Tunnel of Love

So we're finally seeing some pushback on the proposed Southwest LRT line, according to the Star Tribune:

Metro leaders who play a crucial role in funding transit revolted Wednesday over the rising price of the Southwest Corridor light-rail project, demanding that planners reduce costs or risk losing political support.

Much of their criticism centered on proposals by Southwest planners to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to satisfy a freight railroad or appease critics of the project in Minneapolis.

Hennepin County Commissioner Mike Opat deplored “the extraordinary amount of time and attention to accommodate a few.”

I'm confused. I thought that we always had to appease critics in Minneapolis. That's kinda Job One for Opat and the gang. But those critics in Minneapolis -- what do they want?

Minneapolis residents in the Kenilworth corridor demand that the Met Council hide the LRT in a 1.4-mile tunnel that the agency says would cost $330 million.

Now I'm getting even more confused. Hide the LRT? Why would you hide our outward symbol of how forward thinking we are? Do they hide the train in Portland?

Anyway, apparently the price tag is getting a little, well, daunting:

Ramsey County Commissioner Victoria Reinhardt said the cost — rising from $1.25 billion to between $1.58 billion and $1.82 billion, “is just unacceptable.”

Wait a sec. Why would a Ramsey County commissioner have anything to say about a project that will be contained in Hennepin County?

[Opat and Reinhardt] were among several members of a regional transit panel that will be asked to pay for 30 percent of the project with Twin Cities sales taxes. A common theme of their criticism is that the Southwest project’s price tag could sap money from other transit projects in the Twin Cities.

C'mon, Commissioner Reinhardt -- get with the program. Everyone knows that Ramsey County has to pay for Hennepin County projects. Regionalism demands it. That's why the ammo dump in Arden Hills isn't becoming Zygi World, remember? Downtown Minneapolis gets what it wants, ma'am. And since a lot of the movers and shakers in Downtown Minneapolis reside in the "Kenilworth corridor," Progress must come on their terms. You can spare us the kabuki, Commissioner Reinhardt, and just write the check and be done with it, since you're going to, anyway. We'll just call that $330 million tunnel the Tunnel of Love. I'm sure it will work out just fine. And don't worry -- you'll get that train line from downtown St. Paul to Hastings some day, I'm sure.