It’s what passes for excellent news for a transportation construction project that is usually prefaced with the word “troubled.”

The managers of the Southwest Light Rail Transit project now are saying that the most recent cost estimates and latest timeline for completion include a high degree of confidence. The 14.5-miles extension of the present Green Line to Eden Prairie will cost $2.86 billion and might be welcoming paying riders in 2027.

No, really.

“I don’t lose sleep over that anymore, and I did. I’ve moved on to other things,” joked Met Council Chair Charlie Zelle. The explanation for his relative restfulness is that after a yr of construction, especially within the project’s money pit and time suck often called the Kenilworth Tunnel, there are fewer underground surprises left. The tunnel won’t be accomplished until next yr, however the progress made has given the project team more confidence.

Overall, the extension is 75% accomplished.

“They’ve had yr with the development process,” Zelle said last week. “We’ve got to get through that tunnel to actually get through the toughest a part of that project. But I feel they’re well on their way.”

Hennepin County, which is covering nearly 45% of the project costs at $1.28 billion, is near sharing Zelle’s confidence level.

“Because I actually have to jot down the checks, I’m near him but not quite where he’s,” said Hennepin County Commissioner Marion Greene, the vice chair of the general public works committee and the chair of the Hennepin County Regional Railroad Authority. “Due to the several role I actually have in relation to the project, I’m by definition going to be just a little more nervous. But I do trust given all of the signals and the entire (budget) rebaselining they’ve done.”

Changing budgets and timelines have been constant companions each before and after the project broke ground in 2019. At the moment, the projected budget was a tad over $2 billion and the completion date was 2023. Poor soils discovered after Kenilworth Tunnel construction was underway led to a halt in construction, long delays, increased costs and a renegotiated contract with the builders. As well as, scathing reviews by the Office of the Legislative Auditor and an ongoing examination by a legislative task force for the way the Met Council is governed have primed the general public to expect bad news.

The present $2.86 billion budget for the Southwest Light Rail Transit project may or might not be a rise during the last publicly known figure. Legislative auditors listed the value tag as $2.74 billion within the spring, but project manager Jim Alexander said the $2.86 billion number has been utilized by the project a minimum of since a funding agreement with Hennepin County was announced in August.

That deal, too, is part of the positive news. When the Met Council announced two years ago that it had renegotiated the contract with the first contractor for the tracks, bridges, stations and tunnel, it was in need of money. A $500 million hole was partly filled by moving some money the Met Council had into the project, but the largest amount would want to return from Hennepin County, which was reluctant to foot all the bill. After months of negotiations, that August agreement gave the county responsibility for 55% of the remaining $340 million gap, and the Met Council must provide you with 45%.

Hennepin County is within the midst of sending the primary $100 million of what is anticipated to be a further $190 million. The Hennepin County board and the Met Council are set to substantiate the brand new allocation this week. Hennepin County, nonetheless, has not confirmed one aspect of the August framework — that any future budget increases could be shared 50-50 by the Met Council and the county.

Along with the county’s $1.28 billion share, the federal government is paying $1.3 billion or 45.3% of the overall. The remainder is the $217 million contributed by the now-dissolved Counties Transit Improvement Board, $31 million from the state of Minnesota and $34 million from a number of the cities along the route.

The transit improvement board was made up of the five central Twin Cities counties — Hennepin, Ramsey, Dakota, Anoka and Washington. Those five counties were authorized to gather a 0.25% sales tax for transit and far of that went for light rail, the NorthStar heavy rail line and a few bus rapid transit. But when that organization dissolved over an urban-suburban dispute over how the cash was spent, all five fell back under one other state law that allowed a 0.5% sales tax for transportation. That increase in funding is getting used by Hennepin to cover its share of construction of the Green Line extension and the Blue Line extension. It is going to also share operating costs.

“The Blue Line and the Green Line are priorities for Hennepin County,” Greene said. Along with money from the transportation sales tax, the county has sent $200 million to the project from the regional railroad authority which has a separate property tax levy.   

The Met Council received a revenue boost in May when the Legislature approved a seven-county regional transportation sales tax of 0.75%  — the primary dedicated and ongoing source of cash for the Met Council’s transit program. One caveat within the state budget said none of those funds — nearly $500 million a yr — may very well be spent on SWLRT until a special task force completes its work reviewing the governance structure of the Met Council. That task force’s report is due Feb. 1.

“The excellent news is we’ve undergone quite a lot of issues,” Zelle said. “We’ve restructured the contract with each the civil and systems contractors, and we now have the funding identified to c0mplete the project.” The FTA requires the project to have a big enough contingency fund — money put aside for unexpected expenses — to earn the federal government’s approval of the brand new budget.

“They need to review ‘do we now have enough contingency to complete the project,’ ” Zelle said. “We don’t expect it to be modified. It could, and so we never say it’s final until we now have that in writing.

“After all a project isn’t done until a project is finished, however the project team has told me they’re pretty confident that there’s enough contingency to handle the problems we’ve all been working through, particularly going through the Kenilworth Tunnel. It’s still complicated.”

Added Greene: “There’s little question that this project has been very hard going. But I’m optimistic. It’s 75% complete and I’m hearing from the Met Council that they’ve a high degree of confidence.”

The tunnel was needed once the region decided to colocate existing freight rail with the brand new light rail tracks quite than diverting the freight rail. However the difference between a tunnel and surface tracks has been blamed for many of the fee overruns and time delays.

Alexander told the Met Council’s transportation committee earlier this month that tunnel construction is now adjoining to the 10-story Cedar Isle condominium constructing where owners have complained that construction is damaging the structure. He called it the most-difficult a part of the project.

“It takes time to get through this,” Alexander said. About 18 of the 30 tunnel sections — called cells — are complete. He said he expects tunnel construction to be accomplished in 2025.

“I just need to be cautious,” he said. “I’ve got scars on my back from this tunnel specifically and the project overall. But where we’re sitting without delay, we do feel comfortable where we’re at with our (budget) estimate and timeline.”