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This week, we got a reminder of how much we depend on the rail system, when cables broke on the Martin Olav Sabo Bridge over the tracks. In the future, it looks like may be calling our system the Metro too and the Hiawatha line will be the “blue line”– new branding was just approved by the Metropolitan Council. The proposed Southwest Light Rail Line would add another connection, to the southwest suburbs as far out as Eden Prairie. The addition of the six-stop North Star Commuter Rail Line in 2009 expanded our rail system’s reach from Minneapolis to Big Lake and in just two short years the Central Corridor Light Rail Line will connect downtown Minneapolis and St. Metro Transit‘s Hiawatha Light Rail Line opened in 2004 and serves 19 stations between Minneapolis and Bloomington. and depending on their expansive Metro rail system to get around, I have a deeper appreciation of our own growing public transportation system. He says his committee will hear a bill early in the legislative session that would require an audit.After spending last weekend in Washington, D.C.
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“It is beyond lunacy to consider spending even one more red cent on any more of this nonsense.” “I echo calls to freeze any funding for Southwest Light Rail until an audit is completed,” Newman says. Early last year the cost was estimated at about $2 billion. On Wednesday the Metropolitan Council said the opening date of Southwest Light rail has been pushed back to 2027 and the cost has skyrocketed to $2.75 billion - by far the most expensive public project in Minnesota history. And we really have no idea what the final price tag will look like because they can’t, or won’t, tell us.”
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Now we learn it will take at least three extra years and cost much, much, much more than we thought - plus $210 million to settle a lawsuit with a contractor. “Words barely capture what a monumental disaster it has been. Scott Newman, R-Hutchinson, said in a news release. “Southwest Light Rail is a boondoggle of historic proportions,” Sen. But the Republican chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee didn’t hold back in his call for an audit.
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The governor stopped short of the calling for a full audit of the project. But I think certainly about bringing more accountability.” “That’s just the nature of these large projects. “As many of you know, Southwest Light Rail started before I was there and it will be going after I’m gone,” he said Wednesday. The governor did acknowledge there needs to be accountability for what’s going on with the Southwest LRT. RELATED: Southwest Light Rail delayed, transit future uncertain “How could we continue this project without having a full audit of what’s happened with Southwest? We need to do that first before we think about any future light rail.” Dave Osmek, R-Mound, told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS. “I can’t believe the governor could possibly be this tone-deaf when it comes to thinking about what the costs are for some of these projects,” Sen. In 2022, there is no updated cost estimate, just a projected opening in 2028. In 2018, the estimated cost was $1.54 billion with an opening in 2024. It was projected to cost $997 million in 2014 with an opening in 2021. The Blue Line extension is a 13-mile stretch from Minneapolis to Brooklyn Park with several stops in between. Quite honestly, it’s just there’s equity around this of folks who can’t afford to go places or able to get there, so we support the Blue Line.” We know we can’t continue to build more lanes. “We know what the population growth is going to look like. “We need to look to the future,” Walz said this week when announcing details of his supplemental budget to account for a $7.7 billion projected budget surplus. Tim Walz is including $200 million in his supplemental budget for an additional line to the north metro.
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The Southwest Light Rail transit line from Minneapolis to Eden Prairie is hundreds of millions over budget and years behind schedule, but Gov.