The city of Robbinsdale is planning to approve or disapprove municipal consent in September. While votes are not yet being tallied, council members have previously hinted where their preferences lie.
Council members Mia Parisian and Aaron Wagner have supported the Blue Line. Mayor Bill Blonigan indicated he would offer consent if the project met certain conditions. Council Member Regan Murphy has been vocally opposed to the project on its current alignment.
In August, the city will elect a Ward 2 council member via special election. David Dirkers and Jason Greenberg led in the primary, which put them on ballot for August 13. In the Sun Post Voter’s Guide, Greenberg said he “personally cannot support this alignment until specific changes are made.”
Dirkers said one of his “top priorities” was advocating for an electric bus instead of “the widening of Bottineau Blvd. to insert two sets of rail tracks inside of an already four lane ‘highway.’”
On a five-person council, three of the five individuals would need to vote in favor of the project to formally consent.
Municipal consent
The City Council will be asked by the Metropolitan Council to offer consent to the project. Then there are three, possibly four options: The City Council could approve consent; The city could not respond, which offers consent by default according to the Minnesota Legislature; The city could disapprove of the plan and provide specific plan amendments required to gain consent.
Robbinsdale’s legal team is currently researching whether the council can give consent with conditions. Another alternative is the City Council deny consent in order to have their list of conditions addressed.
Resolutions are being drafted and will be reviewed at a future work session in August and later addressed in a September business meeting.
The cities of Crystal, Brooklyn Park, Minneapolis and the Hennepin County Board will also be asked for municipal consent.
300-car park and ride
On July 9, the current four-person City Council discussed what sorts of terms it would need to formally agree to the project. Various city staff attended the meeting to provide expert insight.
An amenity discussed at length was the 300-car park and ride, proposed for construction in the city, at a to-be-determined location.
Blonigan said this felt like a compromise from the original plan, which was a much larger parking garage. Blonigan said he supported the 300-car garage, but might not vote for consent depending on the ramp’s location.
Wagner supported the facility, saying, “I think it would be a draw for people to come and patronize businesses.”
Parisian said she supported a parking ramp, saying it would be better for residents if guests had places to park.
Murphy said he was against a ramp of any size.
City Manger Tim Sandvik commented that if the project office didn’t build the parking garage, the city may face issues with traffic.
“They’re projecting X amount of people are gonna come to town and get on here, they’ve gotta park somewhere,” Sandvik said.
The Blue Line Extension project office believes 30,000 will ride the Blue Line daily when the extension is complete.
Richard McCoy, Robbinsdale’s public works director and city engineer, said the focus should be on right-sizing the parking garage.
“I still have concerns about how the vehicles are gonna get in and get out,” McCoy said. “I don’t want them going through all of our local streets. But I’m mindful that if we don’t provide a facility, I think it’s going to be worse.”
Murphy spoke about uncertainty with the parking facility.
“We don’t know where it’s going. We don’t know what it’s gonna look like ” Murphy said. “We don’t know what the patterns are going to be, and how people are gonna get there, whether they’re going to cut through neighborhoods anyway.”
McCoy thought a solution for directing the flow of traffic could be reached.
“You can guide that somewhat by how you get people in and out of the building,” McCoy responded. “I’m less concerned about that so much as right-sizing.”
Frustration with new alignment
Murphy criticized the project in its entirety.
“I am not a fan of this project to begin with, where it is,” Murphy said. “There’s way too many unknowns. There’s nothing that feels good about these conversations we’re having. There’s too many unknowns, and I think it’s unfortunate we’re being forced in a way to move forward when we don’t have enough information to make a really good decision for our community.”
During the meeting, people spoke about the old alignment along Burlington Northern Sante Fe railway.
Robbinsdale Fire Chief Guy Dorholt said there was more communication during the first alignment. Blonigan said that design progressed further along than it is now.
The city engineer mentioned the complexity of the new corridor compared to the original.
“They had a set corridor,” McCoy added. “And they didn’t have any obstacles in that corridor. Whereas what they’re trying to do now is completely different. They’re trying to jam in infrastructure that doesn’t currently exist into a corridor that’s already built out. And every inch of width is currently used for something. So I think they’ve been spending a lot of time trying to overcome those issues, and I don’t know that they have all the answers yet. Which means communicating answers to folks like us is more difficult.”
Light rail: Public safety staffing deterrent?
Can the Metropolitan Council figure out a way around all these issues? The City Council went through a list of concerns including documenting feedback from North Memorial Hospital and maintaining lanes to boat launches.
A major concern of public safety officials is the amount of training and equipment required to respond to emergency incidents involving a light rail train. Dorholt said a recent training for buses lasted four hours and wondered what would be needed for firefighters to be prepared for trains.
Blonigan asked if the fire and police department could use anti-displacement funds for the police and fire departments, as public safety employees could be deterred from working in Robbinsdale due to the level of training required.
“I find it really difficult to imagine trying to continue a part-time, paid on-call department operating in a light rail corridor,” Dorholt said. “Can it be done? I don’t know, maybe. But I don’t know how that works.”
Robbinsdale Police Chief Patrick Foley wanted to know if METRO Transit police would have officers riding in the bus, on-call or at the light rail stations.
Another safety concern was response times, namely, how crossing train tracks will impact response times and how trains yield to emergency vehicles.
“Our access north and south to the city of Robbinsdale – number one by far the fastest and the safest – is Bottineau Boulevard,” Dorholt said. “If that is narrowed, and if the intersections are condensed, that creates a problem for us accessing that north-south route.”
The group discussed elevating the light rail so public safety vehicles could pass quickly underneath it. However, Foley and Dorholt pointed out that a raised light rail would provide access challenges when emergencies happened on the rail.
Although drivers are legally obligated to pull over to the right when the flashing lights and sirens of an emergency vehicle is behind them, some drivers do not. With less space on the road, Dorholt worried about maneuvering around those vehicles.
Underground rail, turnstiles, Oakdale Avenue
After the list of public safety concerns were addressed, including potential for increase in calls and overall crime rate, the group moved on to other thoughts.
Blonigan suggested adding a buyout option for buildings that are negatively impacted by the project but not legally condemned. One house, 4227 40th Ave. N, at the southeast corner of 40th Ave. N. and County Road 81 is projected to be impacted negatively by the new traffic.
Blonigan said the train would ideally go underground to be less disruptive to the city, however, he was willing to compromise with an above-ground train.
Blonigan suggested adding space for turnstiles, which he believes will be used in the future.
McCoy added some specific demands. One demand is that the project office protect city infrastructure located near the train tracks for as long as the light rail infrastructure remains, at no cost to the city.
McCoy also had some insight on jurisdictional transfers, including turning part of Lowry/Oakdale Avenue into a county road prior to the completion of the project. Then the county would need to maintain the road instead of the city.
“The project wants to have an off-ramp from County Road 81 southbound to Lowry/Oakdale to that area by the hospital. That’s gonna act as a county road, so they should have a jurisdictional transfer,” McCoy said.
Parisian said ensuring anti-displacement funds get to Robbinsdale is a priority.
This list of demands is in its early stages and will be reviewed again by the council.
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