Bob Corrick’s and John DeWitt’s response to Art Higinbotham’s letter to the editor
In his advocacy for a Greenway/Nicollet alignment for the SW LRT corridor, Arthur Higinbotham (Star-Tribune 8/3) fails to mention that that alignment will likely add nearly $300 million to the project cost. Unfortunately, that added expense would give us a light rail line that is most notable for what it just misses.
Access to jobs drives transit ridership. Some 70% of transit trips in the Twin Cities are job related. That grows to 80% with the addition of University students. A map of Twin Cities’ employment clusters (below) shows just one significant employment cluster in south Minneapolis, the Abbott-Northwestern, Allina, Wells Fargo complex. But the Greenway/Nicollet alignment misses that important cluster by nearly a mile. In 2010, the long awaited Bus Rapid Transit service on 35W will begin. And again, the Greenway/Nicollet alignment will miss an important transfer point at Lake Street by four blocks.
Minneapolis Employment Clusters: Large Red Dots=10,000+ employees
The city of Minneapolis has designated four growth centers: downtown, the U of M, Basset Creek Valley, and the Abbott Northwestern, Allina and Wells Fargo complex. The Greenway/Nicollet alignment misses all of those growth centers, except for downtown.
To build the kind of transit the Twin Cities region needs in the 21st century, it’s important to focus on the system, not just one individual line. A network combining a streetcar line through the Midtown Greenway with a light rail line through the Kenilworth corridor will perform much better than a single light rail line using the Greenway/Nicollet alignment. In addition, this Network Alignment would save taxpayers some $200 million.
A Greenway streetcar line would connect the Hiawatha and SW LRT lines. It would serve all the neighborhoods and businesses along Lake Street from Hiawatha Avenue to West Lake Street, including Uptown. It would directly serve some of the most transit dependent neighborhoods in Minneapolis as well as employees at Abbott-Northwestern, Allina, and Wells Fargo along with the 35W BRT transfer station. Together, the light rail and the streetcar line would serve three of the four designated growth centers in Minneapolis. Finally, the Kenilworth leg of the Network Alignment would better serve transit riders from north Minneapolis.
There is strong community support for the Network Alignment. The Midtown Greenway Coalition, Lake Street Council, and Midtown Community Works Partnership are behind it.
A Network Alignment would serve Minneapolis far better at much less cost.
Note: This letter was submitted by Bob Corrick to the StarTribune on August 5, 2009.
