Safety in the Park Steps Up Anti-Relocation Efforts as Met Council Deadline Looms

The Met Council’s Aug. 28 decision on co-location versus relocation is drawing closer, and “Safety in the Park,” the St. Louis Park neighborhood advocacy group supported by more than 1,500 residents is ramping up its efforts opposing the relocation of freight rail lines.

Last week, the organization released three “professionally rendered” images using Met Council data to show the effect on St. Louis Park should freight rail be rerouted according to the Brunswick Central plan, taking out roads and homes south of the high school football stadium.

This week, the group released a form letter for its members to send to the Met Council, asking for relocation to be removed from the supplemental draft environmental impact statement.

The Met Council has given hints that it is leaning away from rerouting freight lines through St. Louis Park.

In a statement to the city council last Monday, Met Council official Jim Alexander said that the council is hoping to minimize property acquisition and take into account safety and community cohesion concerns.

“Tunnel options are seen as a ‘win-win’ for both communities [Kenilworth and St. Louis Park], minimizing impacts to parks and trails,” he said. “This is our goal, as well, to minimize property impacts, especially if we have to take people’s homes.”

And, in a July interview with MPR, Met Council Chair Sue Haigh called the Kenilworth shallow tunnel co-location option “promising.”

But Safety in the Park is arguing that the continued consideration of the Brunswick Central option is “inappropriate” and “arbitrary and capricious” and shows a disregard for public input.

“The remaining reroute option, Brunswick Central, ranks higher on [the] scale of negative impacts than co-location options that have already been removed from consideration,” reads a Safety in the Park letter. “The continuation of the [Met Council] to consider these re-route options directly challenges a partner municipality and those who represent it.”