When the official studies began that led to the METRO Blue Line Extension project, George W. Bush was still in the White House.
As the scope of the project came together, early hopes were that light rail transit could connect Minneapolis to Robbinsdale, Crystal, Brooklyn Center and Brooklyn Park by 2021, at a cost of about $1.5 billion.
Nearly two decades later, estimated costs have more than doubled and optimistic projections offer a start date in 2033.
Now there’s yet another hurdle to clear: A funding gap hundreds of millions of dollars wide that must be closed before Met Council – the regional planning body tasked with overseeing the project – can file for the project’s federal grant funding, allowing construction to finally – maybe – begin next year.
But with no clear answer on where the money will come from to fill that gap, local officials along the extension’s proposed path are growing frustrated.
At a July 8 special meeting about the project, Met Council Chair Robin Hutcheson and Regional Administrator Ryan O’Connor outlined the issue: Once you add up all the authorized funding, nearly-authorized funding and planned cost savings, there’s still $279 million missing from the extension’s $3.385 billion price tag.
That gap must be accounted for before a Full Funding Grant Agreement can be submitted to the Federal Transit Administration, O’Connor said.
One way to close that gap is to shrink the project’s contingency fund – money set aside to cover the unexpected – which currently accounts for about $877 million of the total cost.
That’s a lower amount than it once was, thanks to lobbying by Blue Line Extension officials, who can ask the FTA to reassess the cost of risks inherent in the project. O’Connor said that work will continue and that it could result in savings of $60 million to $180 million.
But much of the rest of the presentation was on where the money would not be found – for example, by reducing the number of additional trains purchased. While it could save up to $177 million, O’Connor said, effective operation of the extension requires them.
Several traditional funding sources for Metro Transit, including a regional sales tax and the motor vehicle sales tax, cannot be used for light rail projects under state law.
Related: Hennepin County wants more development near public transit, and they’re helping pay for it
And Met Council’s agreement with Hennepin County states that the agency has no commitment to put up any funds, though O’Connor noted that Met Council anticipates spending $3.4 billion in operations and maintenance through the first 32 years of operation.
These were clearly not the answers that some local officials attending the meeting wanted to hear.
“This isn’t a meeting,” said Hennepin County Commissioner Jeffrey Lunde (District 1), whose district includes the suburbs that stand to benefit most from the extension. “It’s a lecture.”
Lunde said he didn’t want special treatment for the Blue Line – just the same treatment that the Green Line got. Its Southwest Corridor extension, serving suburbs like St. Louis Park, Hopkins and Eden Prairie, is expected to begin service in 2027, following its own cost overruns.
“The people I represent have been waiting our turn,” Lunde told the Met Council officials.
Commissioner Irene Fernando (District 2) agreed, saying the extension was desperately needed to inspire development and broaden the county’s tax base.
She said she understood the agreements that had been signed, but that she simply didn’t accept that the Met Council couldn’t step in with funding.
Hutcheson, responding to the frustrations, said she understood the anger and wanted to ensure that the project happens.
‘You have to be willing to spend the time to figure it out’
Eric Goldwyn is an assistant professor at NYU’s Marron Institute of Urban Management and a researcher at the Transit Costs Project, examining why subway and light rail projects in the United States often cost more and take longer to build than in many other countries.
The Boston area’s Green Line recently opened a 4.3 mile extension that cost $2.2 billion, delayed from a 2014 opening date to 2022. And in 2023 the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority hit the brakes on a project to add a branch off of a line near Philadelphia after costs climbed from $2 billion to $3 billion.
Often, Goldwyn said, costs reflect the number of jurisdictions that a project pushes through – different governments that have to obtain different permits to dig up roads, power lines, water pipes and the like.
“All of these fights, agreements, negotiations – someone has to do that stuff,” Goldwyn said.
He also said Met Council’s problem with a ballooning contingency fund is not unusual for projects of this size. While keeping money set aside for unexpected shifts can seem smart and responsible, he said that in many cases it becomes a pool of money that comes to be seen as there to spend.
Still, he said, the per-mile cost of the Blue Line’s 13.4 mile extension comes to about $252 million – not bad when compared to the $406 million average cost-per-mile revealed in Transit Cost Project’s data.
What’s most important, Goldwyn said, is getting an influential leader – someone like a mayor or a governor – who is passionate about the project to push for it as much as possible and ask questions like “How do I do this 50% faster?”
Long timelines mean more hours for more workers, which means higher costs. For a future-oriented project, like a light rail extension, those costs don’t have the benefit of an immediate, tangible impact. When construction happens on a major road, by contrast, it often means frustrated drivers and unhappy business owners who demand the work be completed as soon as possible.
The inconvenience is unpopular, but if you allow for it, Goldwyn said, “in the long-term you’re going to get the damn project done.”
And it always requires some creativity. Goldwyn described a project in Seattle where an area’s noise ordinances stymied trucks moving dug-up material away from the site.
Eventually, the project managers realized that the only real issue was the beeping of trucks as they backed up. Without that, the complaints would dry up. So the site disabled the beeping and hired workers to stand behind the trucks and watch for clearance as they reversed. It enabled around-the-clock work and a speedy conclusion to the job.
Stopping beeping trucks won’t fill Met Council’s immediate $292 million funding hole. Still, Goldwyn said, thorny problems are not utterly unsolvable. “You don’t have to be a genius,” he said. “You have to be willing to spend the time to figure it out.”
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