Old rivalries die hard. Despite high-minded rhetoric about metro unity and a veneer of mutual conviviality, Minneapolis and St. Paul are still basically at each other’s throats. The latest tussle is over which downtown should be the terminus for the Chicago-Twin Cities high-speed rail line.
There is no such line, of course. Not yet. But high-speed rail is no longer a distant dream. President Obama’s Recovery and Reinvestment Act includes competition for $8 billion in federal money to begin high-speed corridors in a half-dozen regions of the country. Included are several potential lines running outward from a Midwestern hub in Chicago. If the Twin Cities leg is selected, trains running northwest from Chicago would stop in Milwaukee, Madison and Winona, among other points, before arriving finally in, well, that depends on who’s talking; politicians in the east metro say St. Paul and politicians in the west metro say St. Paul followed by Minneapolis.
Sorting it out won’t be easy. A unified position seems critical if the line is to be selected within the next several months.
In 2005, U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar, the influential chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, secured a $50 million earmark for renovating St. Paul’s historic Union Depot in Lowertown. The object was to outfit the station to handle future rail traffic, including high-speed trains to Chicago. That infusion of federal cash bolstered Ramsey County’s assumption that Union Depot would emerge as the singular rail hub for the Twin Cities.
Over in the west metro, meanwhile, Hennepin and Anoka County officials anticipated a major transportation convergence near Target Field, the new Twins ballpark in the North Loop. All of the metro’s light rail lines (Hiawatha, Central, Southwest and Bottineau) would meet there. Northstar commuter trains will begin operating from there later this year. A revived line to Duluth, now on the drawing board, would also use the new Target Field station. (PDF) Including the Chicago high-speed trains made sense for the sake of convenience and customer service.
Minnesota’s share: $500 million
But U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., and Ramsey County Commissioner Jim McDonough aren’t convinced that a Minneapolis stop is needed. Minnesota’s share of the $1.2 billion high-speed project will approach $500 million, all in federal money, McDonough said Thursday. No one knows the cost of a Minneapolis extension, or the potential for additional riders. No one knows the extra cost for Amtrak to operate two stations in the Twin Cities, he said. It’s a redundancy we can’t afford. Chicago and Los Angeles won’t have two central stations for high-speed trains. Neither should the Twin Cities.
“What value does it add?” McDonough asked.
McCollum, whose congressional district includes St. Paul, said that Minnesota must be in a position now to act clearly and decisively. This isn’t the time to change the Chicago-St. Paul corridor that has been studied since 1998, she said Thursday.
“This is a once-in-a-century opportunity,” she said. “To have two heavy rail stations 10 miles apart makes no sense.” The connection to Minneapolis is provided by the Central light rail line, expected to open in 2014, she said. A study on whether to add Minneapolis could be launched sometime in the future, she noted, but not now.
A bill in the Legislature contemplates such a study as part of small bonding allocation to be included in Minnesota’s high-speed application. But there may be a move afoot to strip Minneapolis from consideration, according to Hennepin County Commissioner Peter McLaughlin.
That would be a huge mistake, said McLaughlin, who believes that including Minneapolis is essential for the project’s success. The whole point of high-speed service is to connect the nation’s largest commercial centers, he said. The market dictates that Chicago riders will want to reach Minnesota’s primary commercial hub, and that’s downtown Minneapolis. He’s not against a stop in St. Paul. But it would be foolish not to deliver riders where they most want to go. “It’s not good customer service to deliver passengers to a point 10 miles from their destination,” he said. “Forcing people to transfer loses riders.”
McLaughlin disputes the notion that the Midwest Interstate Passenger Rail Commission has selected St. Paul as the only terminus. Union Depot has no direct connection to the airport, he noted. Nor will it connect directly to Duluth, St. Cloud, Willmar, Fargo-Moorhead or other potential high-speed points. A Chicago passenger bound for Medtronic would have to change trains twice, he noted.
“We’re trying to connect our region to the world market,” McLaughlin said. “We can’t sacrifice that because some people in the east metro have a ‘beggar thy neighbor’ attitude. I don’t understand why they want to cut us out. We’re in favor of stopping at Union Depot. We want that. We’re not a threat to them in any way.”
His comments came after a briefing on the Target Field station. The county is contemplating demolishing its Environmental Services Building adjacent to the ballpark to expand the size of the station.
A wider divide
The dispute is part of a wider divide on transportation in the Twin Cities region. The east metro wants projects evaluated on the basis of fairness and balance. The west metro sees the marketplace as the determining factor. With the epicenter of population and commercial activity shifting southwest and northwest in recent years, Union Depot, first built in 1917, seems to many of them a remote location.
“Trains stop at places where they get riders,” said Rep. Frank Hornstein, DFL-Minneapolis. “It’s not true that metro areas have only one station. Trains stop in Newark and Penn Station [New York]. They stop in Baltimore and Washington. They stop in San Francisco and Oakland.”
Hornstein’s impression is that metro legislators are unified in supporting Union Depot while studying an extension to Minneapolis. Adding a stop in Minneapolis would obviously strengthen the line, he said.
Sen. Scott Dibble, DFL-Minneapolis, agrees. “Maybe there’s some deep-down fear that St. Paul will be bypassed,” he said. “But that’s not going to happen.”
Both cited a letter sent last month to Minnesota’s congressional delegation and signed by key metro legislators agreeing that the route should be “Chicago to St. Paul’s Union Depot and possibly Minneapolis.” The letter said that studying “the option of continuing the route on to Minneapolis at this time” would be part of the state’s high-speed application. Neither on Thursday had heard of any attempt to scuttle the Minneapolis option.
Another fight over the high-speed route seems to have been decided. Because of the high cost of buying new right-of-way south of St. Paul, trains will use the existing Empire Builder route along the Mississippi River through Winona, thus skipping Rochester. In the best of all worlds, Rochester and Mayo Clinic would be a must; apparently the price tag is too steep.
It’s a reminder that this isn’t really a high-speed project in the world-class sense. The trains’ top speeds will be 110 miles per hour. That’s one-third faster than current operations, but only half as fast as trains in Europe and Japan. The current eight-hour rail trip to Chicago would be shortened to about five hours and 20 minutes. The whole idea is to offer an energy-efficient alternative to driving or flying for trips of 500 miles or less.
Competition is expected to be fierce for the $8 billion of stimulus and additional money in Obama’s budget and in the transportation reauthorization expected later this year. California may have the biggest claim after voters passed a $10 billion plan last fall to connect major cities via high-speed rail.
The scramble over rail is reminiscent of battles in the 19th Century over which settlements the railroads would choose. People know that economic development and prosperity clustered along the rail lines. When the Union Pacific decided in the 1860s to build the West’s first transcontinental line trough Wyoming, Denver business leaders were so alarmed that they financed their own spur to Cheyenne.
Similar battles ensued in the 1950s and ’60s over the routing and numbering of interstate highways. The odd naming of 35W and 35E was to avoid slighting St. Paul. Originally, the main route, I-35, was to have gone through Minneapolis with a smaller parallel route, I-235, or a similar three-number designation, through St. Paul. But that was considered politically unacceptable. The same compromise was offered to Dallas and Fort Worth.
In the March issue of Atlantic Monthly, economist Richard Florida offers a backdrop for the current scramble over high-speed rail. The economy’s crash, along with other major global forces, are causing a major re-ordering of the American geography, he says. Prosperity will be sorted and centered in just a few mega-regions, Chicago being one. It’s vital, then, for the Twin Cities to strengthen itself as a prime appendage. High-speed rail is one way to do that.
If the Union Depot is the anchor of the Central Corridor light rail, getting to Mpls would just be a matter of switching trains.
We need to implement a dual hub (St. Paul/Minneapolis)study for high speed rail from Chicago. Transit decisions should be based on real numbers and issues such as ridership, commerce and residential density. On that basis Minneapolis must be in the plan. We need to have a regional vision and unified plan to make this happen.
Chicago and LA are not dual-locus cities… Bad comparison by McDonough. SF & Oakland, Baltimore & Washington, Newark & Penn Station – all good examples. But also think about Dallas & Ft Worth… and Portland and Vancouver, Washington – these are ‘Twin Cities’ that are more analogous and have multiple stops.
Trains need to stop where the riders will be, and while there will be a lot in Downtown St Paul, there will be more in Downtown Minneapolis.
Also – it is highly unlikely that the train will be ‘high-speed’ from Minneapolis to St Paul… this is more about just adding a stop for the Empire Builder in Minneapolis, isn’t it?
The Twin Cities should have never settled for that awful Midway stop in the 70’s!
I know I’m slow, but can anyone tell me again why we’re widening 35W and NOT doing any light rail while we’re at it? But I’m off topic – yes, dual hub it to Minneapolis. If we can afford a stadium we can afford public transit.
If we want high-speed rail, we should tie it into Chicago’s 2016 Olympic bid. The Winter Olympics played a big role in Salt Lake City getting their LRT line built. As the hometown of the current U.S. president, a successful Chicago bid has become a matter of presidential prestige.
Of all the potential high-speed lines to Chicago, only one has significant Olympic implications. That’s the one that connects to Saint Paul. It needs to be extended to Minneapolis, where its likely routing would pass within a block of one of the Chicago bid’s few satellite venue locations, TCF Stadium at the U of M East Bank Campus. This will serve as one of several venues for preliminary soccer matches.
With temporary station platforms in Minneapolis and Chicago, you can have a direct high-speed rail connection between soccer venues TCF Stadium and Soldier Field, Chicago’s Olympic soccer venue. While Chicago’s Union Station, the likely terminus for high-speed rail, is many blocks away from Soldier Field, a rail line runs right across the street from the stadium. A temporary rerouting could provide a terrific transit service to Olympic fans and greatly strengthen Chicago’s bid.
Building permanent infrastructure for a 17-day event is foolish. However, using a temporary event as a catalyst to push forward on projects that we want anyway is a wise way to take advantage of a unique opportunity. One of the best ways we can help ourselves if we want high-speed rail is to use that infrastructure as a tool to help Chicago win it’s bid to host the Summer Olympic Games.
“Portland and Vancouver, Washington ”
No. That comparison is more like Minneapolis and Anoka.
What surprises me is this continued investment in out of date technology. Perhaps Minnesota ought to jump ahead to the 21st century and build a world class high speed rail connection between Union Depot and downtown Minneapolis that runs more frequently.
Eventually a modern rail system could expand to connect Duluth, St. Cloud, the airport and Rochester. The result would connect most of the state’s population.
The example of San Francisco and Oakland is misleading, since SF does not have direct Amtrak service (it does have local commuter trains, but I don’t think that’s what he’s referring to).
I’m with Betty McCullum on this one. If you fly into the metro area, you get off the plane and jump on the LRT to get to downtown Minneapolis. There is absolutely nothing wrong with expecting train passengers to do the same thing. What’s obviously missing is, an LRT connection from downtown St Paul to the airport.
I am more concerned about the line from St. Paul to Chicago. 110 miles per hour is “high-speed rail”.
What the metro area needs is a mass-transit buildout. LRT’s and express bus lanes should serve the entire metro area, not just parts of it. We need this a lot more than faster trains to Chicago.
Southwest Airlines Flt 780 7:00am Minneapolis to Chicago Nonstop 1Hr 30 Min.
$149 Roundtrip
Flt 1490 8:00am Nonstop
$149 Roundtrip
Flt 2283 9:00am
$149 Roundtrip
Flt 3486 10:40am
$149 Roundtrip
Flt 2472 12:50pm
$149 Roundtrip
Flt 3240 2:55pm
$149 Roundtrip
Flt 2271 4:55pm
$149 Roundtrip
Flt 1597 7:00pm
$149 Roundtrip
Cost to taxpayers $0.
Careful, your metro-centric bias is showing.
While I appreciate your having explored the decision as to whether to add a Mpls stop, which I support, I find it ironic that you mentioned the Atlantic article a few paragraphs after blithely (and erroneously) writing off Rochester as a potential route for what at this time should be named the McCollum-Murphy Bed and Breakfast Special.
Florida specifically said that health care and biotech are powerful industries for the future, and it appears that a billion dollars is being leveraged to build the largest biotech center west of the Rockies just north of Rochester, and on MPR recently he said we would be fools not to link Rochester’s economy with the Twin Cities, and yet in the name of expediency we are running the train through …Red Wing?
McGlaughlin should partner himself with the SE MN Rail Initiative and ask that the line travel where the economies and the people are. It is not too late. Unless I am mistaken, the Rochester route remains viable pending the outcome of the state transportation plan. Hopefully they will not have their vision obscured by the smoke billowing out of St. Paul.
Ross – Considering that Vancouver, WA is at about ten times larger than wee Anoka… I think not.
The population of Port + Van is larger than the population of Mpls + St Paul (Portland alone is almost larger). The surrounding sprawl around the Twin Cities accounts for the plus 800K+ folks.
Southwest Airlines daily service; Minneapolis to Chicago 1Hr. 30 Min.
Flights on the hour
$149 Roundtrip
Cost to taxpayers $0
The current Amtrak station in Midway is useless, and the new Central Corridor line will not even stop at University & Cleveland, so there ar no current plans to provide decent connections between the Empire builder and light rail.
I say run the high-speed line and the Empire builder into Union Depot in St. Paul, make sure the Central corridor line stops there as well, and there will at least be a one-stop train station in the Twin Cities. Getting to Minneapolis wil lbe as simple as hopping on the light rail line.
Oh yeah, scuttle the current Amtrak depot for some savings…
His comments came after a briefing on the Target Field station. The county is contemplating demolishing its Environmental Services Building adjacent to the ballpark to expand the size of the station.
Steve, could you please expand on this in a future article?
I have always been shocked with the choice of building the new stadium next to the Garbage Burner. I wasn’t surprised when they decided to “upgrade” the facility with the new sally ports, but now, if they are contemplating demolishing the building isn’t that a redundancy?
I am a huge supporter of transit and could care less where the train stops, but I still don’t get building a stadium next to the smelly garbage burner.
I await your comment/story on this matter.
Tim — The county is proposing to demolish the building next to the garbage burner, not the garbage burner itself. Now, the stated purpose of demolishing the building is to give pedestrians more space to walk from the transit hub into downtown, which means they will be walking right past the garbage burner. I think this plan needs some more work.
It shouldn’t be in either downtown. It should be at the airport, so that cross-connections can be made with air travel and travelers could tap into the logistics-rich airport environment. For example, the airport already has a huge car park, light rail connections and good highway access.
In fact, if trackage is federally owned and maintained but is leased out to commercial operators of rolling stock, Amtrak would not have to be the only option for running high speed rail. The airlines could run it and integrate it with their air traffic. In fact, several airlines could be operating high speed rail service on the same trackage, with a traffic control system similar to air traffic control.
McCollum is cutting off her nose to spite her face. Everybody in Minnesota is going to suffer if we don’t wrap in our major commercial hup (Mpls) and our prime health care resource (Mayo). I don’t care if it’s duplicative. We crossed that bridge a long time ago when we it was accepted that their would be Twin Cities.
I think it would be wise to include a hub at both St Paul and Minneapolis. I think you will lose communters who would need to transfer if you only include St Paul. I am a communter on public transit – in order to save time and expense, the quickest route from A to B that gets me nearest my destination in always best, and is for many communters, I am sure.