Eden Prairie LRT Stations Would Need Up To 1,815 Parking Spots

Early parking projections for the Southwest Light Rail Transit project estimate that Eden Prairie’s five LRT stations would need to provide between 1,400 and 1,815 parking spots between them, according to a Finance & Commerce article.

Parking is among the biggest worries for cities along the line. Local planners frequently worry that parking could create traffic problems and take land that could be used for redevelopment.

But the Southwest LRT project also needs sufficient parking for the commuters who will make the line financially viable. The Draft Environmental Impact Statement assumed 15 of the 17 new stations would have park-and-ride facilities and estimated that the project would need 3,500 park-and-ride spaces along the line.

Planners are looking at park-and-ride spaces more closely during the engineering process, a Met Council spokeswoman told Patch via e-mail in early April.

Initial work estimates the following need at Eden Prairie stations, according to Finance & Commerce:

Eden Prairie’s Mitchell Station is projected to be the largest park and ride along the line. Unlike in some other communities, local officials are concerned park and rides at that station and the City West Station near the future UnitedHealth Group campus may actually be too small. They’d rather build more parking spaces now in order to accommodate future growth.

The Southwest Light Rail project is currently in the preliminary engineering phase, which began in the beginning of the year and is expected to last about two years. About 30 percent of the design work will be done once preliminary engineering is complete.

Click here to read the full Finance & Commerce article.