Light Rail Project, the State Statute, and Municipal Consent

There has been a lot of conversation about Municipal Consent and the Blue Line Extension LRT project. I want to provide my perspective.

Each city along the route will have a vote regarding "municipal consent", a process determined by State statute (473.3994 LIGHT RAIL TRANSIT; DESIGN PLANS)  This is a relatively straightforward process normally, but was complicated by the changes that were required when when the project and BNSF did not reach an agreement to use the existing rail corridor through Robbinsdale.

The project was at 90% design completion when that happened, and at the final step to secure more than a billion dollars in funding. The project asked for and received a modification of that previous plan and they were approved to keep their same place in line for funding. 

One of the rules for a modification is that certain aspects must be met to maintain the current status with the Federal Transit Authority -  a key point for the Met Council and the project overall. They both have repeatedly stressed they will not make changes to jeopardize this standing - doing so would waste years of work and tens of millions of dollars in costs.

The main modification points as they relate to Robbinsdale:

- The line endpoints - Target Field to Brooklyn Park

- The communities served (Minneapolis, Robbinsdale, Crystal, and Brooklyn Park)

- The mode of the project - Light Rail Transit

Some people suggest building the light rail but excluding Robbinsdale.  Others suggest Bus Rapid Transit instead of Light Rail. These approaches would alter the communities served and the mode of transit - which would then trigger a brand new project. So, it must go through Robbinsdale and the mode must be light rail.

The key takeaway is that any changes to these details would start the entire funding and approval process over from the beginning. This would put almost certain funding at very high risk and therefore are not being considered by the state, Met Council or County.

That brings us to Municipal Consent. 

There are three options for municipal consent as described by the state statute. Approve, No Action, or Disapprove. 

If the City Council votes to disapprove, they must suggest amendments to the current project that can be addressed to achieve consent from the city. We can vote no and push back with amendments for what needs to be changed to get the most and best out of the project for Robbinsdale. 

The project must address those concerns as part of the process. As it relates to the details above, if we ask for bus rapid transit, they will note BRT is a different project and not an amendment to the current project. They will likely have lots of reasons, and I imagine there will be people who disagree with those reasons, but the fact of the matter is they will have responded as required by the statute. At which point, the project can move forward and light rail will get built on the project's terms and Robbinsdale will have little to no say in what happens within our city limits.

The "No Action" and "Approve" options are essentially the same according to the statute - everything just keeps moving as it has been.

My stance is that we vote disapprove with specific amendments to the current project and have a say in building a project that’s as good as it can be for Robbinsdale!