Central Corridor LRT Project moves forward

Council applies for approval to begin final design

Construction is still several years away, but the Central Corridor light-rail transit (LRT) project has taken another major step forward.

The Metropolitan Council has submitted its application for federal approval to enter final design on the 11-mile line, which will run along University and Washington avenues between downtown St. Paul and downtown Minneapolis. It will serve a projected weekday ridership of more than 42,000 by 2030.

The 4,000-page application will be reviewed over the next several months by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), which is expected to make a decision by early next year. Meanwhile, the project staff will continue advanced preliminary engineering on the line.

Central Corridor Project Office Director Mark Fuhrmann and his staff submitted the preliminary engineering plans and federal New Starts application to the Federal Transit Administration on Sept. 5. The documents total 4,000 pages, more than twice the size of the Manhattan phone book. .

The application – the product of 19 months of preliminary engineering – includes information on project plans, technical drawings, ridership projections, operating and maintenance costs, and a project budget of $914.9 million.

Soaring materials costs forced modification of plans

Faced with soaring costs for steel, asphalt concrete and other components, the Council and staff were forced to make considerable modifications in project plans to reduce costs and meet federal cost-effectiveness requirements.

Calling the project budget “very tight,” Council Chair Peter Bell said, “We have scrubbed it and scrubbed it and scrubbed it again. We have no additional dollars to work with.”

The FTA requires that projects have a cost-effectiveness index (CEI) of $24.49 or less to enter final design. The CEI is a measure based on the project’s annualized capital and operating costs, divided by the travel time saved by riders. With its revised budget, the Central Corridor project now has a CEI of $24.41.

If the project wins final FTA approval, the federal government will provide half of the funding needed for construction, with the other half provided from state and local sources. The local funding partners – including the state Legislature, the Ramsey and Hennepin County rail authorities and the newly formed Counties Transit Improvement Board – all committed funding in the past few months

Plans call for 15 new stations, substructure for 3 more

As currently proposed, the project includes 15 new stations, a transit mall on Washington Avenue within the University of Minnesota campus and the substructure for three additional stations at Western, Victoria and Hamline avenues in St. Paul that could be added later.

The line will share five stations with the existing Hiawatha line in Minneapolis and terminate at a new intermodal station now under construction adjacent to the new Twins ballpark. That station also will serve the new 40-mile Northstar commuter rail line, which is scheduled begin service by the end of 2009.

The current timeline for Central calls for construction to begin in 2010, with passenger service starting in 2014.

"We have had to overcome several major challenges to get this far, but I am very optimistic about the Central Corridor project,” said Bell. “It will provide improved access to important employment, educational and economic opportunities along the corridor and beyond. And it will allow us to continue building transit ridership, while slowing the growth in traffic congestion.”