Star Tribune
Vastly cheaper alternative to a St. Paul streetcar emerges. It’s a bus
Six years after Ramsey County leaders endorsed a streetcar for W. 7th Street in St. Paul, a new idea for public transit along the busy corridor has emerged: a bus line that is more than a billion dollars cheaper to build.
County transit planners last month released details for arterial bus-rapid transit (aBRT) service that would cost at least $121 million and connect downtown St. Paul with Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and the Mall of America.
The so-called Riverview Corridor would join a growing stable of aBRT routes throughout the metro, a popular service that features heated and well-lit stations, payment-before-boarding, and 10-minute service during peak hours.
But some are still championing a streetcar, despite a $2.1 billion price tag and a complicated route to the Bloomington megamall that calls for a new bridge over the Mississippi River and a new station at Fort Snelling, sacred space for Indigenous tribes.
This summer, Ramsey County will gauge public opinion on the matter through a series of open houses and other outreach efforts. Come fall, a key advisory committee will make a recommendation.
“The public will really need to chew on these options,” said Russ Stark, St. Paul’s chief resilience officer, who serves on the project’s Policy Advisory Committee. “We expect a wide variety of opinions.”
Enter arterial BRT
In 2018, the Ramsey County Board voted unanimously to support streetcar service along the Riverview Corridor. More compact than light rail, this type of streetcar would run mostly in a dedicated lane. If built, it would signal a return of streetcar service to the Twin Cities for the first time since 1954.
In recent weeks, transit planners have offered more details about aBRT service using electric buses in the Riverview corridor, an option they say was always under consideration.
With three aBRT lines currently running, several under construction, and more planned, Metro Transit has bet big on this mode of transport. The A Line debuted in 2016, connecting Rosedale mall with the Blue Line’s 46th Street station in Minneapolis, largely along Snelling Avenue in St. Paul.
Arterial bus-rapid transit runs in traffic, so it’s susceptible to back-ups, although buses have signal priority at intersections. While an improvement over workaday local bus service, transit planners say it doesn’t have the same sway with real estate developers as light rail, or perhaps a streetcar, who may be intent on building apartments or retail.
Replacing the corridor’s Route 54 bus with a streetcar will be challenging, according to county presentations released in recent weeks.
The Riverview route begins in downtown St. Paul and features many local streets zig-zagging with W. 7th, and a narrow stretch of bars and restaurants near Xcel Energy Center that is often crowded with revelers on event days.
Then there’s the effect of construction on businesses, as well as the challenges associated with the Hwy. 5 bridge; a pathway through Fort Snelling, a national landmark; plus shared track with the Blue Line light rail leading to MSP airport and a new elevated station at the Mall of America. And, being St. Paul, there’s a contingent worried about the loss of trees, no matter what’s built.
“We are trying to get good transit to fit in with the existing community and make places as attractive as we can for people to live, work and spend time,” Stark said.
Leaders will also have to justify a $2 billion streetcar project in light of the nearly $3 billion Southwest light-rail project with its cost overruns and delays, not to mention the struggle with crime aboard Metro Transit trains and buses.
“No doubt they all have negative impact,” said Rafael Ortega, the Ramsey County commissioner who is championing the streetcar project. “We are constantly anticipating and updating [plans.] We feel good about our project financially,” he said of lessons learned from Southwest. “We’re making sure we get the best value for our dollar.”
“All of these things will work themselves out,” Ortega said.
Streetcar slower than bus
The county has suggested two streetcar options: The main difference is one features additional stations at Smith and Jefferson avenues in St. Paul. The first option uses a dedicated lane for about 10 miles, the second, for 8 miles.
End-to-end streetcar travel times vary from 43 to 45 minutes ? about five minutes slower than aBRT and three minutes slower than the Route 54. The bus routes are slightly different. For example, the streetcar would drop passengers off at both MSP airport terminals, but the aBRT bus proposal would only serve Terminal 1.
Average weekday ridership for the streetcar is expected to reach between 11,200 and 11,600 by 2040, and 8,000 on aBRT. But transit planners say the estimates will be retooled after the Metropolitan Council updates its post-pandemic ridership models. (The council has not been involved in planning Riverview.)
“Travel patterns have changed [post pandemic], but [the route] actually lends itself really well to a streetcar which is very frequent, all-day short trips,” said Jennifer Jordan, Ramsey County’s senior transportation planner for the project. “So we expect when we rerun the ridership model we’ll see that start to stand out.”
Both the streetcar and aBRT option would provide service every 10 minutes from early morning into the evening, and every half hour beyond that.
The Hwy. 5 bridge spanning the Mississippi River would have to be replaced to accommodate the streetcar, a project Ortega said could cost around $500 million, while aBRT would use the existing bridge, which underwent a $14 million reconstruction in 2016.
W. 7th Street would be resurfaced to accommodate the streetcar, work that is baked into the overall cost. The bus option would require a $200 million street overhaul, not included in the current price tag.
The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) is expected to pay about half of the cost of the streetcar project, with Ramsey and Hennepin counties paying the rest. The bus would be funded mostly with state and local money. To date, the county has spent $11.7 million on the Riverview Corridor project.
Ortega said choosing a streetcar will have the side benefit of a new Hwy. 5 bridge and a redo of W. 7th. “This is an opportunity to get the federal government to pay half the cost, otherwise it will be borne by local government,” he said.
And then there’s parking
Parking before and after streetcar construction is a hot issue for Riverview, especially along W. 7th. The first streetcar proposal leaves just 35 parking spots along the stretch, while the second would preserve 400 spaces. For aBRT, 570 parking spots would remain, a loss of about 70 spaces.
To W. 7th resident Joe Landsberger, who serves on several Riverview committees, eliminating parking for a streetcar is lunacy.
“You lose customers and diminish traffic; they’re out to destroy a very vital business district,” he said. “There aren’t many empty storefronts along W. 7th like Grand Avenue, where East Coast pension funds own the buildings. These are locally owned businesses.”
Two men are dead and one woman was injured in a shooting at a homeless encampment in south Minneapolis on Sunday afternoon, police said. It was the second shooting at a Minneapolis encampment this weekend.
At about 2:20 p.m. Sunday, police responded to a reported shooting in the 4400 block of Snelling Avenue near the railroad tracks at the small encampment between Snelling and Hiawatha avenues. At the scene, officers found two men with fatal gunshot wounds, said Sgt. Garrett Parten Minneapolis Police spokesman. Responders rendered aid, but both men died at the scene.
A woman was found at the scene with life-threatening injuries and was taken to a local hospital where she was being treated Sunday night, he said. Police have yet to say whether the three were living at the encampment.
Officers detained three people, who Parten said have since been released after police found they were not believed to be involved in the shooting. No suspects had been identified as of 6:30 p.m. Sunday.
The shooting is the second at a southside homeless encampment this weekend. One man died and two were critically injured early Saturday at an encampment shooting near E. 21st Street and 15th Avenue S. On Sunday, the man was identified as Deven Leonard Caston, 31, according to the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office.
“We don’t know if there’s a connection between this homeless encampment shooting and the one that occurred yesterday,” Parten said on Sunday. “That is a consideration of the investigation. We can’t rule it out.”
Ward 12 Council Member Aurin Chowdhury, who represents the area and lives nearby, was at the site of the shooting Sunday afternoon. She said officials need information about what happened to better understand how to address situations like this long-term.
“This is an absolute tragedy, and this type of violence should never occur within our city,” she said. “It really makes me think about how we need to look at this more systemically and not just take a whack-a-mole approach and expect the problem to go away.
During Sunday’s Twitch stream, Walz and Ocasio-Cortez played Madden while discussing making homebuying more accessible, building affordable housing, eliminating student loan debt and raising the federal minimum wage.
After the match, Walz showed off his Sega skills in a round of “Crazy Taxi,” the Y2K-era racing game where gamers play as a taxi driver picking up passengers and taking them to their destination for cash.
Walz called himself a “first-generation gamer” and recalled playing “Crazy Taxi” when he bought a Sega Dreamcast. He also mentioned the Minnesota Star Tribune’s coverage of how his old game console was sold and ended up with a Plymouth resident, who still has it.
Afterward, Walz and Ocasio-Cortez watched a short clip of Trump denying on Rogan’s podcast that he lost the 2020 presidential election. Democrat Joe Biden won that year.
Ocasio-Cortez during the livestream also showed viewers her farm on the cozy, indie game Stardew Valley. Walz said the game reminded him of Minnesota: “You’ve got mining,” he said. “You’ve got agriculture. You’ve got snow.”
Before Walz headed out to a rally in Nevada, he pleaded with viewers to vote. More than 12,000 viewers tuned into the livestream on Ocasio-Cortez’s Twitch channel. More watched from Harris’ channel.
”Hey guys, they’re now scrambling and trying to call us Nazis and fascists,” said Alina Habba, one of Trump’s attorneys, who draped a sparkly ”MAGA” jacket over the lectern as she spoke. ”And you know what they’re claiming, guys? It’s very scary. They’re claiming we’re going to go after them and try and put them in jail. Well, ain’t that rich?”
Declared Hogan in his characteristic raspy growl: ”I don’t see no stinkin’ Nazis in here.”
Trump has denounced the four criminal indictments brought against him as politically motivated. He has ramped up his denunciations in recent weeks of ”enemies from within,” naming domestic political rivals, and suggested he would use the military to go after them. Harris, in turn, has called Trump a ”fascist.”
The arena was full hours before Trump was scheduled to speak. Outside the arena, the sidewalks were overflowing with Trump supporters in red ”Make America Great Again” hats. There was a heavy security presence. Streets were blocked off and access to Penn Station was restricted.
In the crowd was Philip D’Agostino, a longtime Trump backer from Queens, the borough where Trump grew up. The 64-year-old said it was appropriate for Trump to be speaking at a place bills itself as ”the world’s most famous arena.”
”It just goes to show ya that he has a bigger following of any man that has ever lived,” D’Agostino said.
