Citing pleas from metro leaders to slow down, members of the agency overseeing the Southwest light-rail transit project decided Thursday that they would give the officials an extra week to consider decisions crucial to its future.
The delay was announced a day after city and county officials complained that they didn't have enough time to consider whether to support rerouting freight train traffic to make way for the LRT or putting the light rail in a tunnel near the freight.
"Having some additional time to kind of work through some of these things would be good," Edina Mayor Jim Hovland said Thursday after the announcement.
The Metropolitan Council, in charge of planning the project, had scheduled a meeting for next Wednesday when its staff would recommend a course of action to the group of metro leaders, called the Corridor Management Committee. The group was then expected to make its own recommendation.
But some members of the group said Wednesday that the 90 minutes scheduled for the meeting was inadequate.
"We really need the chance to discuss this among ourselves," said Hennepin County Commissioner Jan Callison. Met Council Chair Sue Haigh added 30 minutes to the scheduled meeting.
Late Thursday, the Met Council sent out a notice to members and news media saying it was postponing its staff recommendation and the group's response to it until Sept. 11. It also moved the meeting from St. Louis Park City Hall to the St. Louis Park Recreation Center.
St. Louis Park doesn't want the freight rerouted to their community. Minneapolis had agreed to routing the light-rail line through its Kenilworth corridor on condition that the freight traffic be moved. Resolving the dispute is critical to moving forward with the future Southwest line, which would run nearly 16 miles from downtown Minneapolis to Eden Prairie at a cost of $1.58 billion to $1.82 billion.
