Blue Line Extension: What's transit got to do with it?

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To justify its increasingly controversial light-rail transit (LRT) network expansion, the Metropolitan Council touts a benefit mix of improved transit service, enhanced ridership access to social and economic opportunities, and transit-oriented station-area development. But the way it has managed its proposed Blue Line Extension (BLE) suggests that station-area development and gentrification matter and that better service to transit-dependent North Side and northwest metro riders does not ("Blue Line extension responds to critics," front page, Aug. 11).

That first became evident in 2020 when the BLE was forced out of its original 30-plus-mile-per-hour route over a freight-rail corridor to a 16-mph route over nearby city streets and arterials. There was little, if any, consideration given to slightly faster and far more cost-effective bus rapid transit (BRT) alternatives. And now planners are adding to the inefficiency by proposing to extend the on-street West Broadway light rail tracks east of Interstate 94 to serve the trendy, gentrifying Far North Loop, adding nearly half a mile and three to four minutes to the trip downtown from points west of Broadway and Fremont Avenue North. So much for "improved transit service" to the North Side.

But that doesn't seem to faze the Met Council, which claims in its promotional posts that the on-street Blue Line Extension (BLE) will "bring significant opportunities for community and economic development along the alignment that would not likely be realized with a BRT design." Really?

There may have been merit to this before the proposed Blue Line relocation to city streets. It would have derived from the market-driven investment near Southwest light rail (SWLRT) station sites in St. Louis Park, Hopkins and Minnetonka, where train speeds and frequencies should be similar to the original BLE route. And like the original BLE, just about everyone riding SWLRT's fast off-street route to or through downtown Minneapolis will get where they are going much faster than using alternative transit offerings, with some trips even faster than driving. That is serious mobility and is what market-driven, transit-oriented site developers respond to.

But that will not hold for a BLE operating in traffic over West Broadway, Bottineau Boulevard and (now) Washington Avenue at half the speed of the original off-street corridor. Hardly anyone riding it will get anywhere faster than using alternative BRT concepts, and they will do so only slightly faster than current local buses.

The Met Council is apparently betting that a narrowly defined ridership segment — those who can walk to West Broadway or North Loop stations to ride through downtown to the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport or the Mall of America — will increase significantly through development of higher-density station-area housing and more affluent ridership. If that bet holds, it will force serious social engineering commitments to minimize resident and business dislocations as these areas up-zone, as higher rents follow suit, and as legacy businesses struggle to survive three or more years of construction disruption. And when light-rail service does start, those 90-plus percent of remaining corridor riders that either go downtown, transfer through downtown or ride local will be no better off after their extended train ride through the Far North Loop.

In essence, area taxpayers and transit patrons are asked to back a speculative land development gambit that does virtually nothing for broader community mobility, but with no assurance that even this bet will pan out. Station-area investment along the equally slow and street-running Green Line east of Snelling in St. Paul has not met expectations despite heavy public involvement. Even the busy Snelling-University station area, with its gleaming new soccer stadium, remains surrounded by empty or underutilized acreage, envisioned since 2016 to include office towers, cinemas, parking ramps and mixed-use residential/retail deployment. Today, that "game changing" vision has been scaled back to just a sculpture garden featuring the soccer team mascot, a couple playgrounds, acres of surface parking and a modest team office building. Go Loons.

In sharp contrast, consider the 100-acre Highland Bridge mixed-use development just three miles away. There will be no LRT service to Highland Bridge even though the Met Council's proposed Riverview Line was available. No one wanted it. What there is, instead, is stellar bus rapid transit service. Construction is booming. Go figure.

Jerome Johnson is a retired transportation economist and research contributor to Stop Light Rail on Highway 81 (SLR-81).