Updated: 10/15/2009 7:49 PM KSTP.com | Print |  Email

LaHood Praises Twin Cities' Transport Hub Project

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - U.S Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood praised the planned conversion of St. Paul's Union Depot into a transport hub toward a sustainable, car-free community, predicting Thursday that the project will ignite the city's economy.

LaHood did not, however, commit to federal funding for the conversion.

The $237.5 million project to transform the Union Depot - the city's passenger train station for nearly five decades until it closed in 1971 - into a hub that will connect everything from high-speed and light rail, to buses and bicycles, will be an example for infrastructure redevelopment nationwide, he said after touring the building, part of which now houses restaurants, offices and condos.

"The days of just funding highways, doing all these things individually, really are gone. The idea of multimodal, the idea of bringing people together in what will become an economic engine for the Twin Cities, is really a new direction for the Department of Transportation," LaHood said in a speech to the Economic Club of Minnesota.

"There are very few places around the country that are doing this," he said. "It's what the people want."

Owners Ramsey County Regional Railroad Authority expect Union Depot to have high speed rail capacity by 2012 and light rail transit by 2014.

An application for $135.8 million in stimulus funds is pending. Decisions on those applications will be made this winter, said Maureen Knightly, deputy director for public affairs. The competition is tight: Applications requesting a total of roughly $57 billion are competing for just $8 billion that has been dedicated to high speed rail projects.

LaHood did not say anything about Union Depot's chances for approval, but he did commend the project, saying it fits in with the Obama administration's agenda to create sustainable communities where people can live without cars.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum, who toured the facility with LaHood, said the project would also create jobs, modernize the economy and protect the environment.

LaHood told the Economic Club of Minnesota luncheon that 70 percent of the $48 billion in economic recovery money that went to the Department of Transportation is already "out the door" and that it has created jobs.

He said he would work with Congress to create a new transportation bill that reflects priorities for safer travel, greater mobility for urban and rural communities, and investments in cleaner fuels and transportation technologies.

"We need to keep our economy moving, so we can keep communities from Moorhead to Rochester growing and innovating," he said.

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On the Net:

St. Paul Union Depot: http://www.uniondepot.org

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)