Abstract

This report is a combination of two reports (Task 1 and Task 2 and 3) on the Highway 61/Red Rock Commuter Rail Corridor. The Task 1 portion describes the baseline conditions related to subdivision-scaled growth in the corridor, with particular concentration on Cottage Grove, one of the station sites. Also considered are current plans for the downtown St. Paul Union Depot. The Task 2 and 3 portion focuses on issues relating to the relationship between transportation and the environment. An important issue in this study, therefore, is the design and institutional integration of objectives across investments in transit services at a regional scale, public space, and the long-term value of developed private space, especially in suburbia. The report offers designs for new, alternative patterns of regional growth, both urban and suburban, in broad corridors served by commuter rail service. The study also demonstrates the designs’ effects on two principal problems of sprawl embodied in the street and highway network that is the bones and circulatory system of growth:

1. Unstratified, single-mode transportation infrastructure designed for peak demand, and
2. Degradation of environmental resources, especially water, the state’s namesake resource and a central article of its competitive advantages.

View or download this report (PDF document, 269 pages; see below)

Note: This report contains numerous illustrations, charts, and maps; to reduce download times, the document has been split into chapters.

• Title Page, Executive Summary, Table of Contents
• Chapter 1: Introduction: Urban Design and the Genetic Code of Suburban Growth
• Chapter 2: Land Use, Transportation, and Water: Nested Concerns
• Chapter 3: Description of Existing Conditions in the Red Rock Corridor
• Chapter 4: Subdivision-scaled Sites in a Commuter Rail Corridor
• Chapter 5: Infrastructure Design Standards in Subdivision
• Chapter 6: Current Trip Generation – Patterns in the Regional and Local Transportation Network and the Cottage Grove Station
• Chapter 7: Overview and Introduction: Design for Commuter Rail-oriented Development
• Chapter 8: Literature Review
• Chapter 9: Document Physical Form of Precedents for Sustainable Urbanization
• Chapter 10: Develop Physical Design Hypotheses for TOD, TND, Cluster, Storm Water
• Chapter 11: Project Traffic Patterns, Trips, Modal Shifts for New Pattern
• Chapter 12: Document and Project Hydrology for New Developments
• Chapter 13: Compare and Contrast Iimpact Issues Across Baseline to Alternative Approaches
• Chapter 14: Develop a Cost-Benefit Issues Analysis