Twin Cities: Southwest light-rail gripe session stirs some anger

[Lydia Leftcoast]

2. There are some real problems with the proposed line

For one thing, it seems mostly designed to carry exurbanites back and forth to Minneapolis and has almost no well-populated stops within the city of Minneapolis.

For another, all the alternatives through the suburb of St. Louis Park either raise NIMBY hackles or are terribly expensive.

This is sad, because such a line has the potential to serve two areas that are already transit-oriented development, only without the transit: Excelsior-Grand and Hopkins.

However, it is going to terminate in a nowhere section of the Sprawlsville suburb of Eden Prairie.
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If I were Transit Czarina, I would start the line in the largely African-American neighborhood between Plymouth Avenue and West Broadway on the Near North Side before sending it through downtown. Then, instead of going south to Eden Prairie after Hopkins, I would send it west to Excelsior, a once-independent town that has a compact core.