Jun 23, 2006 11:24 am US/Central
Met Council Looks For Ways To Trim LRT Cost
St. Paul (AP) ―
With a price tag of $930 million and growing for a planned light-rail link between the downtowns of Minneapolis and St. Paul, members of the Metropolitan Council are looking for ways to trim costs.
The regional planning body meets next week and is expected to officially conclude that light-rail transit is preferable to bus rapid transit for connecting the downtowns.
But Chairman Peter Bell is warning his colleagues to start considering possible savings in order to qualify for federal matching funds needed for a 2010 construction start.
The $930 million estimate is about $90 million higher than the previous figure. It jumped because the project opening is five years later than first thought, and inflation had to be taken into account.
"The likelihood of the project going forward at that dollar figure is suspect," Bell said at a Met Council meeting this week. "This project might have to go on a diet."
The project as now conceived contains some big-ticket costs. The University of Minnesota is insisting on a campus tunnel for the train, which would run along University Avenue, at a cost of $155 million. Plans also call for reconstructing all of University Avenue and its sidewalks, to the tune of $55 million, and neighbors along some stretches of the line are calling for more stations to make access easier for transit-dependent riders.
The more bells and whistles, the higher the proposal's cost-efficiency index -- which makes the project less likely to qualify for federal money.
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