Is Poker Wendy Meadley bluffing again--or is she just have to have a grift?
In Group pushes ahead with high-speed rail plans, the Post Bulletin's Heather Carlson reports that the new moneymaker Meadley is shaking for the $4.2 billion, maybe-not-so-high-speed, 77-mile-long passenger rail line between the Twin Cities and Rochester is to become the world's most expensive package delivery system:
The company is also looking to incorporate freight for "small, high-value" items. She referenced the potential to ship packages to consumers same day via the rail line. Seeking to develop real estate in connection with the proposed rail line also remains a key part of the plan. . . .
The company is also considering building four stops along the line. One would be known as the "North Terminal" and would likely be built in Bloomington near the Minnesota-St. Paul International Airport. Another stop would be constructed in a southern metro suburb to allow commuters to hop aboard. Up for debate is whether to build one or two stations in Rochester — one downtown and another at the airport. . . .
This seems like a very pricey way to duplicate service that's already provided by UPS, Fedex and other carriers using the existing roads and airports. But perhaps Meadley feels to have another reason to confiscate property along the line via eminent domain so her investors can prosper when developing that seized real estate.
Condemning condemnation
It's not often that we agree with Rep. Steve Drazkowski. He tells Carlson:
Drazkowski said he remains deeply concerned about the project. One of his biggest worries is the potential for the private company to seize landowners' property via eminent domain.
"I struggle with the idea that a private company is going to eminent domain private property. That is very troubling and something I think we certainly need to address in law," he said.
We hope so too. For details on current law, check out our post from February, Zombie Zip Rail question in CD2 GOP forum could re-animate eminent domain debate, which includes details on current state law about private railroads' use of eminent domain to obtain private property, or the condemnation process.
Build it or they go to Berlin
Meanwhile, the freight rail guy and longtime Fedex employee advising the private group claims that if the no-so-high-speed rail isn't built, the smart people won't be able to deal with Highway 52 and they'll relocate to Denver, Beijing or Berlin. He tells Carlson:
Bill Goins, a longtime Fed Ex employee who serves on the MInnesota Freight Advisory Commission, has been advising the rail group. He said it makes sense to consider building a high-speed rail line between Rochester and the Twin Cities because of the massive Destination Medical Center economic development project. DMC is projected to add another 30,000 to 40,000 jobs in Rochester over the next 15 or 20 years. He said it's likely that some of those employees will live in the Twin Cities and commute to Rochester. That will put a heavy strain on the four-lane U.S. Highway 52, which is vital to commerce in the region.
"If we don't continue to be creative and innovative, we stand the chance of good companies, good employers saying, 'Hey, we could move to Denver or we could move to Beijing or we could move to Berlin' or whatever it might be, and our market loses," Goins said.
Whatever. In last month's Stealth Train, Twin Cities Business executive editor Adam Platt scrutinized claims about Highway 52's capacity:
NAHSR’s interest in a Rochester rail link centers on a sense of infrastructure need and business opportunity as the Destination Medical Center (DMC) effort comes to fruition.
“Accessibility is key to the DMC vision,” says state transportation commissioner Charlie Zelle. Rochester does not face a transportation crisis today. Highway 52 is free-flowing, says Olmsted County chief transportation planner Charlie Reiter. He says Rochester’s housing supply is “tight” and additional commuters are expected (see Rochester infographic).
Currently, “we don’t see a lot of excess [transit] demand,” says Dan Holter, general manager of privately held Rochester City Lines, which operates coach-style buses for Rochester-bound commuters from the Twin Cities. “We’ve tried to add service going north, but people don’t want to transfer at Mall of America,” which would roughly be NAHSR’s terminus. Rail advocates point to inevitable gridlock on Hwy. 52 if DMC’s jobs vision is validated, but MnDOT says it has no data one way or another on that topic.
Will all those new Rochester workers be commuting from the Twin Cities--or living north of Rochester, thus clogging the roads? The Med City is also connected to Highway 14, a corridor of commerce that runs east-to-west, and some Mayo employees already chose to commute from small communities south of town like Chatfield.
But there's more.
Meadley dangles, Goodhue County rolls eyes
Carlson reports that Meadley is dangling a mid-route maintenance facility--though we're not so sure the intended audience for this bribe is the fly-over counties and cities and not the investors she and her pals are so desperately seeking:
But Meadley insists the company is making headway when it comes to convincing city and county officials to be open-minded about the project. She said the company will be looking to build a maintenance facility halfway along the line.
"That (maintenance facility) could be placed mid-corridor, so I think there are people in the counties and cities along the line that are open to exploring that before they condemn it because they want to see what the opportunities are," Meadley said.
Cute. There's that malarky, and then there's the for-real, on-the-record statements from counties that are in the way of this scheme. Just three days ago, we posted in Goodhue County to bullet train development team: silence doesn't mean approval, okay?:
In an article posted online Monday, Red Wing Republican Eagle's Michael Brun reports in County Board adopts Comprehensive Plan update that the Goodhue County Board has signaled that the North American High Speed Rail Group need to know what every frisky college student learns during freshman orientation: silence doesn't mean yes.
Brun reports in his lede:
Commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday to adopt an update to the Goodhue County Comprehensive Plan, the first substantial revision in 12 years to the document that outlines the county’s vision for land use and future growth. Among the changes is a paragraph clarifying that land uses not mentioned in the plan should not be assumed to have the county’s support.
“So say a group advocating for, oh I don’t know, a Zip Rail project decided to say that, ‘Well, since Goodhue County does not explicitly take a stand against it, then we’re assuming that they’re for it,’” Board Chair Dan Rechtzigel said. “They can no longer make that statement.”
The plan also has a line requiring that new or proposed rail systems must provide a benefit to the county.
While Wendy Meadley has tried to make the case that a privately-funded rail line is freed from regulatory review and data practices requests, Adam Platt reported in Can a high-speed rail line from Rochester to the Twin Cities be built without any public money?:
Assuming NAHSR moves forward and can raise sufficient capital, it still faces hurdles, say observers. The lack of public funding makes capital acquisition simpler; the same may not necessarily be true for capital deployment, however.
Opponents will be relieved to learn the Rochester train will face the same onerous, time-consuming, and lawsuit-inducing environmental reviews as a public project. “The environmental review is based on scope of the project, not who’s doing it,” says University of Minnesota law professor Alexandra Klass. (The U.S. Surface Transportation Board recently said it would take three years to complete environmental study of a proposed freight railroad bypass around Chicago.)
Fly-over counties aren't getting anymore friendly, either.
We'll continue to watch this shiny thing show as it keeps rising from the dead. In the meantime, passenger rail to Duluth (the rail lines already exist for the Northern Lights Express, so the cost would be far less) --or high speed rail directly to Chicago--would be better investments on the public or private dime than this.
Image: Will the zombie ziprail mutate into zombie package delivery?
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