The planned light rail route opposed by MPR would run along this street alongside the network's headquarters in St. Paul. (Image: 360-degree street view from Google Maps. Larger image.)
MPR opposes streetcar route past its studios
Minnesota Public Radio remains unconvinced that St. Paul’s proposed light-rail line will not disturb work in the network’s recently updated studios adjacent to the route. If the city can’t present a credible plan or find a new route at least a block away, MPR says, it may face a dispute in court.
MPR fears “irreparable harm” from trains running down St. Paul’s Cedar Street, disturbing the work in its recording studios, whose outer walls are 12 feet from the tracks’ route.
The trains “will have a significant negative impact on our ability to use our studios, production areas and even the offices which are often used by producers for critical audio evaluation,” MPR said in a statement on its website.
The city’s Central Corridor Project replies that MPR is exaggerating the potential impact and that both noise and vibrations can be mitigated by soundproofing and by installing a “floating slab” under the tracks. Officials say planners repeatedly have concluded that Cedar is the best route for the trains.
In a letter to Council Chair Peter Bell Jan. 8, MPR President Bill Kling said the network’s consultants “remain very skeptical that the deleterious effects of air- and ground-borne noise and vibration caused by LRT can be successfully mitigated.” MPR asked the project to explain by March 1 how it will offset the noise and vibrations. Kling asked planners to respond to his letter in writing by Jan. 12.
Web page posted Jan. 13, 2009
Copyright 2009 by Current LLC
