In southern Minnesota, cities debate whether passenger rail is a costly endeavor or ‘wave of the future’

ROCHESTER – A meeting room inside the Rochester Public Library was stuffed with folks curious about the Minnesota Department of Transportation’s rail plans, wondering whether passenger rail or other options might finally come to their community.

MnDOT officials say more than 5,000 people have recently submitted comments, thoughts and proposals as state officials update the rail policy plan over the next few months. They’ve heard from many people who want expanded rail across the state, from Moorhead to Duluth, St. Cloud to Red Wing.

Though the plan is more a recommendation, it’s got southern Minnesota communities wondering about how they could benefit from more rail access. Not every community supports rail connections; some like Rochester have been scared off of rail talks for years after previous plans went awry and other cities like Austin say they want to focus on more pressing issues.

Yet more transportation options have cities pondering the future of rail transportation.

“There’s pretty strong interest in connection between the Twin Cities and places like Rochester, Winona, Owatonna [and] Northfield,” said Robert Clarksen, a MnDOT planning coordinator managing the process to update Minnesota’s State Rail Plan. “But we’re also hearing people who are telling us that it’s important to continue to investigate options to get to St. Cloud and other places via whatever mechanism that may look like in the future.”

MnDOT officials update the plan every decade. It’s meant to guide lawmakers on potential rail projects 20 years into the future. The current update work started in 2022. MnDOT has two more public meetings planned for Moorhead and St. Paul next week. If all goes well, the updated plan’s expected to wrap up next spring.

State lawmakers have fought in recent years over the viability of commuter rail projects, from light rail proposals to high-speed tracks. It’s led advocates like Suzie Nakasian, a former Northfield City Council member, to push compromises like introducing more conventional passenger rail options, which also would lay the groundwork for more freight and business connections across the state.

“We’re just hoping to get on the game board and study the possibilities,” Nakasian said.

Nakasian has put together a coalition of colleges, cities and counties across south-central and southeast Minnesota in favor of a few large-scale proposals. One is to build passenger rail (think regular commuter railroad lines) from the Twin Cities to Albert Lea and further south roughly following Interstate 35. Another is to get another connection from the Cities to Mankato and create an east-west connection by expanding freight rail lines along Highway 14, which could run from South Dakota through Wisconsin.

Thus far, almost 20 cities and counties have officially supported Nakasian’s proposals.

Albert Lea officials jumped at the opportunity. A line connecting the Twin Cities to Des Moines and beyond could lead to an unprecedented boom for the city of 18,000.

“It’s huge in dealing with everything from some of our housing issues to when we look at our climate and the ability to find alternate transportation instead of singular use vehicles,” Albert Lea City Manager Ian Rigg said.

Though Rigg acknowledged such a line would take years — and likely another city manager — to complete, he said the proposal would offer extraordinary economic development as a stop along a potential north-south route from Minnesota to Texas.

A Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) study earlier this year identified a Twin Cities-to-Kansas City-to-San Antonio long-distance route as one of 16 preferred projects to add to Amtrak’s U.S. network. Amtrak appears to support the Twin Cities route, according to Nakasian.

Even if it has Amtrak support, a large-scale railroad network throughout southern Minnesota would be a heavy undertaking.

“When it comes to passenger rail, it’s not just about Minnesota most of the time,” said Adam Fulton, a rail planning coordinator for MnDOT. “It’s usually about how we coordinate with other places.”

Albert Lea could be a decent place to build Amtrak rail, but it would require support from several states before track could be laid down. And Minnesota also would have to take federal policymaking into account before it hurdles into a rail project.

“The FRA has done a lot of work in thinking about what a long-term system looks like,” Fulton said. “Recognizing how that looks and how it has changed over time is something that should be considered as those big investments happen.”

Fulton pointed to the recent Borealis Amtrak line stretching from the Twin Cities to Chicago as a project that took years to complete, involving Wisconsin, Illinois and federal transportation officials.

Not everyone is convinced passenger rail is the future for southern Minnesota. Last month, the Austin City Council voted 3-1, with three council members absent, against supporting Nakasian’s idea for a criss-cross passenger rail network across southern Minnesota.

Council Member Jason Baskin said Thursday he felt the project had low odds of success, especially when people could drive to other parts of Minnesota faster than they could take a conventional train.

“When it’s been tried in other areas of the state, it’s ended up being a really poor financial decision,” Baskin said. “Our [city] staff are already overworked trying to deal with core issues like public safety and plowing the streets. It didn’t make sense for us to put additional burden on them ... having to participate in a process like this.”

Baskin worries Greater Minnesota doesn’t have the population density to financially support expanded rail networks. He sees investing in more bus lines as a better approach.

“We’ve already got stuff that works really, really well,” he said. “It’s just a matter of taking what’s proven to work and scaling it up.”

Arguably the biggest voice in a southern Minnesota rail conversation is Minnesota’s third-largest city, home to the Mayo Clinic. But Rochester officials haven’t made rail policy plans for more than a decade after a failed attempt to get a high-speed line from the metro area to Med City.

The Rochester area pushed for the line in the mid-2000s, but communities in between there and the Twin Cities arduously opposed the project. Republican lawmakers killed the line soon after, according to former DFL Rep. Kim Norton of Rochester. Though some groups have tried to push for rail connections over the years years, city officials haven’t really discussed rail projects since then.

“I think people thought it’s not going to happen,” said Norton, who has served as Rochester’s mayor since 2019. “And so we don’t want to keep wasting political capital on something that isn’t going to move because of the politics.”

Earlier this week, Norton called on city staff and the Rochester City Council to start talks on rail policy after Nakasian approached her and other officials. While Norton said she personally would prefer high-speed rail or hyperloop connections, it’s up to the city to research the issue and get community feedback before Rochester could support any project.

“We’re nowhere near ready to be able to take any position for or against,” Norton said Thursday. “We’re just going to be Switzerland right now because we haven’t had a discussion.”

Nakasian meets with Mankato officials this week and hopes to convince more communities to support expanded rail proposals. She’s already received support from several colleges and universities, including Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, St. Olaf and Carleton colleges in Northfield and South Central College in North Mankato.

“We want to make the colleges competitive and keep attracting people to the region,” Nakasian said. “And if you’re going to do that, you’d better have regional passenger rail because other cities are doing it. It’s the wave of the future.”