Stop the on-street Blue Line extension before it starts

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Earlier this year, influential state lawmakers introduced Senate (SF 5460) and House (HF 5431) bills calling for a pause to the planning and implementation of metro area light-rail transit projects. With post-pandemic light-rail ridership still down over 25% despite a robust regional economy, with commute trips now longer but less frequent, and with ongoing public safety concerns and a deeply flawed project management ethos, this is prudent public policy and should be adopted by Metropolitan Council and its legislative sponsors.

But that recommendation comes up short for the Bottineau Blue Line extension (BLE), now relocated to operate over northwestern metro streets and arterial medians. That’s because there’s no real remedy for what will be a slow, disruptive, crash-prone light-rail route for which there are far better, safer and less costly alternatives. Hardly anyone riding the $3 billion BLE at 14 to 18 miles per hour up and down West Broadway and Bottineau Boulevard will get where they are going faster or safer than riding a far less disruptive $100 million bus rapid transit (BRT) alternative of the sort operating successfully over north Minneapolis arterials.

In general, a light rail must operate end-to-end faster than 25 mph, including station stops and traffic interference, to offer mobility advantages and thus ridership gains over transit and driving alternatives. But as light-rail operators in Los Angeles, Seattle and elsewhere have learned, it can only do so safely using an exclusive right of way either above, below or widely separated from street-level activities.

The initial Bottineau Blue Line, co-located over the Burlington Northern Santa Fe freight-rail corridor, had the potential to move riders between Target Field and Brooklyn Park safely at 35 mph. And while it remains unclear if post-COVID ridership will ever return to levels that justify such a system, the community would now have the luxury of waiting for a viable off-street light-rail concept to emerge if it were to implement a complementary bus-centric alternative in the meantime.

Elected officials in Minneapolis, Crystal, Robbinsdale and Brooklyn Park can make this strategy happen by voting to withhold permission to build the Blue Line extension through their cities through a process known as “municipal consent.” In doing so, they should demand the following:

1. A 10-year moratorium on the planning, engineering and implementation of new light-rail projects, including the $3 billion on-street Blue Line extension.

2. A faster, safer, sooner and cheaper $100 million to $150 million “interim” bus rapid transit system over the same on-street route to be ready before 2027.

3. A permanent ban on new on-street light-rail operations. Seattle did this following numerous fatalities and crashes on its on-street light-rail line serving the diverse south Seattle community. St. Paul’s Green Line is also struggling with this issue with two recent fatalities. Does the Met Council have to learn this the hard way, too?

While it seems unfair to ask northwest metro stakeholders to wait indefinitely for “their turn” at securing showcase, off-street light-rail service, it seems downright sinister to saddle the community with an underperforming shiny object that promises far more regional mobility than it will actually deliver.

If you agree, remind your elected north metro municipal representatives that there is a faster, safer and sooner way to improve community mobility and your state representatives that there are bills awaiting passage next session that will ensure as much.

Deb Kersten is co-chair of Stop Light Rail 81 (SLR-81), a transit advocacy group based in Robbinsdale. Jerome Johnson is a retired Twin Cities-area transportation economist and a research contributor to Stop Light Rail 81.