A Transit Fantasy: Take the Purple Line from Roseville to Southdale?

A Twin Cities transit plan proposed bya blogger at Streets.mn would include a high-capacity transit line connecting Roseville with Southdale in Edina. 

Here is how David Levinson describes the route he envisions:

"A new 'Purple line' is created from Rosedale to Southdale, through the University of Minnesota St. Paul, along the under-used UMN transit-way, into the Dinkytown Trench, down (and perhaps under) Nicollet in a Seattle-like bus tunnel, down the Midtown Greenway, to Excelsior, France Avenue, past 50th and France, through Southdale, and then past I494 for a giant Park and Ride lot at its terminus. I envision this as a Busway on exclusive right-of-way, with electrically powered buses for the both the Midtown Greenway and the Nicollet Avenue corridor. Running under Nicollet is controversial, and expensive, but if any place in the Twin Cities requires a subway (besides the airport), it is Nicollet, with its line of skyscrapers feeding demand. Running buses in the trench is also controversial, but as I note elsewhere, electric buses can be just as nice as Streetcars, and far more flexible with routing."

Levinson's post also appears at the Twin Cities Daily Planetwebsite. 


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