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Traffic and livability questions surround light rail station
by Dan Olson, Minnesota Public Radio
June 10, 2003

(MPR photo/Dan Olson)

The Twin Cities' first light rail service begins in ten months. The Hiawatha line begins carrying passengers in April 2004. Besides hoping light rail will carry lots of riders, proponents are also counting on the service to spark development around the stations. However, development prospects at one of the busiest neighborhood stations are murky because of traffic and resident concerns.

Minneapolis, Minn. — Minneapolis resident Kevin McDonald is a light rail advocate who believes the 11.5 mile long line that will eventually run from from the Mall of America to downtown Minneapolis will usher in a new wave of neighborhood development. But standing near the south Minneapolis station at 46th street still under construction, McDonald wonders how riders, including his children, will safely cross four lanes of Hiawatha avenue traffic.

"It's a busy intersection, it's really unbelievable," McDonald says. "The number one thing people say when they come to community meetings is, you know, I'm scared to death of the traffic, and I'm really worried about making to the lrt station."

More than 20,000 vehicles a day use Hiawatha avenue. The four-lane roadway is the result of a failed road building plan 40 years ago. Federal and state transportation planners wanted to turn Hiawatha into a multi-lane freeway from downtown Minneapolis to the airport. They bought out residents and demolished homes. However, a federal judge stopped the project when the Minneapolis Park Board filed suit.

Instead of a freeway Hiawatha became a multi-lane city street that is also a state highway.

	46th street light rail station under construction

Light rail planners say the 46th street station will be one of the busiest of the 17 along the line. Metro Transit, the operator of the light rail service, will direct dozens of buses a day to and from the station. McDonald says the buses will make the intersection even busier.

"We're all for buses, but buses and cars and trucks, sometimes they don't mix very well," McDonald says.

McDonald and others who live near the 46th street station began meeting two years ago to create a plan for managing the change the light rail service will bring. They want the buses to pull off the street into a turnaround area next to the light rail station.

However, when Minneapolis developer Michael Lander was invited to consider building near the station he saw problems. He says the plan eats up or seals off some of the best opportunities for development. Lander has 30 years of development experience in both Minneapolis and St. Paul neighborhoods. He says there isn't enough space for an attractive development next to the station.

"I saw basically the middle of the donut was the only the opportunity to develop and I'm right in the middle of a bus turnaround on a postage stamp site," Lander says.

Another hurdle, he says is a proposed wall between the station area and the neighborhood.

"It's not a very attractive development opportunity, because I'd want to both connect with the station and the resource there and the neighborhood and weave a new development there into the neighborhood seamlessly," Lander says.

Both Lander and McDonald are optimistic there's still room and time to fix some of the hurdles to development around the 46th street station.

However, there's a new issue on the horizon.

Minnesota department of transportation officials plan to raise the Hiawatha avenue speed limit. The posted speed, routinely ignored, is 35 mph. The light rail station is in Minneapolis City Council member Sandy Colvin-Roy's ward. She says the state will raise soon raise the speed limit to 40 mph. Colvin-Roy says the state has agreed to put in traffic lights that read out the time remaining for pedestrians to cross and signs requiring drivers to stop before making right turns. She says people on foot also need to have a safe place in the middle.

"Eventually, what we really would like to see in this community as part of the community land use plan is to widen the island that is there now and make it wide enough for a real landing spot, so that as you're a pedestrian you at least for that 10 feet or 12 feet in the middle where we could plant something you wouldn't feel vulnerable to cars," Colvin-Roy says.

Minneapolis' ability to influence development at any of the city's light rail stations is minimal. The city's dire financial situation means it has little money to buy land or attract developers.

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