Ramsey County abandons Riverview streetcar project

Ramsey County said Friday afternoon that it is abandoning the $2.1 billion Riverview Corridor streetcar project that would have linked Union Depot in downtown St. Paul to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and the Mall of America.

In an announcement made on its website, the county said the “difficult” decision was based on feedback gleaned during a public engagement process with community members, businesses and other partners along the route, which would have largely followed busy W. 7th Street in St. Paul.

“For me, to continue to spend taxpayers’ money without solid support from our agency partners didn’t seem like the prudent thing to do,” said Ramsey County Commissioner Rafael Ortega, who long championed what would have been the first modern streetcar project in the state.

When asked which entity wasn’t supportive of the project, Ortega mentioned the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC), which owns and operates the airport.

The county’s decision comes as a key advisory committee was expected to make a recommendation on the mode for the service this fall.

Earlier this year, the county released an alternative to the streetcar — arterial bus rapid transit (aBRT) service that was estimated to cost about $121 million and provide faster service.

“Some were very supportive of streetcar, and some were very supportive of a bus alternative,” the county statement said. “During engagement sessions, issues were raised about potential construction impacts, safety and security concerns facing transit and communities overall, among other issues.”

It’s unclear whether bus rapid transit will take the place of the proposed streetcar. Planning for such service would be done by Metro Transit and the Metropolitan Council.

In a statement, Met Council spokesman John Schadl said, “We appreciate all the hard work Ramsey County has done on this project and look forward to continuing to partner with the county and community leaders to meet their transit needs.”

Currently, Metro Transit operates the A, C and D aBRT lines. The popular service features buses operating in traffic with signal priority, heated stations about a half-mile apart with real-time schedule information. The B and E lines are under construction, and 10 more of these lines are planned throughout the region.

The Riverview streetcar, similar to one currently running in Kansas City, featured a complicated route that would have partly operated in a dedicated lane along W. 7th, required a new $415 million bridge over the Mississippi River, and traveled along Blue Line light rail tracks to the airport and Bloomington megamall, where a new station was planned. It would have been funded from federal and local sources.

Transit planners avoided changing some of the infrastructure at Bdote/Historic Fort Snelling, although the streetcar would have stopped at a new station at state’s first National Historic Landmark.

The streetcar project drew ire from some business owners along W. 7th Street, who worried about how construction would affect them, as well as the loss of parking. Opponents held a “Save W. 7th Street!” rally in August and another was planned for later this month.

Pat Mancini, whose grandparents and father started Mancini’s Char House on W. 7th in 1948, said he tried to keep an open mind about the streetcar while serving on a Riverview advisory committee.

But in the end, he said the lack of information about how construction would affect local businesses concerned him and about a hundred other local businesses that expressed similar concerns to him.

“I didn’t feel comfortable with it,” Mancini said. “They needed to tell us what the avenue would be like during construction.”

Recently, staff and some members of the MAC expressed concerns about how the streetcar would affect access to the airport. Officials said bus rapid transit service would be less disruptive to airport operations, even though buses would only stop at Terminal 1. (The streetcar route included a stop at Terminal 2, the smaller of the airport’s two terminals.)

A MAC spokesman declined to comment on Friday’s Riverview news.

“The county appreciates and takes community and partner feedback very seriously and thanks everyone for sharing their input,” the statement said, noting that a streetcar is still a viable option, but adding that it’s important for transit investments in the region to be complementary.

The county left the door open to reviving a discussion about a potential streetcar: “Should the time arise to carry this work forward, we would gladly revisit conversations.”