Choosing words carefully: First tracks installed on Southwest Green Line extension project in Minn.

Change orders have plagued the Southwest Green Line extension project this summer.

Change orders are two words that can be used to describe progress on the Metropolitan Council’s Southwest Green Line extension project this summer in Minnesota.

The agency changed the rhetoric recently, as the first set of tracks were installed on top of concrete ties just outside of Hopkins.

Fittingly, Project Director Jim Alexander had two words for the event, calling it a “major milestone” while saying the rail installation sets the stage for everything else.

The Green Line extension project will link downtown Minneapolis with Eden Prairie through St. Louis Park, Hopkins and Minnetonka on the Southwest line.

Work, however, has come with challenges over the last few months, especially on the Minneapolis Kenilworth corridor. The corridor will be a busy route shared by light-rail and freight trains, bikers and pedestrians on a path near Lake of the Isles and Cedar Lake. There have been $56 million worth of change orders that have either been approved or are being considered to be approved to handle construction of a tunnel for light-rail trains in the Kenilworth corridor.

Last week the Metropolitan Council agreed to start using an additional $200 million from Hennepin County to shore up the agency’s contingency fund.

The change orders have made estimating the total cost of the project difficult, but the Council said the project has created more than $1.5 billion in development within a half-mile of the Green Line extension route. The project is more than 50% complete.

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