Sen. Steve Murphy to U of M, Met Council — fix it, or we will
Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Steve Murphy, DFL-Red Wing, offered Met Council Chairman Peter Bell a strong suggestion yesterday about a dispute between the University of Minnesota and the council over the proposed Central Corridor light rail line.
In describing litigation, Bell explained that university officials are asking for unreasonable controls pertaining to vibration and electrostatic discharge the light rail line could cause while moving through the university campus — university officials are concerned about the impact on research, Bell explained.
And Bell indicated that the concerns are legitimate.
But Bell went on to argue, that university officials currently cannot guarantee any vibration or electrostatic standard to researchers — thousands of trucks and cars flow through the university every day, Bell noted.
Bell argued the university’s demands constituted a double standard.
Murphy, looking over the transportation committee members, told Bell that the Met Council and university needed to reach agreement on the matter.
“Otherwise, we will,” said Murphy of the committee formulating a standard.
And neither the U or Met Council would like what the committee would come up with, warned Murphy.
Bell, in detailing litigation against the light rail line, also spoke at length about ligation involving Minnesota Public Radio — MPR is concerned about vibrations and the impact of light rail going by its station.
Bell argued that it would a terrible precedent for the courts to accept MPR’s engineering solution as this would result in parties along proposed lines engineering pieces of it without corresponding responsibility.
