"Now Everyone Wants a Train"

But where will the money to fund more transit come from? That’s one of the big battles that’s been playing out in this year’s session of the Minnesota Legislature. Governor Tim Pawlenty’s transportation budget called for no new transit spending, except for bonding and money from a transportation amendment that passed last November. Legislators this session proposed a region-wide sales-tax boost, which the governor promised to veto. With the added revenue, the Southwest Corridor could be finished by 2015; a veto would derail any plans to finish the line earlier than the 2020s.

It’s likely that the Southwest line will be built—eventually. The issue is how long it will take, and whether, from an economic standpoint, it makes sense to wait very long.

Congestion Tax

“Hiawatha was always meant, in my mind, to be a catalyst,” says McLaughlin, who chairs the Hennepin County Regional Railroad Authority. The authority was formed in 1980 by the Minnesota Legislature to plan and implement light-rail transit in the county, and its board consists of the Hennepin County commissioners. The state’s Department of Transportation, in cooperation with the authority, began to acquire decommissioned railroad rights-of-way in the ’80s, including the Milwaukee Road rail bed between Lake Street and I-94 that became part of the Hiawatha line. But building that first line was a long slog.

Land along Hiawatha Avenue had been cleared for transportation purposes as early as the 1960s, with the idea of building a multilane highway. Talk of building a light-rail line there began to be kicked around in the 1970s, and in 1985, the Department of Transportation drew up an environmental impact statement for what would become the Hiawatha line. Years of legislative and neighborhood resistance ensued and delayed further development until 1998, when the availability of federal funds made it more attractive for legislators to provide state funds for the project. The railroad authority contributed $85 million for the total Hiawatha development and construction bill, which was around $715.3 million.

“We wanted to get something built so people could see it, kick the tires, understand how it works,” McLaughlin says. “If people could see it, I believed, people would ride it. And Hia-watha proved that people will really ride it.”

But would Hiawatha’s ridership levels be equaled on a Southwest line? David Lindahl, manager of economic development for Eden Prairie, notes that less than a quarter of his city’s residents work in downtown Minneapolis. “The rest of the Eden Prairie folks are working in Eden Prairie and in Bloomington and in other suburbs . . . . That’s a pretty major investment, bringing light rail out here to serve only 10 or 15 percent of our population.” The railroad authority does project numbers similar to Hiawatha’s, though, because as experience with that line has shown, the train is used by more than just commuters and more than just the people who live near the stations.

And Lindahl does support the creation of the Southwest line, citing rapid growth in the community. From 1990 to 2000, the southwestern part of the metropolitan area saw a 17 percent jump in population and employment. Business groups have become supporters, too. The chambers of commerce for Edina and Eden Prairie have come out in favor of building the line, as has the TwinWest Chamber, which represents businesses in 10 west-suburban cities, including St. Louis Park, Hopkins, and Minnetonka.

“We’ve been on board with this for some time,” says Jason Flohrs, TwinWest’s director of government affairs, “We’re just pushing it really, just crunching the numbers and saying, ‘Hey, we don’t have the space, the capacity on our roadways, to get people where they need to go.’”