Government officials have been studying the various transportation needs in the Twin Cities. They have decided we need light rail transit to solve our congestion problems and make the Twin Cities a modern, twenty first century metropolitan area.

This week, the Hennepin County Regional Rail Authority announced their recommendations for LRT to serve the needs of the southwest corridor, including cities like Eden Prairie, Chanhassen, and Minnetonka. The options likely to be approved range in price from $1.2 billion to $1.4 billion. If it’s anything like the Hiawatha line, this project will likely cost closer to $2 billion. (Remember, we, the taxpayers, are stuck with a major subsidy of the Haiwatha line. Brett Shroyer wrote an excellent post some time ago about this). If the Southwestern Corridor is approved by the Metropolitan Council, the train will be operational by 2015. For a summary of light rail transit and specifically the Hiawatha line, the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library just posted this.

The HCRRA estimates 23,000 – 28,000 daily riders. There’s no mention in the Lakeshore Weekly News story as to how many of these riders will be net new riders. Typically what happens is people just stop using the buses and jump on the train. If I find the net number of new riders I will post that.

“If the Central Corridor (St. Paul and Minneapolis LRT) and Southwest Corridor LRT lines were built to the downtown Minneapolis station, it would be possible for people to travel by train from Eden Prairie to the state Capitol, or from Anoka to Eden Prairie,” (Jason McGrew-King, Lakeshore Weekly News).

Yes, and we can go live on the moon…but what’s the cost to all of this? No one seems to talk about that, nor do they care. What’s 28,000 daily riders? It sounds like a pretty large number, but is it really? Is there any mention as to how many car trips are taken along this corridor everyday?

What could we get for our $2 billion if we built some roads in Minnesota?

The Minnesota voters just passed the Transportation Amendment in this last election. If you noticed, it was for roads and transit. Those interested in transit are not interested in relieving traffic on the roads. They are interested in massive public spending on projects that will never pay for themselves. To see what the lobbyists were saying prior to the election, you can see their site here. Here’s what the Minnesota Department of Transportation had to say…and here’s a counter to these arguments by Red State.

In any event, the Twin Cities metro area is projected to grow by one million people by 2030. We will have a “world class” transportation system and the worse traffic of any like-sized metro in the country.