Free Republic

As recently as 2010, the estimated cost for the Southwest Light Rail Transit line was estimated to be $1.2 billion, or about the cost of a new football stadium. Then the cost jumped to $1.7 billion because somebody spun the magic wheel. Now the cost is projected to be $2 billion. OK, $1.994 billion, but if they find an endangered earthworm or an especially exotic cattail, all bets are off and the project will shoot over $2 billion in a European minute, for the Metropolitan Council loves to keep playing Europe. The train stops are called Royalston, West Lake, Blake...

The temperature was just above zero when Metro Transit police officer Ken Vande Steeg asked Garrett Carter of south Minneapolis to get off the train and buy a ticket. Carter complied, stepping onto the cold platform at the Fort Snelling light-rail station. Carter's offense: He had a free-ride coupon, but hadn't exchanged it for a ticket from the vending machine. Had to be done, Vande Steeg said. The coupon buys one ride. On the Hiawatha line, which depends partly on the honor system for fares, enforcement is tightening. Officers still have some discretion, issuing warnings instead of citations when riders...

An 87-year-old Minneapolis man died Saturday afternoon when his car collided with a light-rail train, ending three months of accident-free operations for the city's new Hiawatha Line. Service at Metro Transit's 12 rail stations was stopped for more than two hours after the crash, which killed Hilmer Arnold Iverson, who had glaucoma and trouble hearing. No injuries were reported by the train's driver or the 40 passengers on the northbound, single-car train. At the south Minneapolis home that he shared with his father, Gregg Iverson said that his father, known as Arnold, had gone to Target to pick up a...