UPDATED: Neighbors to Discuss Freight Plans

Update (12/2): I spoke with Lois Zander, who is the Sorensen Neighborhood representative to a team that has been analyzing the St. Louis Park reroute plan, Wednesday afternoon. Zander said Thursday's neighborhood meeting will be largely aimed at discussing mitigation efforts with other residents, as that is what people are most concerned about. Such mitigation efforts could include: putting in continuously welded track to reduce noise, adding sound walls, instituting "whistle-free" zones, installing new fencing and stop arms, and putting up pedestrian bridges that would arch over the track near the high school. Zander said she's eager to hear residents offer up more ideas as well.

Zander also said she wants to discuss the possibility of the rail company needing to acquire homes along the route to widen the corridor for safety reasons. In addition, she said she wants serious discussion over compensating other residents near the track who might not sell their homes but would be affected by increased train traffic.

I'll be heading to this meeting tonight, so look for more coverage tomorrow.

Following Monday's joint City Council and school board , where a number of alternatives to a freight reroute plan through St. Louis Park were discussed, several neighborhoods are now taking up the issue this week.

Tonight, the Birchwood and Bronx Park neighborhoods are holding a joint meeting at 7pm in room C-350 of . Then, on Thursday, the Sorensen Neighborhood is holding a meeting at 6:30pm in first floor community room.

Not surprisingly, these neighborhoods are all near the freight rail track that crosses through St. Louis Park and past the high school. Many residents have rallied against a plan that would bring more trains — and faster and bigger ones — to the tracks. The increased traffic would be coming from Minneapolis' Kenilworth Corridor, where a light rail line has been planned to go through with freight traffic being cleared out. Construction on that light rail line, dubbed the Southwest Transitway, is slated to begin in 2014 and wrap up in 2017.

But even that's up in the air. Several people at Monday's meeting, including Hennepin County Commissioner Gail Dorfman, who represents St. Louis Park and west Minneapolis, said any hold-ups in figuring out the freight issue could kill the light rail project. And even if the freight issue is resolved, there is no guarantee that Washington will be overly supportive of light rail funding following the Republican landslide earlier this month, the Star Tribune reports.

What is clear is that this issue has gotten the attention of the St. Louis Park community, if orange yard signs protesting the reroute or attendance at recent public rail meetings are any indication. As they say on TV, "Stay tuned."