Response to University of Minnesota

The Metropolitan Council has gone the extra mile in trying to address the University of Minnesota’s concerns about the impact of the Central Corridor LRT line on university research facilities. In the process, we’ve held countless meetings, employed special consultants and devoted thousands of staff hours to the issues raised by the university.

We believe the mitigation measures we have developed and committed to implement will allow the university’s research facilities to function as well in the future as they do today. In fact, in many locations the project will significantly improve research conditions.

We are frustrated that our staff and consultants were not asked to appear before a university committee and discuss the careful study and planning that went into the development of our mitigation recommendations.

We remain hopeful that university officials will join us in working to achieve an agreement that will allow this vital regional transit improvement to go forward. Their continued resistance has the very real potential to delay the project and increase its cost, a cost that would be borne by Ramsey and Hennepin counties, the Counties Transit Improvement Board and the state of Minnesota. Also, a substantial cost increase would likely disqualify the project from federal funding.

What the Met Council’s Central Corridor Project Office has done to address the university’s concerns on:

Electromagnetic interference (EMI)

Hired two national electrical engineering experts in 2008 who were involved in designing the electrical power system for the light rail line that serves Washington University in St. Louis
Proposed installing copper wires under the track to cancel EMI

Vibration

Developed vibration testing methodology in partnership with Seattle’s consultant who handled Sound Transit’s vibration mitigation. Methodology is consistent with Federal Transit Administration standards and practice
While the University of Minnesota might hold up the University of Washington mitigation agreement for light rail on its campus, the situation is vastly different for light rail trains on Washington Avenue. In Seattle, a tunnel-boring machine will drill LRT tunnels underneath University of Washington sensitive labs with trains eventually operating in the tubes. Central Corridor trains, however, will operate at street level

Planned for vibration impacts to be lower than current ambient levels. They will be lower due to proposed mitigation measures, which involve installation of resilient track fasteners, and removal of auto traffic when Washington Avenue is converted into transit-pedestrian mall

Construction impacts

Designed the line at street level instead of in a tunnel to minimize construction impacts

Expect that light rail construction will cause less vibration than some of the university’s own recent projects that have involved demolition and pile driving near its sensitive labs