Politics & Government

Southwest LRT Officials Weigh New Freight Rail Options

Planners say the reroute proposals—which include a route through the St. Louis Park High School football field—have gentler curves than the original plan.

A pair of deep light rail tunnels and a new freight rail route through the St. Louis Park High School football field are just two new possibilities under consideration as the Metropolitan Council seeks to resolve a dispute over what to do with freight rail when the Southwest Transitway comes through.

The council on Tuesday announced that it will be hosting a pair of public open houses June 13 to discuss new engineering concepts for resolving the freight rail issue. Freight rail routing has been a particularly contentious part of the Southwest Light Rail Transit discussion in St. Louis Park.

Planners have proposed relocating Twin Cities & Western (TC&W) freight trains, which currently run on a planned segment of the Southwest LRT, to Canadian Pacific and BNSF routes that opponents say aren’t meant for the longer trains that TC&W uses.

Nearby residents say the additional, heavier freight traffic on the tracks would lower property values, disrupt nearby St. Louis Park High School and be more dangerous. They prefer keeping the TC&W freight line in the same corridor as the light rail—an option known as “co-location.”

Protestors came out in droves to criticize the reroute plan in the project’s draft environmental impact statement (DEIS). However, the reroute options announced Tuesday are different than the one found in the DEIS.

The Met Council announcement spelled out two relocation options that it said would “have gentler curves and a flatter alignment” and be safer than the DEIS plan.

Those options are: 

  • “Building freight tracks through the existing St. Louis Park High School football field, which would be relocated to reunite with the main campus. This reroute concept is referred to as the Brunswick West freight rail relocation alignment.
  • “Building freight tracks that skirt the field to the east. This reroute concept is referred to as the Brunswick Central freight rail relocation alignment.”
It also listed six co-location options that would keep TC&W in Minneapolis’ Kenilworth corridor.
  • “Building LRT tracks along the freight tracks and trail, with all modes at ground level.
  • “Relocating the trail out of the corridor between the Midtown Greenway and Cedar Lake Parkway.
  • “Elevating the trail.
  • “Building a shallow tunnel for LRT tracks.
  • “Building deep twin tunnels, with one tunnel for each LRT track.
  • “Elevating LRT tracks.”
The Met Council noted that both co-location and relocation options will affect homes and businesses.

“The goal is to choose one option and design it in a way that is safe and operationally efficient for both LRT and the freight railroads and cost effective,” the announcement stated.

Southwest LRT officials will make a presentation to the St. Louis Park City Council at 6:30 p.m. May 28.

Outreach staff have already begun contacting property owners whose properties could be acquired under one of the plans.

Project engineers will discuss the options and seek feedback at open houses from 8 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. and from 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. June 13 in the Commons Cafeteria at Benilde-St. Margaret’s School. That feedback will be shared with members of the project’s business and community advisory committees, the Corridor Management Committee and the Met Council.

The cost of the relocation and co-location options will be presented in midsummer. The Met Council is expected to make a decision about the freight rail issue by late summer.  


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