Training minds

Pioneer Press Fri, 14 Dec 2007 23:10:10 -0700
Light-rail planners ready to make tough choices about Central Corridor budget

Push is coming to shove among planners of the Central Corridor light-rail line between Minneapolis and St. Paul, and some of the project's major elements may be heading for a sidetrack. ... he Pioneer Press has obtained recent correspondence between U president Robert Bruininks and Met Council chair Peter Bell indicating that plans for a $155 million tunnel at the foot of Northrop Mall - long thought be the likeliest of the project's options - is in new peril. Bruininks last month sent a letter to the Met Council asking members to submit a supplement to the project's mammoth environmental impact statement, sketching out the potential to reroute Central Corridor down University Avenue, then heading downtown over the 10th Avenue bridge or the No. 9 railroad bridge, currently a pedestrian walkway linking the East Bank and West Bank campuses. That would be an implicit retreat from the U's preference for a tunnel separating transit from street traffic and pedestrians in the university's transportation core. Bell, though, rebuffed the idea in a letter last week: "I believe the best alignment through the University of Minnesota is at grade on Washington Avenue," he wrote. Bruininks wrote back, saying he was "troubled" by that: "This statement leads me to question if a legitimate study of the below-grade alignment is being conducted," Bruininks said.

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