Metro Council changes route of Blue Line extension

Those in favor of the alignment of the Blue Line extension attempted to persuade those who oppose it during a bus ride on June 29.

After years of failed negotiations with a Class 1 company, Metro Council has come up with a route for its Blue Line extension that the Minnesota agency believes will be a bigger success.

Originally, the project called for light-rail trains to run alongside BNSF tracks in the Bottineau Corridor. However, BNSF and Metro Council could not come up with an agreement. The 13-mile extension will now go from Target Field along North 7^th Street and onto Lyndale Avenue North. It will split onto West Broadway Avenue and North 21^st Avenue before staying on West Broadway Avenue and traveling north-northwest through Crystal and Brooklyn Park. The final leg shifts onto West Broadway Avenue and goes over Hwy. 610, before finishing at Oak Grove Parkway.

The route with BNSF would have missed the most populated areas of North Minneapolis.

Irene Fernando, Hennepin County District 2 Commissioner and chair of the Regional Railroad Authority, said the communities served by the proposed route are transit-reliant and racially diverse and have experienced historical disinvestment, and the Blue Line project will ignite economic development.

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