On time and on budget.
That was the mantra repeated Tuesday by east metro officials, who hailed their unified vision of how the Central Corridor light-rail line should look in St. Paul.
"We've always had agreement that the Central Corridor line was important, but we rarely had agreement about how this project was going to get done," St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman said. "Today, we have reached agreement."
Construction on the 11-mile line is scheduled for 2010, with trains rolling by 2014.
Ramsey County, long a champion of the line, has for now backed off its insistence that the terminus be at the rear concourse of the Union Depot in St. Paul. On Tuesday, the county Regional Rail Authority voted 7-0 to approve a resolution that says:
• The line should end on Fourth Street in front of the Union Depot, rather than extending to the depot's abandoned rear concourse, which county officials envision as a regional transportation hub for buses, trains and taxis.
• A maintenance building capable of handling two- and three-car trains will be built on county-owned land near the concourse south of Kellogg Boulevard.
• Three additional stops -- at Hamline, Victoria and Western avenues -- need to be designed and roughed in for future use as money becomes available.
