The day after saying that a passenger rail line from Minneapolis to Duluth could cost $1 billion, the state transportation official who talked about that price tag was shocked by what he heard at a public meeting in Cambridge:
"Just get it done."
"People told me they didn't care what it cost," said Dave Christianson of the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT), who oversees all state rail projects and has attended environmental assessment open houses in four cities along the proposed line.
"There was no opposition whatsoever," said Christianson, who worked as a consultant for the proposed Northern Lights Express line before becoming MnDOT's project manager. "The support for this passenger rail line is probably stronger than for any I've ever seen."
Northern Lights Express (NLX) alliance officials, who last year projected the cost of the 155-mile line at $360 million, have nearly doubled that figure to $615 million. But that, says John Ongaro, director of intergovernmental affairs in Duluth, is a far cry from the $990 million that Christianson calls a "worst-case scenario."
"It won't be close to $1 billion, and Dave Christianson has worked on this project long enough to know that," Ongaro said.
Christianson hopes Ongaro is right. When Anoka County Commissioner Dan Erhart, one of the engines trying to move this line, asked Christianson whether he agreed with the $615 million figure, Christianson said he responded, "Yes."
Then how did the cost projections of NLX and MnDOT, seemingly further apart than Minneapolis and Duluth, suddenly become as hazy as a snowstorm covering the Duluth harbor?