Push is coming to shove among planners of the Central Corridor light-rail line between Minneapolis and St. Paul, and some of the project's major elements may be heading for a sidetrack.

The light-rail line has been in "preliminary engineering" for a year as officials from the Metropolitan Council, Minneapolis, St. Paul, the University of Minnesota and Ramsey and Hennepin counties haggle over the train line's fundamental details, like exactly where it should run and what it will cost.

The projected $932 million price tag is nearly $100 million more than officials believe the Federal Transit Administration will fund, possibly nixing the entire line. Potential trims, like a tunnel in front of Coffman Memorial Union, rebuilding University Avenue and running the trains to the concourse behind St. Paul's Union Depot have touched off a behind-the-scenes battle over what to give up.

The Pioneer Press has obtained recent correspondence between U president Robert Bruininks and Met Council chair Peter Bell indicating that plans for a $155 million tunnel at the foot of Northrop Mall - long thought be the likeliest of the project's options - is in new peril.

Bruininks last month sent a letter to the Met Council asking members to submit a supplement to the project's mammoth environmental impact statement, sketching out the potential to reroute Central Corridor down University Avenue, then heading downtown over the 10th Avenue bridge or the No. 9 railroad bridge, currently a pedestrian walkway linking the East Bank and West Bank campuses.
That would be an implicit retreat from the U's preference for a tunnel separating transit from street traffic and pedestrians in the university's transportation core.

Bell, though, rebuffed the idea in a letter last week: "I believe the best alignment through the University of Minnesota is at grade on Washington Avenue," he wrote. Bruininks wrote back, saying he was "troubled" by that: "This statement leads me to question if a legitimate study of the below-grade alignment is being conducted," Bruininks said.

In a Friday interview, Bell - himself a former university regent - described the discussions as cordial and said the Met Council and the U are working together amicably on transit planning and that he has by no means ruled out a tunnel.

But he added that planning a reroute away from Washington Avenue could add as much as $40 million to the project and delay the trains by as much as two years.

"I am interested in looking at alternatives," Bell said, though adding he doesn't consider the "alternative route as a 'Plan B.' " It's a subtle but almost tectonic shift in light-rail planning: Previous Central Corridor discussions have focused cost concerns on the St. Paul end of the line.

Planners have argued that the last leg of tracks, from Fourth and Cedar streets to the Union Depot, doesn't need to be included in the initial construction, just as the Hiawatha Line tracks to the Minnesota Twins stadium and the Northstar Commuter Rail terminus in downtown Minneapolis were put off until recently.

Ramsey County in particular has strongly objected to that, fearing a forever-missed opportunity to make the depot a regional transit hub.

Bell has noted in the past that improvements to University Avenue - mostly in St. Paul - might be made separately, with money other than transit funding. But city officials, already beleaguered by decreases in local government aid, are not confident other money will be available.

The tunnel, by comparison, can't be moved "off the books" in transit budgeting and can't be built after the trains are running. It's a now-or-never proposition.

University officials remain insistent on the tunnel idea, citing ridership the U will bring to the line and the centrality of the campus to the rail system. Some 60 percent of U students and staff arrive by transit and as much as a third of the riders on the Central Corridor are projected to be heading to or from the U.
They fear, as well, that if the tunnel is eliminated, the train will turn Washington Avenue into a dangerous bottleneck for everyone else using the street.

"The engineering we've seen does not ... mitigate the issues raised by running the line through campus without a tunnel," the U's vice president for operations, Kathleen O'Brien, said Friday.

Bruininks was even more insistent in a letter to Bell this week: "Physical realities cannot be denied, and the Central Corridor cannot be made to fit through an at-grade solution at the cost of safety and functionality of the University community," he wrote. "... A faulty design through the University campus could lead to years of dysfunctional operation, lower ridership and costly corrections."

Final plans for the corridor are due to federal officials later this year, but Met Council officials said they will have to make these "tough decisions" early next year, probably by March