(The following article by Peter Bodley was posted on the Coon Rapids Herald website on December 3.)
COON RAPIDS, Minn. — The Northstar Corridor commuter rail project has received another boost from the U.S. Congress.
The Fiscal Year 2005 Omnibus Appropriation Bill passed by both the U.S. Senate and House in November includes $5 million for the project.
In a White House statement, President George W. Bush said he would sign the legislation into law.
“We are very pleased that Northstar was again singled out by Congress as a commuter rail project that deserves to be funded,” said Tim Yantos, deputy Anoka County administrator and executive director of the Northstar Corridor Development Authority (NCDA).
According to Yantos, the federal money can be spent over a three-year period, but it does require a 50 percent match from state and/or local sources.
The federal appropriation will be used for final design work, land acquisition for stations, track improvements and rolling stock.
Meantime, the NCDA will be making a decision in the next few weeks on hiring a consultant to perform the final design work on the project, Yantos said.
“We have had responses from companies on the request for proposal we sent out for the final design work,” he said.
“The recommendation will go to the NCDA in the next few weeks so we can have a consultant on board and ready to start the final design work at the start of the new year.”
The final design will not only include track improvements, station sites and rolling stock, but also the connection to the Hiawatha light rail line in downtown Minneapolis, Yantos said.
Discussions on an agreement with the Burlington-Northern Santa Fe Railroad to use its double-line tracks from Minneapolis to Big Lake for the first phase of the commuter rail project are continuing.
In fact, a meeting took place Monday, according to Yantos.
“We are making some good progress,” Yantos said. “The railroad has been willing to meet and is a good negotiator.”
The latest funding boost from Congress is the second piece of good news the Northstar commuter rail project has received from Washington this fall.
Federal funding to keep the project on track was authorized in September when the U.S. Department of Transportation awarded the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) a $9,900,131 grant to start final design work on the project.
In August, Gov. Tim Pawlenty had announced a plan to provide the necessary local local match to secure the federal dollars that would have disappeared after Sept. 30.
To receive the federal grant, matching funds totaling $10.9 million have been approved by the NCDA and $2.5 million by the Metropolitan Council.
The timetable is to have the final design work completed in time to go to the 2006 Minnesota Legislature for construction funding, according to Yantos.
But the NCDA will be back at the 2005 Minnesota Legislature seeking the $37.5 million for the project that Pawlenty had included in his 2004 bonding proposal, Yantos said.
No bonding bill was passed by the 2004 Legislature.
“We don’t know whether the $37.5 million will be part of a bonding bill or be included in other legislation,” Yantos said.
“We are working with the governor right now.”
Indeed, Yantos said Pawlenty, at a meeting in Elk River last week, made the statement that he would go to the mat for the Northstar project.
The $37.5 million is needed to complete the final design work, according to Yantos.
“We still hope to have commuter rail up and running in 2008,” Yantos said.
Under the NCDA’s cost-sharing formula, which is based on the miles the proposed commuter rail system will run through the three counties involved, the Anoka County Regional Rail Authority is paying $7.4 million of the $10.9 million local commitment to access the federal dollars, according to Yantos.
Some of that $7.4 million is coming from the 2004 budgeted funds of the authority and some from reserves with the balance from the 2005 rail authority budget and tax levy, which will be considered for final approval by the regional rail authority and the Anoka County Board this month.
The federal money and local match allows the project to remain in the running for future federal New Starts transit funding. Northstar at this time has not been recommended by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) because the state has failed to approve its share of the project cost, Yantos said.
The first phase of Northstar is for service on the 40-mile segment along Highways 10 and 47 from Big Lake to Minneapolis. Stations are proposed for Big Lake, Elk River, Anoka, Coon Rapids, Fridley and Minneapolis.
The total construction cost for the first phase is estimated at $265 million with 50 percent of the money coming from the federal government to match a state/local commitment of $132.5 million.
The original route which would have reached Rice, west of St. Cloud, was modified earlier this year to meet the FTA’s new, more stringent cost-effective standards.
The NCDA is a joint powers board of 30 counties, cities, towns and regional rail authorities along the corridor.