed 212 weekday LRT trains. Neither the council nor the commission produced any blast zone information from dangerous railroad cargo despite a large staff of specialists with huge maps and voluminous paperwork.

Wagenius asserted that the LRT plan as it stands is not the same project that Minneapolis City Council members approved in August 2014. Council President Barb Johnson along with members Lisa Goodman and Cam Gordon voted 3-to-10 against municipal consent for SWLRT, then priced at $1.65-billion.

SWLRT is splitting the Democratic Farmer Labor Party into constant growth vs. quality of life.

Wagenius testified: “Thank you Mr. Chair [Adam Duininck, Metropolitan Council chair] and thank you Met Council members for your willingness to hold this [legally required public] hearing.

“I work for Mayor Hodges and she would like to extend her thanks to everybody here—the citizens present for their remarkable politeness and thoughtful comments in the face of this project’s transformation from what it was promised to be, into a totally different project that it is today.

“I will share this experience with Mayor Hodges as a refreshing tonic compared to the collective amnesia which permeates the conversation that takes place at the Corridor Management Committee. At the CMC they were saying it is time, now, for the burdens of this cost cutting to be shared equitably among the five cities along the line, as if the burdens of this project have been shared equitably up to this point.

“At those meetings there was no recognition whatsoever that the burden of freight fell 100-percent on one city.

“At those meetings there was no recognition that this project was planned to be and promised to be totally different than it is today with freight relocated from the corridor. This is beyond dispute. Whether or not St. Louis Park acknowledges their promise, the fact that Hennepin County promised to reroute the freight is not disputed.

“Ms. [Jeanette] Colby and Mr. [George] Puzak are absolutely right about the origin, the root causes of all these challenges. Southwest LRT has been a project to avoid accountability. Why did the federal government have to force the project to incorporate [the] freight issue into the project’s scope and budget? Did anyone ever think there was going to be a solution to the freight problem which was free?—which did not cost money?

“How much more has it cost the project and the residents of Minneapolis because the freight issue wasn’t dealt with five, 10, 15, 17 years ago. If neither of the government agencies [Metropolitan Council and Hennepin County Commission] responsible for this situation is willing to tell the community, let the City of Minneapolis do it.

“You are right to be angry and frustrated. You are right. Your politeness in the face of this is entirely amazing.

“This is the opposite of what you were told this project was going to be. So if no one else can say it—I’m sorry.” (applause)
Wagenius’ testimony was transcribed by the author from Robert Carney Jr.’s meeting audiotape which can be seen and heard at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUMJyXCa3lg&feature=youtu.be.