The Metropolitan Council (Met Council) and Hennepin County announced a potential construction delay for the Southwest Light Rail Transit (LRT) Project.
Over the course of the 2020 construction season, the project staff and contractor, Lunda-McCrossan Joint Venture, encountered unforeseen conditions in the Minneapolis segment of the of the alignment that will take longer to overcome.
These include:
- Due to the poor soils encountered in the Kenilworth corridor during the initial construction of the tunnel, an alternative construction method is needed to complete the tunnel. The construction method that is being introducing (secant wall) will stabilize the soils while constructing the LRT tunnel. The Met Council says they are taking this approach out of an abundance of caution to protect the foundations of adjacent buildings.
- Project staff are constructing an approximately one-mile corridor protection wall for an additional layer of protection between the BNSF freight trains and LRT trains. The corridor protection wall will be located in the BNSF’s Wayzata Subdivision in Minneapolis from the Bryn Mawr Station to just east of I-94. This protection wall was added as a requirement of BNSF after final design and civil construction contracting. While this element is not a surprise, the Met Council has now completed analysis and design for the wall and has a fuller understanding of the challenges of constructing this project element in an active freight rail corridor.
Met Council says these are not small changes and require thoughtful and deliberate engineering, design plans and construction methods. What this means is Southwest LRT will most likely not be meeting its opening day projection of 2023. While these types of setbacks are not uncommon on projects of this scale, the Met Council says it is disappointed by this development and strongly believes the long-term benefits of this project to the region and state outweigh the short-term challenges it faces.
During the next several months, project staff and Lunda-McCrossan Joint Venture will be analyzing the schedule; Met Council will share more information later this year.
Southwest LRT — an extension of the METRO Green Line — is the largest public infrastructure project in the state of Minnesota's history and is incredibly complex as the Met Council constructs light rail transit, freight rail and regional trails.
Construction on Southwest LRT continues in Eden Prairie, Minnetonka, Hopkins, St. Louis Park and Minneapolis. This includes key project elements such as stations, tunnels and bridges that will continue to be constructed. Met Council will continue to work directly with stakeholders to minimize these construction impacts whenever possible. The Met Council says it remains committed to ensuring the many small businesses and subcontractors working on the project are treated fairly due to the anticipated schedule change.
