How the Light Rail Tunnel Reshaped the Kenilworth Corridor

The decision to build a light rail tunnel through the Kenilworth corridor was a key reason the Green Line Extension grew so costly and so slow. The tunnel had to be threaded between the BNSF freight line, the Kenilworth Channel and a neighboring condo building in some of the tightest quarters on the line. Construction halted for three months after the work damaged the Cedar Isles Condominium, and the Office of the Legislative Auditor cited the Kenilworth tunnel, a freight crash wall and a re-added Eden Prairie station as central drivers of the overruns.

The numbers grew with the trouble. The Metropolitan Council's estimate rose from about $1.3 billion in 2013 to $2.86 billion by 2024, making it the most expensive public works project in Minnesota history, while the opening slipped from 2018 to 2023 and now to early 2027. A 2022 auditor's review found the project was running more than $500 million short of full funding even as the Council kept spending.

The trail above could not reopen until the underground work was done, because a busy bike route cannot run over an active tunnel site. The Kenilworth and Cedar Lake trails reopened in late March 2026 after nearly seven years, restoring what the Hill & Lake Press called the city's "Bike Freeway." Before the closure the Cedar Lake Trail drew roughly a million visits a year, with about 2,100 daily cyclist trips and 400 pedestrian trips through the corridor.

Crews rebuilt the trail on top of the finished tunnel with new fencing and signage; more than 1,000 trees were removed to widen the corridor, and the Metropolitan Council has begun restoring landscaping. The trains will run through the tunnel for decades; the rebuilt trail above returns the corridor to the cyclists and walkers who waited out the work beneath their feet.