St.Paul and eastward extentions?

[Boyd]

St.Paul is the next extention of the new Twin Cities light rail. Not if, but when a line is ran into Stillwater, have they planned on a route? It sure would save a lot of money if they used the trail bed coming out of North St.Paul on what I think is the old NP line and connect it to the Zephyr line. Has anyone seen any of their plans?

[jrbernier]

  The next phase of the light rail is to Mpls-St Paul line.  I have not even seen anything about extending the line out to Stillwater.  BTW, the old Twin City Rapid Transit(street car) line had service to Stillwater many years ago(on their own ROW).  Most of it is now homes.  If they wanted to extend service to Stillwater, they would haved to buy back property and bike trails to make it happen, and put up with that awfull hill from Stillwater to Summit on the old ex-NP line.  Another route may be to follow Stillwater Blvd, or the old WC route.  Another may be to follow the UP(ex-C&NW) line out. 

  BTW, there is a group in Eau Claire that is trying to get a West Wisconsin commuter operation running between Eau Claire and St Paul.  Here is a link:

http://www.stcroixedc.com/pdf/06OctWCWRC_AboutRailCoalition.pdf

  The present Hiawatha LRV cost over $700 million, and the addition of the tunnel under the airport to the Mall of America added another $250 million to that cost.  The line is now being extended a few blocks north in Mpls to meet the the new downtown Northstar Corridor 'heavy rail' commuter trains that will start running in the next couple of years(Big Lake to Mpls).

Jim Bernier