The 11.6-mile light rail transit route will run from downtown Minneapolis to the Mall of America in Bloomington.

Xcel Energy must move utility lines that lie beneath 5th Street in downtown Minneapolis along the planned light rail transit route, a federal judge ruled May 24.

U.S. District Judge John Tunheim’s ruling averts a possible one-year delay and millions of dollars in additional costs for the project.

"We are pleased with the court's decision. More importantly, we are eager to work cooperatively with Xcel so that the Hiawatha Light Rail Transit Project remains true to the established deadlines," Dayna Kennedy, Hiawatha Project communications manager, said last week.

 “(The) ruling is good for the project, but it's great for Minnesotans who are eager for light rail transit to come to the state,” Kennedy said.

Xcel had filed a lawsuit Feb. 16 requesting reimbursement for the cost of relocating the utility lines, estimated to be about $18 million. Mn/DOT, the State of Minnesota and the Metropolitan Council countersued on March 8 asking the court to enforce the commissioner’s order that the lines be relocated—at the utility company’s expense. The judge’s ruling last week did not indicate who should pay for the relocation.                       

The 11.6-mile route will stretch from downtown Minneapolis to the Mall of America in Bloomington. The project is scheduled for completion in 2004.

Late Wednesday, Xcel filed an appeal with the federal district court. The appeal included a request to delay utility relocation for 60 days.

For more information, contact Dayna Kennedy, 612/215-8216, or see the light rail transit Web site.

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With a target of about $120 million to spend on transportation, criminal justice and public safety prevention programs, a legislative working group began meeting Tuesday to determine just how to distribute that money over the next biennium.

The work group, composed of the members of the Omnibus Transportation and Public Safety Conference Committee, began meeting this week to iron out differences between the Senate and House versions of the transportation spending bill. The group’s decisions are unofficial and must be reintroduced in bill form when the governor calls the full legislature back into session. The legislature adjourned May 21, as constitutionally mandated, without passing eight of the state’s nine major spending bills.             

Some of the major transportation provisions embedded in the omnibus transportation and public safety bill are: 

§         Mn/DOT’s operating budget

§         Stillwater bridge

§         Hwy 62/crosstown improvements project

§         High occupancy vehicle lane studies

§         Operational costs for light rail transit

§         Commuter rail studies

The special session could occur next week, provided the legislative working groups have reached agreement on all of the state’s major spending bills.

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In the last few months, media reports have carried more questions about how Mn/DOT decides on its priorities for highway construction projects. One of our readers has been thinking about how to answer questions like these, and has posed several questions about using benefit-cost analysis.

Question: As a good business practice why doesn't Mn/DOT track the benefit-cost ratios on all projects as a part of the programming criteria? It would seem that this would require very little effort, be a good measure in the use of tax dollars and aid in project selection in most cases?

Answer:  Abigail McKenzie, director of economic analysis, Office of Investment Management, responds:  “We agree. We do think that benefit-cost analysis is a good tool for analyzing highway project alternatives. Benefit-cost analysis is very useful in finding the alternative with the “biggest bang for the buck”—the one that gives taxpayers maximum benefit for their tax dollars.

“Mn/DOT has, indeed, been doing benefit-cost analysis for a couple of years. Usually it’s applied to major highway projects that cost more than $10 million, but has been applied to other types of projects. Each district makes its own programming decisions after a detailed analysis of alternatives that includes this technique for major projects. 

“The methods we use are specified by the American Association of State and Highway Transportation Offices. They are comparable to the methods used by Transport Canada, Transit New Zealand, and other transportation organizations around the world. This method identifies the benefits to the transportation user (our customers) in terms of:

§         reduced travel time

§         reduced vehicle operating costs, and

§         reduced crash costs (actual costs incurred by individuals and insurers)

“Benefit-cost analysis is a very customer-driven approach. It focuses on what road users are getting for the tax dollars invested in the project, with those benefits translated into monetary figures. However, it should be looked at as ONE part of many factors, including:

§         environmental issues

§         municipal consent

§         social issues, and

§         business development issues

“We do not recommend using it for transit projects. It has some value here, but transit has many goals, such as:

§         reducing urban sprawl

§         providing mobility for lower income people

§         reducing pollution, and

§         increasing a sense of community

“It is valuable information, but it’s ONE piece of information in a larger process that encompasses many other goals.

“There is, at this point, no legislative requirement to do benefit-cost analysis. It has been part of the legislative requirements before, in an on-and-off fashion, for the last five to six years. Rep. Phil Krinkie has proposed that it be revived. There is a Presidential Executive Order that requires it on all federally funded projects—which is a portion of our program.”

Click here to view previous questions of the week.

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