Minnesota high-speed route to Chicago may take year to map

Written by jrood

Mapping the route of a proposed high-speed passenger train between the Twin Cities and Chicago will take a year or more, a Minnesota transportation official said, according to local newspapers. Dan Krom, who made a presentation to Washington County commissioners, said as many as eight routes are under study. One of them, which the commissioners favor, would follow the existing Amtrak route, known in planning circles as Red Rock, through southern Washington County and eastern Dakota County.

Another possible route
would pass through Eau Claire, Wis., and follow the I-94 corridor into the Twin
Cities, said Krom, director of the passenger rail office at MnDOT. The I-94
corridor is being studied by Washington County as a potential transit byway that
could include, among other means of travel, buses or light-rail trains running
to St. Paul from a transportation hub in northeast Woodbury.

Krom’s presentation summed
up Minnesota’s new statewide freight and passenger rail plan that’s expected to
ease some of the growing friction among competing interests over where new rail
lines should be placed.

Rochester legislators and
business leaders pressed earlier this year for a high-speed rail link with
Chicago to include their city. Krom told the Washington County commissioners
that the statewide plan acknowledges the importance of including Rochester in a
rail network, but said building such a corridor would take time.

"It will take a good
portion of a decade if not more to develop that corridor," he said.

The plan also will consider
the importance of some day linking Minnesota’s regional centers, such as
Mankato, Willmar and St. Cloud, to the Twin Cities and one another, Krom said.

Another challenge is
finding a way for passenger rail to co-exist with freight trains on the same
tracks, he said.

"It’s like moving into
somebody’s house, remodeling it, and we have to live with them," he said.

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