With discussion over a controversial freight rail reroute plan building in St. Louis Park, local neighborhoods have picked up their grassroots efforts to stop the reroute — or at least make it as tolerable as possible.

Three neighborhoods — Birchwood, Bronx Park and Sorensen — all had meetings this week, and it would be no surprise to see more and more of these pop up in coming weeks and months. That's because a decision on whether to reroute trains from Minneapolis' Kenilworth Corridor — which is being pegged as part of a proposed regional light rail line — and if so, how to do so, will likely be needed next year.

Residents have by and large voiced criticism over a proposal that would bring this rerouted traffic through St. Louis Park. Many have said they are concerned about faster and larger trains going by the St. Louis Park High School.

"None of us want this freight rail reroute," said Jami LaPray, a Sorensen resident and co-chair of the grassroots group Safety in the Park, during Thursday's neighborhood meeting.

Sorensen Neighborhood chair Valerie Bartl agreed.

"We do not want (the reroute)," she said. "On a scale of one to 10, it's a 10."

On Thursday, LaPray, Bartl and about 20 others from the Sorensen Neighborhood met in a City Hall community room to rally against the line. Phone numbers of key elected officials were distributed, and neighborhood leaders urged other residents to tell these officials how they feel.

"I think we have a fighting chance," LaPray told the small crowd. "That's why we need to stay involved."

But fighting chance or not, residents in Sorensen and other neighborhoods are still fairly realistic about the process. Because the light rail's final design is ultimately a Met Council decision, and because all involved freight rail companies would need to agree to any reroute proposal, citizen activists know their wishes might not become reality.

So, they've also been actively working to come up with lists of safety measures they'd like to see implemented by Hennepin County if a reroute comes through St. Louis Park. On Thursday, Sorensen residents discussed walk bridges over any track near the high school, new gate arms, a quiet zone and an escrow account for any potential derailments in town, among other requests.

Gail Dorfman, the Hennepin County commissioner who represents St. Louis Park, said a big question will be if such safety concerns actually could make the route safer than it was before — even with the rerouted traffic.

Dorfman said Safety in the Park has been using inflated numbers when talking about increased train traffic, and noted that some of the mitigation efforts being discussed could actually be a blessing in disguise of sorts for St. Louis Park if the reroute comes through.

Still, the commissioner was not ready to say she was fully supportive of the St. Louis Park route, instead saying she wants to wait for more study to be done on alternatives. Chided by Safety in the Park and others for calling the St. Louis Park route a "done deal" last summer then backing off, Dorfman said she was simply going off of the information she had at the time.

"I'm really honest with people," she said. "I said it was a done deal because I thought it was."

But since then, the City of St. Louis Park requested that new studies be done to look at other possibilities. On Monday, those studies, which were commissioned by the county, were looked at. While Dorfman said none of the alternatives looked overly feasible, she said none should be off the table.

"I'm willing to look at alternatives," she said.