A $210 million settlement approved Wednesday by the Metropolitan Council Council with Lunda McCrossan, a joint venture building the 14.5 mile Southwest Light Rail Transit project, will further delay the project's completion and push the finishing costs even higher.
The light-rail line, linking downtown Minneapolis to Eden Prairie, was set to open in 2023. However, the added measures approved Wednesday will push that date back four years to 2027.
The costs, and delays, are catching the eyes of Minnesota state lawmakers.
"This is actually not a huge surprise, even though it's often characterized by the powers that be like the Met Council as unexpected developments," State Senator Scott Dibble (DFL) told WCCO Radio's Vineeta Sawkar on Thursday morning. "The truth of the matter is a lot of what they're encountering could have easily been anticipated back in the planning phase of the project. They were told about a lot of these potential complications by elected officials and members of the community. They chose to disregard the information at that time."
Dibble said the issues they raised with project primarily had to do with the chosen route, building close to sensitive structures, and the project's proximity to freight rail were deliberate decisions made by the Met Council.
"Those decisions are causing these so-called unexpected delays," added Dibble.
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In January 2021, the Met Council released information about encountering "unforeseen conditions in the Minneapolis segment of the of the alignment" that would add time to overcome. Those conditions included soil conditions and an added protection wall between freight rails and LRT trains.
"Now we see there's a third party, an objective entity that they have to hire, that is telling them they're not managing the primary contractor very well with respect to price, schedule, and quality of construction," Dibble said. "They've deliberately chose to ignore that advice which is fairly disturbing."
With the project expected to come in at $2.75 billion, and not on time, Dibble along with Minnesota Republicans are looking to sponsor a bill to probe the project.
"I think it would give us a lot of good information," Dibble said. "Mostly we would need to uncover what are the cultural, structural, and legal issues that need to change at the Met Council. I don't think it'd give us enough time to turn the ship around on this project because it'd take a good year. But, at least it would inform us because the Met Council is going to be building massive public works projects in the future and they need to do it much, much better than they are now."