Met Council approves Blue Line review

Written by Mischa Wanek-Libman, editor
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The Metropolitan Council (Met Council) approved the Blue Line Extension Light-Rail project's final scope and budget and the project's environmental reviews are now complete.

The project, also known as the Bottineau LRT, he Blue Line Extension will operate northwest from downtown Minneapolis, Minn., through north Minneapolis, Golden Valley, Robbinsdale, Crystal and Brooklyn Park, drawing riders northwest of Brooklyn Park. The proposed alignment is primarily at-grade and will have 11 new stations in addition to Target Field Station and about 13 miles of double track.

The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) signed off on the project’s environmental review in mid-September.

The project’s final scope and budget was set by the Met Council at $1.536 billion, following a recommendation from the line’s Corridor Management Committee, made up of local elected officials from the communities along the line. The budget and the determination that the environmental reviews are adequate, Met Council staff will now seek FTA permission to enter the engineering phase to complete the designs, which are at a 30-percent level of detail. The Met Council expects to complete 60-percent of the design work in the first quarter of 2017 and finalize designs in late 2017. Heavy construction is set to occur from 2018 to 2020 with service beginning in 2021.

The Met Council will look to secure the state’s share of the project in the 2017 legislative session through a metro-area sales tax for transit, which would provide funding for the Blue Line’s construction and operation. Project planners need to secure all local funding before they can submit the request to the FTA for full federal funding in mid-2017.

The federal government is expected to pay nearly half of the project’s cost, with the state share coming in at $149.6 million, or 10 percent of the total cost.

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