Construction on the Kenilworth Tunnel has been plagued by problems and threatens the foundation of a nearby condo complex.

A half-mile tunnel that "will carry the Metropolitan Council’s Southwest LRT project through a pinch point in its 15-mile path from downtown to Eden Prairie" is mired in "[c]omplexities with water, underground debris, and construction methods seem poised to push the line’s opening deep into 2025 or 2026," writes Adam Platt. "The Kenilworth Tunnel, long the open wound among neighborhood and environmental activists, has been plagued by what [activists] deem as foreseen challenges—which have forced construction crews to adopt complex and time-consuming fixes to maintain its structural integrity." As Platt writes, "[n]o line would have been free of lawsuits and strife, but it is hard to imagine how a surface route at grade through the Minneapolis Farmer’s Market to Hennepin Avenue to the Midtown Greenway connection with the existing right of way would have been any more difficult." The project, currently slated to cost $2 billion, "continues to book change orders and eat away at contingency funds," having already exhausted the primary $203 million contingency fund.
Hennepin County Commissioner Debbie Goettel, while sympathetic to the concerns of community members, says that, ultimately, "stopping remains an absurd prospect, noting that hundreds of millions of dollars of spent federal funds would need to be returned to the U.S. Treasury, not to mention leaving dozens of partially built bridges and other structures scattered across the southwest metro."
FULL STORY: Southwest LRT’s rocky mess

Rethinking Redlining
For decades we have blamed 100-year-old maps for the patterns of spatial racial inequity that persist in American cities today. An esteemed researcher says: we’ve got it all wrong.

Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.

California High-Speed Rail's Plan to Right Itself
The railroad's new CEO thinks he can get the project back on track. The stars will need to align this summer.

Opinion: Make Buses More Like Sidewalks
Sidewalks are an intuitive, low-cost, and easily accessible mobility tool. Can local buses function in the same way?

How Cities Can Support Climate Adaptation
In the face of federal cuts to climate resilience funding, a panel at ULI’s Resilience Summit offered suggestions for maintaining managed retreat and other climate adaptation programs.

Transportation Research Centers Lose Key Federal Funding
The federal University Transportation Center program funds critical transportation research and innovation at 35 consortia of colleges and universities.
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
City of Clovis
City of Moorpark
City of Camden Redevelopment Agency
City of Astoria
Transportation Research & Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University
Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada
Toledo-Lucas County Plan Commissions