st. paul

Planners of the Central Corridor light-rail line have been mixing and matching features for months, and on Wednesday they unveiled one combination of options that could be called "Most Likely to Succeed."

While the $909 million package meets federal cost requirements, the line is also likely to disappoint: The University of Minnesota wouldn't get its tunnel through the East Bank campus, and St. Paul neighborhoods that have asked for additional stations would have to wait until after the line was completed for them to be added.

The package was one of several presented to the Central Corridor Management Committee, but it was the only one that met the Federal Transit Administration's cost-effectiveness index.

There are consolations for both the Minneapolis and St. Paul ends of the 11-mile line, which is scheduled to open in 2014.

To help the U deal with traffic that would be displaced by putting the tracks down Washington Avenue (and the possible conversion of part of the street to a transit/pedestrian mall), as much as $20 million would be spent on added turn lanes, upgrades to other roads and changes to intersections.

And while stations at Western Avenue, Victoria Street and Hamline Avenue in St. Paul might not be built right away, the stations' underground components would be installed, making it easier to add them later.

With a Feb. 27 deadline looming for settling on the line's details, committee members on Wednesday actually spent more time talking about cars, money and buses than they did about trains.

Riders are accustomed to having Metro Transit's No. 16 bus make stops at nearly every block on University Avenue, so the plan to reduce the frequency of bus service has prompted concern, in part because some light-rail stations will be a mile apart.

Many people along University Avenue rely on transit, said Reynaldo Aligada Jr., who represents neighborhood groups on the planning committee, adding: "We cannot have a situation where we make their lives more difficult when it comes to transportation."

Adding the three stations now, however, would increase construction costs and travel times, potentially making it harder to get the estimated $450 million in federal funding.

The university, meanwhile, is worried about not only how the line might clog traffic but also how both the train and the traffic mitigation efforts will affect such things as the ability to get from the north side of campus to the south, said Kathleen O'Brien, vice president for university services.

Other areas of concern include the width of sidewalks for the school's thousands of pedestrians and the business impact on the university's medical services if the area becomes more difficult to reach by car.

The university is still exploring the option of running the line through the north part of the East Bank campus, but such an alignment would delay the entire project by a year, which planners have expressed little appetite for.

Other aspects of the line that appear to be firming up:

$25 million to allow the Washington Avenue bridge over the Mississippi River to handle light-rail cars.

$20 million to construct a maintenance and storage facility near the Lafayette Bridge in downtown St. Paul. Original plans called for the Central Line to share quarters with the Hiawatha Line by expanding its building near Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis, but the growth of that line means there won't be room, project director Mark Fuhrmann said.

$15 million to make all the new stations on the line able to handle three-car trains.

And on Tuesday, leaders in St. Paul and Ramsey County agreed to support the line ending in front of the Union Depot, with the possibility that it could be extended someday to the back of the old railroad station.

Both the management committee and the Metropolitan Council will vote on the line's scope on Feb. 27.

Jim Foti • 612-673-4491