SW transit plan to keep trails in the mix

If a Southwest Light Rail line is ever built between Minneapolis and Eden Prairie, officials have promised to keep the popular bike and walking trails that now occupy part of the likely rail route.

But who will pay to keep the trails?

This week, community representatives of the Southwest Policy Advisory Committee, which endorsed Route 3A through Kenilworth for the rail line, recommended that any trail changes necessary to accommodate the rail line be planned in tandem with the light rail project but paid for separately.

The Hennepin County Board and the Metropolitan Council have yet to approve the recommendations, but the community representatives on the advisory panel want a clear plan for both rail and trail because the Federal Transit Administration is not expected to pay for trail replacements, and they don't want the trail to be forgotten in the rush to rail.

"We didn't want people to have the false idea that we were going to get federal funding to rebuild the trail,'' said Three Rivers Park District Board Member Mark Haggerty. "We need to start planning now for how do we handle it during construction and how do we handle it on a permanent basis going forward.''

Don Pflaum, a Minneapolis transportation planner who also acts as the city's bike coordinator, said Minneapolis wants to protect the public money already spent to develop the trail and "make sure there is a plan to replace it if it's taken away.''

Hundreds of thousands of users

The trail is known as the Cedar Lake Trail from Hopkins to Minneapolis and as the Minnesota River Bluffs Regional Trail from Hopkins to Chanhassen. Three Rivers says its segment of the trail draws about 365,000 visits a year, and Minneapolis estimates that more than 2,000 users a day bike or walk the segment between Cedar Lake and Lake of the Isles.

Three Rivers spent $600,000 in 1998 on trail blacktop from Hopkins to Belt Line Boulevard in St. Louis Park and $175,000 in 2003 to pave the trail from Belt Line to the Midtown Greenway. How much trail reconstruction might cost if the light rail is built and where the money would come from has not been determined.

Hennepin County owns the former railroad corridor that is home to the trail and which may someday accommodate the rail line. Compatibility between the trail and the rail have been considered a priority from the start of light rail planning, and the rail stations are being designed with bike and pedestrian amenities, said Hennepin County Commissioner Gail Dorfman, who chairs the Southwest Policy Advisory Committee.

"We are trying to design the light rail in a way that does the least amount of disruption to the exiting trail system,'' Dorfman said.

Trail replacement costs are not included in the $1.1 billion capital cost estimates for the Southwest Light Rail line, she said. Whether the rail line is built at all will depend upon whether the federal funding is available, and the earliest target date mentioned for opening the line has been 2015.

Plenty of room available

In most places, the 100-foot-wide rail corridor could easily accommodate rail and trail, said Katie Walker, Hennepin's manager of the Southwest Rail project. Two light rail tracks together need about 30 feet, and a station would require another 15 to 20 feet, Walker said. "A little less than 50 feet is what you would need for the light rail, and for the most part you have another 50 feet of spare space.''

There is no place along the route where the trail would have to be terminated, nor is there anyplace where major relocation would be needed, Walker said. Although still far from the design stages, the rails and trails could be separated by open space and trees or other screening, depending on the surrounding area, Walker said.

But in two spots near the Lake of the Isles lagoon, the corridor does narrow to 45 feet and 62 feet, Pflaum said. Forty-five feet would not be wide enough for light rail, the trail and the Twin City & Western freight rail tracks that run past the lagoon now, Pflaum said.

To address that concern, the Southwest Policy Committee also specified in its rail route endorsement that freight rail tracks be moved in a process that would parallel light rail planning.

A county background paper on the freight rail rerouting said "the intent would be to accomplish the freight rail reroute and mitigation in one construction season, hopefully as early as 2011.''

The light rail route, trail and freight track recommendations from the Southwest Policy Committee will come before the Hennepin County Board for approval Nov. 3 following a public hearing at the county Government Center on Tuesday.

Laurie Blake • 612-673-1711