The concrete arrives

Platforms for many of the Central Corridor's 18 stations are starting to take shape, and when I snapped this photo earlier this week workers were pouring the start of the 10th street station.

That's just a block from where I work in downtown St. Paul. There are other stations going in, including the Union Depot station.

But it'll be awhile until the trains roll. As in 2014.

The Central Corridor line will have 18 stations, not counting the five it will share with the Hiawatha line in downtown Minneapolis.

When the trains begin service the Central Corridor folks estimate a one-way trip time for passengers riding from the Union Depot station in Lowertown St. Paul to the Target Field station in downtown Minneapolis will be about 40 minutes.

I remember an interview years ago with with a MnDOT official explaining that the Interstate 94 link between the two cities was a godsend because it reduced the one-way trip time to about 15 minutes.

Which is somewhat accurate on a Sunday morning at 7 a. m. with a tail wind.

Before the freeway it took about 45 minutes on University avenue to go from one downtown to the other.

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