>>1011978I'm conflicted about the Gold Line. On the one hand I'm a huge Saint Paul homer but there just isn't as much activity in the East metro as the West. I think one person interviewed in an article I read had a point: Why would the suburban commuters who have a one seat express ride from Woodbury/Oakdale/Maplewood to Downtown want to have in between stops. I think improving transit for transit-dependent communities is wonderful but I wonder if improving a bus line that goes through the east side rather than making a new line with only a few city stops would be a better investment.
I would love to see a West Seventh LRT going from the Mall of America to Downtown Saint Paul via the airport with the possiblity of expanding it through the east side to the Maplewood Mall. Jesse Ventura almost made the Riverview Corridor our first major busway project. Not sure if going through Highland Village and the old Twin Cities Assemble Plant site is feasible but imaging a dense newly built dense urban village centred around a LRT stop and transit center makes me salivate.
Picture is during Green Line construction and the streetcar tracks they had to tear up.
