Rapid bus service or even a streetcar line could be in the cards for Robert Street in the coming decade, according to transit plans under consideration for the corridor.
Ramsey and Dakota County planners, along with a handful of cities, have been eyeing ways to bolster mass transit between St. Paul and its neighbors to the immediate south.
On Sunday, the joint group pared the list of possible routes to two: a bus or streetcar line from downtown St. Paul to Mendota Road in West St. Paul, or a bus rapid-transit line along U.S. 52 down to Inver Grove Heights.
The project is in its early stages, and any construction or completed route is years away. But West St. Paul Mayor John Zanmiller said improved mass transit is a necessity for a growing corridor.
The area’s busiest intersection — Wentworth Avenue and Robert Street — is expected to go from 26,000 cars a day to 35,000 in 20 years, he said. And Robert Street, boxed in by development on both sides, can’t get wider.
“We’ve got to figure out a way to make 10 pounds of people fit in a 5-pound pipe,” Zanmiller said.
To that end, planners are studying a bus rapid-transit line or a streetcar system along Robert Street. Both would link up with other mass transit options in downtown St. Paul.
A bus rapid-transit line along U.S. 52 is also on the table. That might resemble the recently opened Red Line bus line along Cedar Avenue in Apple Valley and Eagan, said Dakota County Transit Specialist Joe Morneau.
He said planners will study the three options through 2013 and present a recommendation to the project’s steering committee in January.
It could take six to eight years for the project to come to fruition, depending on the option selected, he said. The cost — and the question of who pays for it — also depends on the final plan.
The project is designed to qualify for federal funding that could cover 30 percent to 50 percent of the costs.
“There’s a lot up in the air,” Morneau said.
Zanmiller said he’d rather see the Robert Street route than the U.S. 52 option because he thinks it’ll spur economic development and connect neighborhoods along the corridor. But he said he’ll support whatever option research backs up.
He also said any development on Robert Street will be coordinated with an ongoing project to reconstruct the road so that it doesn’t get rebuilt just to be torn up again.
Ramsey County Commissioner Rafael Ortega, co-chair of the steering committee, said he also favors the Robert Street options. He said the U.S. 52 route would “feel like a flyover” for commuters rather than a unifying force.
But “we’ve got to let this be data-driven,” he said. “There might be data that might change my initial assessment.”
Dennis Madden, an Inver Grove Heights city council member and the city’s representative on the steering committee, said he favors bus routes rather than spending on rail or streetcar infrastructure.
“We’re going to be paying for them forever,” he said of such systems.
He said he’s fine with keeping St. Paul and West St. Paul at arm’s length because he wants to preserve the character of the suburbs.
“I’m a suburbanite and I’m proud of it, and I don’t want to live in the city,” he said.
But he acknowledged he might be alone in those views, saying the rest of the Inver Grove Heights council is more enthusiastic about mass transit.
Ortega said the lines between the city and the suburbs are starting to blur.
“It isn’t just the people coming in to go to work,” he said. “There are people coming in for entertainment, people commuting out. It’s really a two-way relationship.”
Marino Eccher can be reached at 651-228-5421. Follow him at twitter.com/marinoeccher.
