Working draft, published as it is written. This is the landing page for the proposal. Chapters are added below as they are completed and checked, and this page is updated with each one. Corrections are welcome: patrick@mccabe.co.

Available now

• The Monarch Line District: abstract, mock-up plan and legend for the horse-country village at the Independence roundabout, and the three-corridor map.

What this proposal is

A plan to connect the small towns west of Minneapolis by rail so that each keeps its character and the countryside between them stays countryside. The corridor runs from downtown Minneapolis through Plymouth, Orono and Long Lake, Independence and Maple Plain, Watertown and Winsted to Hutchinson, on rights-of-way that carried trains a century ago. A second corridor, the Dakota Rail line from Wayzata through Mound to Hutchinson, and the active BNSF line along Highway 12 are compared on equal terms.

The proposal starts from the record. The Green Line Extension went from $2.0 billion at bid to $2.86 billion and opens in June 2027, four years late. Northstar ended on January 4, 2026 after a contract that barred all-day service and a subsidy above $116 per ride. The Office of the Legislative Auditor wrote three reports on what went wrong. Every decision in this proposal is tied to one of those findings, and the stage gates are written so the project stops if its own numbers fail.

The argument is made for a conservative Minnesota audience: local control written into the gates, property rights respected on every mile, farmland protected by a compact with each town, no bailouts, and rules before rails.

What the auditor found, in one table

Green Line Extension failure	What the auditor found	The rule this proposal adopts
Alignment kept after its premise failed	Freight relocation was judged unworkable in 2014, yet the Kenilworth route stayed, with a tunnel between two lakes (OLA, Sept. 2022, pp. 18–24).	Alignment chosen from a published constraints map, then frozen.
High-risk elements not independently reviewed	Consultants did not predict the tunnel’s soil conditions (March 2023, p. 31); OLA asked for external review of high-risk elements (p. 33).	An independent review panel signs off on every flagged element before bid.
Scope added after bidding	The Council bid with specifications it knew were incomplete, then added the Eden Prairie station ($11.4 million) and a mile-long barrier wall (an $82.6 million change order, about $93 million in all) by change order (March 2023, pp. 24–26; Sept. 2022, p. 11).	No change after bid without a new gate review and a public cost restatement.
Contract not enforced	658 change orders worth $219.5 million between March 2019 and October 2022; the contractor’s opening price was paid about half the time; the schedule was never enforced (June 2023).	A compliant schedule is a condition of payment; independent estimates govern; every change is logged and published.
Contingency consumed	$204.2 million of contingency, effectively consumed by early 2022, three years into an eight-year build; Hennepin County added $200.3 million in 2021 and $131 million more by the end of 2022; $764 million of additions were listed by August 2022 (Sept. 2022, pp. 12–13; March 2023, Exhibit 1.1).	Full funding and a 25 percent contingency committed before groundbreaking; a burn-rate curve that pauses the project automatically.
Legislature not told	OLA found the Council was not fully transparent (p. 35) and asked the Legislature to set statutory reporting thresholds (March 2023, p. 38).	We propose those thresholds in our own enabling bill.
Northstar’s contract and service	A contract that barred all-day service; ended January 4, 2026 at $116.60 subsidy per ride (2023 figure).	All-day service is a condition of any track agreement, or we do not build.

Contents

Draft structure. Chapter titles become links as each chapter is completed.

Part I. The case

1. Executive summary
2. The vision: small towns, connected
3. Minnesota’s own rail history
4. The record: Green Line Extension, Green and Blue Lines, Northstar
5. Principles: rules before rails

Part II. The project

6. Corridor options: Luce Line, Dakota Rail, Highway 12
7. Service concept
8. Stations and the land-use compact with each town (worked example: The Monarch Line District)
9. Engineering and risk
10. Ridership, honestly
11. Cost
12. Funding and finance

Part III. Delivery

13. Governance: a joint powers rail authority
14. Procurement and contracts
15. Stage gates and kill criteria
16. Roadmap and schedule
17. Stakeholder engagement and coordination
18. The deliberation process
19. Legislative package
20. Risk register

Appendices

• A. Verification ledger
• B. Corridor gazetteer
• C. Comparable projects
• D. Statutes
• E. Draft resolutions and bill outlines
• F. Sources
• G. Glossary

Status

• 27 September 2026, 2:20 a.m.: The Monarch Line District page published with the abstract, mock-up plan and legend. Five figures drawn and checked: three corridors, stage gates, Green Line Extension cost growth, change orders, Northstar subsidy. Verification of the working plan against the auditor’s reports complete, with errata.
• 27 September 2026, 1:55 a.m.: page created. Research packs (costs, funding, law, stakeholders, engineering, ridership, precedents) and the master outline in progress. Chapter drafting begins when the outline lands.