Money that should be spent on bridge repair and highway repair and construction is being spent on rail instead. Rail is bleeding money with poor ridership.

Joe:
The US' biggest subsidy -- free, fast, big roads for all -- is what's really costing us here, not rail. Remember that most funding for rail actually comes from existing designated federal funds for transit; while the federal government could designate it otherwise, as it stands, if Minnesota wants that money, it has to do transit with it.

Let's all be realistic about cost. Remember, our light rail projects often include many other elements to benefit auto drivers. Central Corridor is an expensive project, but it also includes the long-overdue complete reconstruction of University Avenue, which benefits businesses and drivers as well.

The key thing with any project -- highway, light rail, or other -- is building to a maintainable scale. For example, the Stillwater Bridge project that was recently approved will cost as much money as the entire Hiawatha Line project -- all to serve about 15000 cars a day. It is much larger than needed, and will cost much more to repair and eventually replace.

I'm okay with asking similar questions for transit: we *can* find cost-effective solutions that still serve riders. Arguably, the light rail that we have been doing is a cost-effective compromise, since it's not fully grade-separated. Bus Rapid Transit is another option that's potentially even cheaper.

One of the issues with the Hiawatha LRT project is that it has made traffic on Hiawatha Ave. worse, instead of better. Hiawatha was slated to be upgraded to an expressway, but when LRT went in, there was no longer enough room for the expressway, and sequencing the traffic lights with LRT has slowed traffic compared to before the LRT was built.

As to the Stillwater bridge, the new bridge will help traffic flow compared to the current bridge. Using your numbers of 15,000 cars per day, and assuming only 1.2 riders per car, that's 18,000 people per day crossing the St. Croix. Does the Hiawatha line carry 18,000 people per day?

I don't believe that anyone can make an argument for Lite Rail. It is an obsolete method of transportation. One that cost taxpayers who will never use it a great deal of money. Lets stop Lite Rail.

Carbon: Actually, according to Hennepin County, Hiawatha does 31,500 people per day: http://www.metrocouncil.org/transportation/lrt/lrt.htm. Apparently, "[r]idership on the line already has exceeded the pre-construction estimate for the year 2020." 31,500 still isn't amazing, but it seems better ROI than the Stillwater bridge. And if we compare to traffic on Hiawatha itself, that road gets 22,000 cars/day to 38,000 cars/day, depending on the segment. That means in many portions, more people on the train than on the road.

And you're right -- the traffic signals are a mess on Hiawatha. But the project did still involve several improvements for drivers. Instead of going through a tight residential neighborhood south of Minnehaha Creek, a new pseudo-expressway was built around the neighborhood. Additionally, interchanges were built at Lake St and 62 as part of the project.

The fact that the state has not upgraded Hiawatha to a freeway or expressway I think is mainly due to neighborhood and Minneapolis opposition -- Hiawatha has huge right of way, and there probably is still room. But I don't think a freeway would create value for Minneapolis in the way LRT has: can you picture condo developments popping up left and right, advertising their proximity to the new Hiawatha Freeway? I don't think so; like 35W, a Hiawatha Freeway would be a drain on its immediate neighbors. The LRT is an asset, both immediately and across the city.

I'm not a big fan of LRT, but I will admit that is has a function. The connection between downtown Mpls., the airport, and MOA is a plus for all 3 locations.

However, both the Hiawatha and University Ave. locations, there are existing RR corridors within a block of those streets. Why was it a requirement that the new University LRT corridor encroach onto existing streets? What is going in does more to disrupt traffic on the roadways than help it. On the Hiawatha corridor, a simple grade separation of the tracks from the crossing roadways would have made a major difference.

Carbon:
I totally agree about grade separation for Hiawatha -- it would have improved traffic flow for cars and pedestrians, and probably would have saved lives at those grade crossings.

As for Central Corridor, the existing rail corridor (along Pierce Butler Rte) might have worked for getting people between the downtowns, but it would have robbed the Midway of a bunch of stations and access to businesses. Remember, people riding Light Rail have a bike at most -- and usually just their own two feet. The stations have to be *very close* to the destinations. Since the destinations are on University Ave, it makes much more sense to build Light Rail there than along Pierce Butler Rte. The impact was mitigated, too: instead of cutting into travel space, they cut out parking and tightened up lanes. While I'm sure turning and crossing will be a bit slower than it was before, four lanes were preserved throughout. And if cars *really* have to move faster, I-94 is just a few blocks to the south.

Actually, I didn't mean the Pierce-Butler area, I meant the rail corridor 1 block south of much of University Ave.

Note that once again, on University Ave., the tracks are at street level. The old joke is that the local politicians wanted light rail trains in the worst way. And that's just we got them...in the worst way.

Another part of LRT that you almost touched on is "express trains". With the current trackage, there is no way to have express trains that run only between the major stops (downtown Mpls, MSP airport, Ft. Snelling, MOA). That would also help ridership, and I think you'd only need maybe 2 bypass tracks along the Hiawatha route if you timed the trains right.