Southwest Corridor (Minnesota)

Southwest LRT
Overview
Type	Light rail
System	Metro Transit
Status	Engineering
Locale	Hennepin County, Minnesota
Termini	Eden Prairie, Minnesota Minneapolis, Minnesota
Stations	18 planned
Daily ridership	28,100 (projection)
Operation
Planned opening	2021; 4 years' time (2021) (estimated)
Operator(s)	Metro Transit
Character	Surface
Technical
Line length	14.5 miles (23.3 km)
Track gauge	4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge
Electrification	Overhead lines
Route map  Blue  and  Green  lines Target Field Northstar line Bottineau LRT line Royalston I-94 Van White I-394 Penn 21st Street Kenilworth Channel West Lake Street BeltLine Boulevard MN 100 Wooddale Avenue Louisiana Avenue Blake Road US 169 Hopkins Shady Oak Road Opus City West US 212 Golden Triangle I-494 Eden Prairie Town Center SouthWest Station Mitchell Road This diagram:

The Southwest LRT (Metro Green Line Extension) is scheduled to become the third light rail transit corridor in the Minneapolis – St. Paul region, with service between Minneapolis and Eden Prairie, going through St. Louis Park, Hopkins and Minnetonka along the way. Since receiving approval from the Metropolitan Council on May 26, 2010, the Southwest LRT joins the Bottineau LRT as an official part of the Metro Council's project list.

In 1988, the Hennepin County Regional Railroad Authority (HCRRA) identified the Southwest transitway from Hopkins to downtown Minneapolis as a future LRT corridor.

In 2002 and 2003, the HCRRA conducted the Southwest Rail Transit Study to evaluate twelve possible light rail routes in the southwest transitway. Of the twelve routes, eight were eliminated and four were selected for further analysis: routes 1A, 2A, 3A and 4A.

On March 4, 2009, the FTA approved a $2 million study of the project, with a then-anticipated opening date in 2015. On May 26, 2010, the Metropolitan Council voted to approve the locally preferred alternative advanced by Hennepin County. The project at that point transferred to Metropolitan Council control and at the time was expected to begin service in 2018.

The Metropolitan Council began design work in 2013, after the completion of the draft Environmental Impact Statement.

In April 2015, the council released an updated analysis of the project, with projected costs raised by more than $300 million to $1.994 billion, largely as a result of additional sitework and ground preparation due to poor soil along the route. The expected opening date of the line was also pushed back to 2020, as a result of delays to the next draft of the Environmental Impact Statement, which was expected to be released in May 2015, more than a year after the original planned release in January 2014. To bring costs within the original budget, Metropolitan Council members proposed measures such as eliminating the Mitchell Road station in Eden Prairie or decreasing the size of the Hopkins maintenance facility.

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