Proposed Blue Line Light Rail Extension Avoids Lyndale and Broadway
Written by Jennifer McLawhorn, Managing Editor
Courtesy of Tony Webster
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. – Met Council Tries to Avoid Lyndale, Broadway in new, proposed Blue Line light rail extension.
Metropolitan Council’s proposed Blue Line light rail would avoid the surrounding neighborhood and businesses along Lyndale Avenue and W. Broadway in North Minneapolis, according to Star Tribune. In doing so, it serves as a victory for community leaders who worked to keep the Blue Line from “[depressing] property values, [splitting] a predominantly Black neighborhood in two and wreak havoc on W. Broadway small businesses.”
To avoid this, a recommended route was proposed at a Corridor Management Committee meeting, and it would have trains running from Target Field, heading north “along N. 7th Street and then 10th Avenue before turning west onto Washington Avenue. The trains would then cross a new bridge along 21st Avenue over Interstate 94 and run for several blocks before joining W. Broadway near James Avenue. They would then follow W. Broadway and Bottineau Boulevard up to Brooklyn Park.”
Currently, it’s reported that planners “envision the new 21st Avenue bridge over I-94 as a multipurpose span for cars, bicyclists, and pedestrians as well as light rail,” with an at-grade design approved by Minneapolis City Council Member, Jeremiah Ellison. Minneapolis’ Park and Recreation Board President, Meg Forney, wanted planners to design 21st Avenue as a land bridge “that would connect north Minneapolis neighborhoods with the Mississippi River.”
The Deputy General Manager for Metro Transit, Nick Thompson, stated that details of which areas and buildings would need to be demolished to make room for the Blue Line extension have not been fleshed out yet, but that “those details [would] become more clear as the route plan comes together.” Any of the design plans would need “some property acquisition.”
These property acquisitions would necessitate a “significant investment” in order to reduce the “long-term harm to the community served by the light-rail line,” with “such ‘anti-displacement’ efforts could be funded by the federal government, the private sector or foundations,” according to Thompson.
However, the Met Council and each city along the line would still need to approve the recommended route. After an approval, the opening of the Blue Line extension would come in 2028, at the earliest, with an estimated price tag of $1.54 billion. K.B. Brown, a local business owner on the corridor committee, told the Tribune that “the disinvestment is rampant up and down Broadway. . . We are being told this is going to benefit our community, but we’re not being told how.”
