The Riverview Corridor from downtown St. Paul to the Mall of America: 2 street car options, rapid transit bus
Stuck in stop-and-go planning since at least 1998, the Riverview Corridor may be chugging toward a major turning point in the new year.
The vision calls for a modern transit corridor — think train or bus — rolling 12 miles from downtown St. Paul to the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and the Mall of America in Bloomington. The route would largely follow West Seventh Street and Minnesota 5, either sharing lanes with vehicular traffic or moving along a dedicated lane of its own.
A streetcar could possibly travel to the downtown St. Paul Union Depot transit hub along Kellogg Boulevard instead of Fourth Street, dropping off passengers at the Xcel Center and the future RiversEdge project while seeding economic development along the way.
“The community, especially the younger generation, they prefer rail,” said Ramsey County Commissioner Rafael Ortega, who chairs the county’s Regional Rail Authority. “People ask me, ‘What’s keeping you? Why isn’t it built yet?’ That’s the type of questions I’m getting these days, especially from the younger families. The bus is not going to make the street safer.”
Street car or bus rapid transit?
Still, while a streetcar might draw more passengers, bus rapid transit — such as an extension of the Gold Line corridor, which is already under construction from Woodbury to St. Paul — could roll out much sooner than a rail option, and for less money. The Riverview Corridor’s policy advisory committee will review potential travel times and cost estimates on Jan. 31.
“I see the river crossing, total cost and feasibility of receiving federal funds as big hurdles for streetcar,” said Nate Hood, a transportation planner who sits on the St. Paul Planning Commission. “I’d rather have bus rapid transit now than wait a decade more for rail.”
Whether the proposed Riverview Corridor will consist of a streetcar or bus rapid transit remains to be seen, but key committees could be in position to recommend their preference to the Ramsey County Regional Railroad Authority by the end of next summer, Ortega said.
Planning has been led by Ramsey County through four separate committees — policy advisory, community advisory, technical advisory and station area planning. The committees have been convening to consider the pros and cons of various routes and transit options. Based in part on studies conducted in 1998, 2000 and 2014 to 2017, they’ve narrowed their choices down to three, two of which consist of streetcars that are lighter and less obtrusive than light rail. The other involves bus rapid transit.
Here’s a look at each option presented to the policy advisory committee this month by consultants with the St. Paul-based engineering and planning firm Kimley-Horn. County staff will begin seeking public feedback around each concept in February or March.
Streetcar 1
In this scenario, a streetcar would travel through 20 stations, using exclusive or dedicated transit lanes from the Mall of America to St. Paul’s Grand Avenue Station following a center-running alignment. From the Mall of America through Fort Snelling Station, the streetcar would share alignment with the Blue Line. From Grand Avenue to the downtown St. Paul Union Depot station, the streetcar would share lanes with regular car traffic.
Streetcar 2
A second streetcar scenario envisions traveling through 22 Stations, with dedicated center-running transit lanes from the Mall of America Station to the Otto Avenue Station near Victoria Street in St. Paul. Shared lanes on either side of the street would carry the streetcar from Otto Avenue to the Union Depot. This route adds stations at both Jefferson Avenue and Smith Avenue.
Bus Rapid Transit
A bus option likely would travel through 16 stations between the Mall of America and Kellogg Boulevard, sharing travel lanes with regular traffic. The bus could access nine downtown platforms, including a downtown corridor for the Gold Line, which will connect downtown St. Paul to Woodbury when it debuts in 2025.
Unlike a streetcar, bus rapid transit would not require improvements to the Minnesota 5 river bridge (or trigger new bike and pedestrian connections there) or stop at stations at Historic Fort Snelling or MSP Terminal 2. The bus could use the existing Mall of America station without major changes.
Then again, bus rapid transit “is basically the Route 54 bus,” said downtown St. Paul resident Jay Severance, a member of the Riverview Corridor’s community advisory committee, expressing frustration that the vision of a robust transit network could be sold short. “It doesn’t really do everything the streetcar does. … This whole process is being run by Ramsey County, and yet it’s part of a larger system.”
Lessons learned from light rail
None of the three options include stops in Highland Bridge, which was eliminated from consideration after a 2017 pre-development study weighed the impact on travel times, ridership projections and higher operating costs.
The 2017 study also determined that light rail wasn’t the right fit for West Seventh Street, where stations will be smaller than those along University Avenue’s Green Line corridor, said Jennifer Jordan, a senior transportation planner with Ramsey County.
Related Articles
Local News | KARE 11’s Boyd Huppert talks about surviving, and thriving, more than two years after his cancer diagnosis
Local News | Hundreds honor slain Hmong advocate and performer Tou Ger Xiong at Woodbury memorial
Local News | Dreaming of a white Christmas? Try Alaska. Meteorologists say Minnesota will get a wet Christmas
Local News | Just one of about 40 St. Paul Neighborhood STAR grants went to an arts organization
Streetcars generally have smaller train cars than light rail and are limited to one or two cars at a time, making it easier for them to share the road — or even a lane — with regular traffic while entering areas light rail might have difficulty accessing. They’re otherwise compatible with light rail operations such as tracks, signals, stations and power, and much like the Green Line or Blue Line, they offer level boarding and payment before boarding at high-amenity stations.
And a streetcar likely would include more connections to new bicycle and pedestrian amenities and streetscape improvements along the corridor.
At the neighborhood level, “we’re really going to integrate this,” Ortega said. “One of the lessons learned on the Green Line and University Avenue, we’re making it less intrusive. There’s different ways to make things safer beyond building big cement walls.”
Aspects of the street car option
Still, a streetcar option would be costlier and more time-consuming to install than a bus by years, and a larger addition to the street, potentially reducing right-of-way for parking, bike lanes and car travel.
The earliest a streetcar would roll out is likely 2032.
The streetcar corridor, according to consultants, would still involve heavy infrastructure, including a new two-level Minnesota 5 bridge over the Mississippi River that would fully separate bicycles and pedestrians from car traffic. An existing freeway ramp from westbound Minnesota 62 to southbound Minnesota 5 would be removed to connect the Fort Snelling Chapel to the rest of Historic Fort Snelling.
Discussions with tribal partners are underway about that and other aesthetic changes within Historic Fort Snelling approaching the Blue Line Station there.
To better accommodate mall access at the end of the line, a shared Riverview/Blue Line station could be configured at 82nd Street in Bloomington, replacing the existing Blue Line track along 28th Avenue and Old Shakopee Road. That frees up some space for real estate development currently encircled by track at the end of the line.
Transit priorities
Russ Stark, chief resilience officer for the St. Paul mayor’s office, acknowledged that Ramsey County began formally studying the Riverview Corridor 25 years ago. And in that time, some transit priorities have likely changed.
In the era of remote work, is the main goal of the corridor to get people from downtown St. Paul to the airport in a hurry and to downtown jobs as quickly as possible? Or does economic development trump travel time as a priority?
“It does seem to be centered less around the traditional work-commute trip,” said Stark, during a meeting this month of the project’s policy advisory committee. “Do you emphasize the speed of downtown to the airport? Or do you emphasize the aesthetic?”
He added: “If the solution were simple, it would have been done already,” noting the importance of economic development in the segment of West Seventh Street closest to the Xcel Center. “Compared to University Avenue, the more space you dedicate to transit, the less you have for everything else, (including) parking, trees.”
Tim Marino, a Dayton’s Bluff resident and aspiring transit planner, said dedicating lanes for a streetcar option could raise the project’s score with federal funders, drawing more money sooner to offset infrastructure costs, “which could be an important source for bridge work,” he said. “It is one factor in that.”
Ortega said the county’s half-cent sales tax could cover half the cost of capital construction, with the federal government expected to cover the other half once the Metropolitan Council — the seven county metro area’s regional planning agency — takes over construction planning.
A downtown approach on Kellogg, not Fourth Street
In downtown St. Paul, there’s some concern that routing a streetcar along Fourth Street to access the Union Depot Station would compete with Green Line trains. With an eye toward promoting new real estate and economic development, the policy committee has said that a better option would be to follow Kellogg Boulevard, bringing the streetcar in line with possible new stations at the St. Paul RiverCentre and the future RiversEdge development where West Publishing once stood, as well as Minnesota Street.
That would require more coordination with Kellogg bridge improvements, the Capitol City Bikeway bicycle corridor and planned or existing real estate.
Among the studies that will take place along the entire route, an architecture and history survey is underway in coordination with the Minnesota Department of Transportation and its work on Minnesota 5. A “cultural landscape” study is likely to wrap up in 2024, to be followed by an archaeology survey that would begin in 2024.
Also in the future is an economic development assessment, which would compare the impact of a streetcar on real estate development to bus rapid transit, building nothing or developing a greenway.
Still, decision time draws near.
“Some people in this room,” said Stark, during the Dec. 13 meeting of the policy advisory committee, “have been talking about streetcar for 40 years, let alone 20.”
Ramsey County maintains more information online at RiverviewCorridor.com.
