Community Voices: The End of Light Rail
By Kent Petterson
Congratulations West 7th neighborhood! The sudden end of the Riverview Corridor Transit Study was unexpected but, I believe correct.
What began as a politically tinged effort to impose a train on the neighborhood, became a political miss-adventure that could not continue unresolved. as it was damaging the neighborhood. Businesses were frozen for 10 years waiting for a decision and neighbors were divided as the train proposal threatened to physically put another barrier down our middle.
Metro Transit has always deferred to local political entities to make the call for what would be the preferred transit alternative for improvements. Com. Ortega has made the call not to make the decision for the Riverview Corridor. This painful abusive process has ended.
Going forward, the professional planners at Metro Transit should return to their original vision of a hub (perhaps two hubs, Mpls. and St. Paul) and spoke system of transit service. The fantasy of a triangle completed in Riverview was just that given there is no viable path currently for the third leg of the triangle. Appropriate transit improvements can now happen without this specific and failed intervention from the political side.
As a past President of the West 7th Business Association, I saw a neighborhood beginning to thrive as past ills of a city were overcome. If a business failed a new one came in to occupy that store front. The trajectory was obvious to all. Covid struck and the Riverview Study continued the uncertainty. A corporatized transit oriented neighborhood has been avoided and I predict great things for the neighborhood going forward.
Good luck W7,
Kent Petterson
PS: A correction to the September CR photo caption of me at the CART meeting on August. 12 should indicate that I am not a member of CART, but a neighborhood supporter.