SouthWest Station’s new passenger waiting room and bus loop opened for passengers on Monday, May 1. SouthWest Transit buses began loading riders shortly after 6 a.m. Eden Prairie’s SouthWest Station became the first Green Line Extension facility to serve transit customers. Light rail trains are slated to carry passengers in 2027. This two-minute video leads with scenes from the new station’s first morning and concludes with an animated video of what the entire complex will look like in 2027. Click here to view the video.
Author: Jeff Strate
Advertisement
Advertisement
Jeff Strate
An Eden Prairie resident since 1994, Jeff has served as an organizer for local open-space initiatives and get-out-the-vote parks referenda. He has also served on the Eden Prairie Human Rights and Diversity Commission, conservation area task forces, the Southwest Light Rail Community Advisory Committee and the Board of Directors of the Minnesota Land Trust. Jeff studied journalism and mass communication at the U of MN and has been a producer/writer and occasional on-camera figure in the Twin Cities, New York, Boston, and Trenton. Jeff has written for websites and magazines and has produced award-winning access programing through Southwest Community Television (SWTV).
The three-month-long rebuild of the eastbound Highway 212 off-ramp at SouthWest Station that began on April 10 marked the launch of the final season of heavy construction work on light rail in Eden Prairie. The 14.5-mile Metro Green Line Extension project has famously endured significant cost overruns and delays, political hyperbole, and clickbait headlines. The big delays have been along a short stretch of the Kenilworth Corridor in Minneapolis, between the Lake Street Bridge and a bit north of Cedar Lake Parkway. A tunnel is being built through a “pinch point” and difficult soils for two LRT tracks that will…
Reservations are currently being taken for the May round of this year’s Green Line Extension LRT construction site walking tours. The tours will be led by knowledgeable project office staff. Each walk is limited to 20 people. The free guided tours will visit one or more construction sites. Safety vests and hard hats will be provided. Although additional walks are planned throughout the summer, EPLN recommends registering for the May walks as soon as possible. They tend to fill up fast. For additional information, contact: James.Mockovciak@metrotransit.org Registration includes an agreement to a number of conditions. Click here to sign up…
A year ago, Anna Sorokina and her daughter Tamila celebrated Orthodox Easter with other Ukrainian refugees in a dormitory in Prague, Czech Republic. This past Sunday, Sorokina attended an early Easter Service at Saint Joan of Arc Catholic Community in Minneapolis. Tamila slept in. The 11-year-old is a fifth grader at Forest Hills Elementary School. The two moved from Prague to Eden Prairie in October. Among their new friends are Charlie and Lynn Speikers and the parishioners of Eden Prairie Assembly of God Church on Duck Lake Trail. “It’s a very nice community,” says Anna. Anna met the Speikers and…
American and Ukrainian flags whipped in a cold March wind above a packed parking lot in Northeast Minneapolis. Two other blue and yellow flags welcomed visitors to the entryway of the Ukrainian American Community Center. Inside, more than 300 ticket holders were gathered in a large utilitarian meeting space dressed with suspended ceiling drapes, colored accent lights and a stage. A regiment of round tables sparkled with glasses, favors, flatware and people. Bottles of wine and a soft Ukrainian rye beverage labeled KBAC were huddled together with vases of yellow tulips. Irina Fursman’s glass was irrigated with wine poured by…
Tom Anderson chuckled as he held up a stuffed, fake lion tail and honked a bicycle horn, props he sometimes uses during monthly meetings of the Eden Prairie Lions Club. Host Patti Wendling smiled and asked a few questions. The two appear on one of the inaugural episodes of the “Eden Prairie Lions Show,” a community access series on Comcast Channel 15. Sunday night, their competition was the 2023 Oscar telecast on ABC. The Eden Prairie Lions use the studio, video gear and training provided by partners Southwest Community Television (SWTV) and Bloomington Community Access Television (BCAT). SWTV schedules the…
A buried “impediment,” detected by Kenilworth Tunnel construction workers in Minneapolis, has turned out to be a large slab of concrete. As part of its ongoing coverage of the Metro Green Line project, the Star Tribune reported on Thursday, March 3, that the slab had been removed earlier the same day. Project spokesperson Trevor Roy explained in an email to EPLN on Monday that “It remains too early to say what impact if any the removal [of the slab] will have on tunnel construction.” The cut-and-cover light rail tunnel site, a bit north of the Lake Street bridge near Bde…
Editor’s note: The article originally published on Feb. 18 has been republished on Feb. 21 with updated information and corrections. Demolition crews and bulldozers began preparing the right-of-way for the Southwest Light Rail line from Eden Prairie to downtown Minneapolis in 2019. Through December, 3,957 construction workers have received paychecks for what is now branded the Metro Green Line Extension. Most of them — 3,208 — are Minnesotans. Of the project’s non-administrative/non-managerial workforce, 23.8% have been people of color and indigenous; 8.4% have been women. The Met Council’s “disaggregated,” ethnic breakdown of the workforce shows 2.8% are Asian, 6% Black,…
Comprehensive photo presentations of major LRT heavy construction sites during 2022 are now available for viewing courtesy of the Metro Green Line Extension Office and the Met Council. They provide more complete visual overviews than those provided by regional and community news outlets, including Eden Prairie Local News. Video presentation: 2022 Metro Green Line Extension Construction Highlights (3 minutes, 47 seconds). Click here. Slide presentation: Metro Green Line Extension Update. Click here. Both the video and slideshow include photos of major work sites from SouthWest Station through to Kenilworth Tunnel and downtown Minneapolis. The video features a number of paired…
Monday afternoon, Mark Weber, Jeff Strate and David Lindahl took a moment to have their picture taken for Eden Prairie Local News (EPLN). The trio had just set up EPLN’s holiday kiosk at Eden Prairie Center mall. They happen to be board members of your online newspaper and are known for their community work. EPLN staffers — reporters, editors, photographers and support staff — will be at EP Center mall through Friday, Dec. 23. Our kiosk is set on the second-level walkway between AMC Theatres and the food court. Photographer Gillian Holte hosted the kiosk Monday evening. She was there…