Star Tribune
Grassroots groups team up to oppose big Twin Cities area transit projects
They meet in each others’ living rooms, at local coffee shops, in libraries, and sometimes virtually — plotting the fight against the Metropolitan Council’s plans to build multimillion-dollar public transit projects in their neighborhoods.
They’re the grassroots groups that have come together across the Twin Cities to oppose projects in the works, such as the proposed Blue Line light-rail extension between Minneapolis and Brooklyn Park, the Purple Line bus-rapid transit project in the east metro and the Southwest light-rail line in the west metro.
In recent months they’ve formed an umbrella organization called Transit Done Right, sharing resources, tips and strategies on how to fend off the projects.
And they’ve seen some success — at least from their point of view — in potentially changing those projects’ routes.
The Blue Line extension’s current alignment “wasn’t presented as an alternative. It was an edict,” said George Selman, a former Robbinsdale City Council member and co-founder of SLR81 (Stop Light Rail on 81), a group of suburban residents who live near the proposed route.
The group is pushing the Met Council to abandon light rail in favor of bus-rapid transit, which they deem a more “common sense” solution for their communities.
The idea that the Met Council, the regional planning body that oversees the big transit projects, might pivot to an entirely different transit mode for the Blue Line extension after already spending $143 million on it may seem farfetched.
But the project also has drawn opposition from Lyn Park residents in north Minneapolis, who oppose trains running along nearby Lyndale Avenue, and the West Broadway Business and Area Coalition in Minneapolis.
Even Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey appears open to possible alternatives.
“I’m hoping to find a way to make light rail work, but I’m not ruling out other modes of transportation or routes as options,” Frey said, in a statement to the Star Tribune. “Any route or mode must minimize displacement, and stand up for the residents and businesses that call West Broadway home.”
Ultimately, Hennepin County and each of the cities along the Blue Line extension route need to grant municipal consent, a requirement under state law that has never been seriously challenged. They’re expected to take those votes next year.
Critical moment for Blue Line
In the meantime, Blue Line extension opponents are expressing their concerns at public meetings. They’re distributing petitions, lawn signs and flyers, and knocking on doors to spread the word. Most telling of all, they’re contacting their elected officials.
“The Met Council doesn’t listen to what people in the community are saying,” said Mary Pattock, a board member of the Lakes and Parks Alliance, a community group that has opposed the $2.7 billion Southwest light-rail line for more than a decade. The group filed a lawsuit against the Met Council in 2014, which was ultimately unsuccessful, seeking to block the Southwest line.
Southwest is about 75% complete, despite being more than $1 billion over budget, nearly a decade behind schedule, and the target of a state watchdog probe. Its numerous controversies are often used as a rallying cry for Transit Done Right activists, including those opposed to the Southwest and Blue Line extension projects and the Purple Line.
“People have had enough and they are starting to organize across the metro,” Pattock said.
Lively debate is normal when it comes to big infrastructure projects, said Nick Thompson, Metro Transit’s deputy general manager for capital programs. And transit planners welcome feedback from community groups, he said. Such projects, he added, “always have both strong supporters and some people who don’t want it.”
For the Blue Line extension, Met Council officials say they have hosted or attended 700 events and had nearly 17,600 points of contact with community members. That effort is approaching a critical juncture, as staffers are expected to make a route recommendation affecting north Minneapolis next month.
When asked about switching the Blue Line extension from light rail to BRT, Thompson said they’re planning a light-rail project in the corridor “until we’re not. If you were to switch to a different mode you’d be starting over.”
The Purple Line debate
There’s some indication that pushback has worked for opponents of the Purple Line (formerly called the Rush Line) in White Bear Lake, the intended terminus for the project, which originates at Union Depot in downtown St. Paul.
When the White Bear Lake City Council got new leaders in 2022, they quickly passed a resolution requesting that the line not travel within White Bear Lake’s borders.
The council’s roster was changed with the help of the No Rush Line Coalition, which claims the Purple Line would destroy White Bear Lake’s small-town charm. The group has also questioned whether there are enough potential riders to support BRT service, given post-pandemic transit declines and the rise of remote work.
Coalition spokesman Tim David, a retired consultant who lives in White Bear Lake, said the group is nonpartisan and noted that it didn’t endorse any City Council candidates.
“But we did campaign to help tell the story about council members who better represent the community in terms of the Purple Line,” he said. “Our goal is not to stop public transit. We didn’t think the Purple Line was a great fit.”
David rejects criticism from transit advocates that the anti-Purple Line campaign is fueled by NIMBYism or, worse yet, racist attitudes. “We avoid that type of discussion,” he said.
“Lots of people tell me they don’t support light rail, they support buses. But when it comes to buses, they don’t support them [either],” said Hennepin County Board Member Jeff Lunde, referring to those who oppose public transit in general.
Unlike light-rail projects, bus-rapid transit projects do not need municipal consent from adjoining communities. Theoretically, the Met Council could have forged ahead despite the White Bear Lake vote.
But in an unusual move, transit planners — who had already moved the northernmost stop from the heart of downtown White Bear Lake to Hwy. 61 — opted to end the line in Maplewood instead, following the White Bear Lake resolution.
Now Purple Line foes are intent on blocking the line’s route along the Bruce Vento Regional Trail, which Ramsey County has long planned to use as a transit corridor. In response, the Met Council is currently studying whether White Bear Avenue might be a better route for the Purple Line in Maplewood.
“You can’t stop the Met Council, but you can influence them,” David said. “You can have an impact.”
More possibilities
The Met Council has agreed to study an alternate route for the Blue Line extension east of Interstate 94 following protests from Lyn Park residents. Others in north Minneapolis favor running the line on 21st Avenue N., to spare W. Broadway, the community’s cultural and commercial heart. That’s being studied too.
Eva Young, a Lyn Park resident who opposes the Lyndale Avenue route, said she believes the Met Council is interested in “marketing rather than engaging and listening.”
No price tag has been attached to the Blue Line extension project, though early estimates were in the $1.5 billion range. Service is expected to begin between 2028 and 2030.
Farther up the line, Selman and others fear that light-rail trains running along the new route — busy Hwy. 81, also known as Bottineau Boulevard — will sever their communities and create unsafe and potentially deadly intersections.
But Lunde, the Hennepin commissioner who represents the northwest suburbs, said the Hwy. 81 alignment is more economical because it doesn’t use right-of-way controlled by railroads. Plus, he noted, it will serve some of the most disadvantaged areas of the metro.
Selman has vowed that his group will follow the lead of the Purple Line’s opponents, working “to get people elected” with views that align with their own.
“This is a 100-year decision,” he said. The notion “of public transportation at any cost is not a responsible position.”
Never in a million years did Christina Snaza imagine she would move to Wisconsin.
A native Minnesotan whose phone still sports the 218 area code of the state’s northern half, Snaza and her husband were drawn across the St. Croix River three years ago from their home in Oakdale when they learned how affordable and convenient it would be to move to Somerset, Wis.
“We still call ourselves Minnesotans,” said Snaza, who now has a Wisconsin-born toddler.
Whether by happenstance or by design, thousands have made the same move into western Wisconsin since the four-lane St. Croix Crossing Bridge opened in 2017 and slashed commute times to the Twin Cities and the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. The rural hamlet of Roberts has grown 20% since the bridge opened, with some of its 2,100 residents moving into a subdivision jokingly referred to as “Little Woodbury.” Vikings flags snap in the breeze outside homes in the Somerset neighborhood of River Hills. And at Sweet Beet Bakery in New Richmond, owner Ashley Adkison says she has house hunters stopping in every Saturday to pick up tips on the local schools as well as some of her fresh-baked “Croixnuts” pastries. “They ask ‘Is everything open all week?’ ” she said, the city residents trying to prep for life in a small town.
The residential boom has made St. Croix County the fastest-growing county in Wisconsin. The bridge opening was like a “green light switch went on,” said Rob Kreibich, the president and CEO of the New Richmond Chamber of Commerce and a recently elected Republican member of the Wisconsin State Assembly.
Less crime, lower taxes and a small-town feel all play a part in drawing folks out of the Twin Cities, he said. Some new arrivals are looking for a place to start a family, but plenty of retirees or near-retirees have come as well, some citing lower sales tax or the absence of state tax on Social Security income as a factor. For others, a move to New Richmond has meant being closer to their up-north cabin.
Realtor Gina Moe-Knutson said some town councils have courted the growth while others were reluctant to let go of their rural identity. The first locale across the bridge, St. Joseph Township, has seen modest growth of 8% since the bridge opening, while it’s 19% in New Richmond. The city invested in infrastructure 25 years ago, said former director of planning and development Robert Barbian, building out water and sewer connections and plotting roads across farm fields as adjacent township land was annexed into the city for developments that became Waters Edge, Fox Run, Whispering Pines, and Gloverdale. The result is the city’s footprint has grown from 6,183 acres in 2015 to 7,674 acres today, said New Richmond City Administrator Noah Wiedenfeld.
“We looked ahead quite a few leaps,” Barbian said.
The trees in your city look different when you’re the one planting them.
It’s work that doesn’t stop when the snow flies and the ground is too cold to dig. So on a frigid December afternoon, Minneapolis’ Midtown Greenway echoed with the buzz of chain saws and the creak of timbers as a Tree Trust crew pruned the trees and brush, cut back invasive species and freed saplings from strangling vines. All the hard jobs it takes to keep the metro evergreen.
Caring for an urban forest means taking care to train the next generation of skilled workers who are drawn to hard, rewarding jobs out in the cold and the heat and the rain.
“A program like this really changes how you view the outdoors,” said arborist-in-training Gianna Broadhead, taking a break from stacking logs taller than herself in tidy piles beside the greenway. She lives near the Mississippi River and now, when she walks by its banks, she can identify trees on sight, spot the invasive species and marvel at the old-growth giants.
Broadhead and her teammates are in the final weeks of Tree Trust’s Branches program — a 10-week paid apprenticeship in tree care and landscaping, under the supervision of experienced staff.
This has been Tree Trust’s dual mission since the nonprofit was founded almost 50 years ago. Minneapolis neighborhoods, decimated by Dutch elm disease, needed trees. The city’s teens and young adults needed work.
Antonio Juarez, a Branches trainer with Tree Trust, waits for a cyclist to pass before crossing the path while cleaning up trees and vines along the Midtown Greenway in Minneapolis on Dec. 10, 2024. (Leila Navidi)
The idea of an office job didn’t appeal to Broadhead, but Tree Trust’s mission statement did: transforming lives and landscapes.
Nonprofits routinely overlook violations and award new contracts despite academic failures, according to a new Minnesota Star Tribune review of more than 200 charter school evaluations.
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