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20 < m ETRO m AGAZINE JUNE 2014 metro-magazine.com 2014 TOP RAIL PROJECTS SURVEY clude 16 stops spaced approximately ev- ery two blocks and serve the city's Cen- tral Business District; the Crossroads Art District ; the Power and Light District ; and numerous other businesses, restau- rants, art galleries, educational facilities and residential neighborhoods. Te completion of the Downtown KC Streetcar starter line project is anticipat- ed in summer of 2015 followed by a pe- riod of testing. It is expected that by the end of 2015 the frst streetcar rides will occur through Downtown Kansas City in over a half a century. READY FOR LAUNCH As of press time, Minneapolis/St. Paul-based Metro Transit (No. 16) was in fnal testing of its $957 million MET- RO Green Line and set to begin revenue service on June 14. The Green Line is an 11-mile light- rail line connecting downtown Min- neapolis, the University of Minneso- ta and downtown St. Paul. Te METRO Green Line includes 18 new light rail sta- tions. Te Green Line will also serve fve downtown Minneapolis stations that are shared with the METRO Blue Line, which travels south from Minneapolis to the Minneapolis-St. Paul Interna- tional Airport and the Mall of America in Bloomington. Metro Transit is also in preliminary engineering on its Green Line Exten- sion, which includes an additional 16 miles of double track as well as 16 new stations. It will be part of an integrated system of transitways, including con- nections to the Blue Line, the Northstar Commuter Rail line and Metro Transit bus routes. In August, No. 23, the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) will begin service on its 4.7-mile Orange Line extension from Belt Line Station to the newly re- built Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport station. The extension is part of DART's 14- mile Orange Line and brings the nation's longest light rail system to 90 miles. When the station opens, riders will only need to walk approximately 300 feet from the station to the terminal. AT A GLANCE Further analysis of this year's num- bers show that respondents have ap- proximately 3,300 new railcars on order, with a majority of those vehicles expect- ed to be heavy railcars. In METRO's list 10 years ago, NYC Transit topped the list with $12 billion in projects and a total of 6,589 vehi- cles. In fact, when comparing the num- bers from 2004 and 2014, not a whole lot has changed, except for the total project purse, which hit $66.3 billion in 2004, has grown by 49%. If you know an agency with plans for the future, but were omitted from this year's survey, please let us know so that we can include it next year. METRO w ou l d a l s o l i ke to s e n d a special thanks to all the agencies for taking the time to fill out our surveys and continuing to participate in this annual feature. Streetcar projects listed in the survey, including Kansas City's, (rendering shown) totaled a reported $674 million. Top 5 in 2004 This year's $99 billion in total projects is $12 billion higher than reported in 2010 and about $32.5 billion more than was reported in 2004. Total Project Costs 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 (2010-2014 in billions) $70 $75 $80 $85 $90 $95 $100 87 83 83 99 99 1 MTA New York City Transit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $12,399 2 Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County. . . . . . . . . . $7,500 3 Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority. . $5,500 4 Port Authority of New York/ New Jersey . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$4,000 5 Sound Transit . . . . . . . . .$3,180