"Now Everyone Wants a Train"

Building or expanding roads can’t deliver the same benefits as mass transit, he explains: “The economic efficiency of transit-oriented development results from the fact that it doesn’t have to rely as much on personal trips taken by vehicles and the roads needed to support them. Transit allows land to be used much more intensively—and therefore economically—than if it is supported only by roads.”

While developers have built condominiums along the Hiawatha line, the best local example of the kind of development Erkel describes is what’s planned at Hiawatha’s Bloomington Central station. St. Paul–based McGough Companies is building a complex of condominium, office, hotel, and retail space that will create a kind of village around the station.

Proponents of the Southwest light-rail line say there are even better opportunities for such developments there, especially along route 3A, one of three potential routes. Its Eden Prairie stations are positioned close to the city’s top business parks, notably the City West area and the Golden Triangle.

“These business parks that are in the 494 ring are just going to become more and more valuable as land becomes more expensive,” says Eden Prairie’s Lindahl. A straight shot to the airport on 494 and a cluster of high-tech and med-tech businesses are keys to that. “Developers are buying up these 20-year-old, 30-year-old, single-story, office/warehouse/manufacturing-type buildings, and they’re looking at redeveloping those into higher-density office buildings or multistory flex industrial,” he says.

To be sure, not everyone is enthusiastic about building more light rail. One skeptic is Phil Krinkie, president of the St. Paul–based Taxpayers League of Minnesota, who as a state legislator until 2006 was one of the Hiawatha line’s most notable opponents. Now that it’s up and running, he still isn’t convinced that it can be called a success. Its proponents “have kept changing the goal posts” in terms of cost and ridership as a way to measure its alleged success, he says. “I remember when light-rail advocates said we’d have 40,000 riders” a weekday, he adds, and when cost predictions were less than half of what the line’s final pricetag was.

In addition, Krinkie points to a recent report from the Minnesota Department of Transportation, which says that the total number of congested miles in the metro area was 267 in 2006, down from 277 in 2005 and 293  in 2003. (A congested mile, according to the department, is a mile of traffic moving slower than 45 miles per hour.) The report attributed this reduction to the completion of major road construction projects in late 2005 and 2006. Based on this report and other studies, Krinkie believes that “it’s not true that you can’t build your way out of congestion.” He asserts that light rail is primarily “about economic development, not moving people more efficiently,” and he believes that buses, if the public wants them, would be cheaper and more flexible than rail for public transport.

“It’s Not a System Yet”

Development possibilities aside, congestion may still be a bigger factor in growing support for the Southwest light-rail line, according to Lindahl: “I don’t know that our city council has taken a position in that regard, but I can safely say that the transportation and mobility benefits probably outweigh to some extent the economic development potential.” Anyone who has driven on Highway 5 or 212 around Eden Prairie during the ever-lengthening rush hours knows whereof Lindahl speaks.