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The Minneapolis-St. Paul region will host the 2014 Rail~Volution Conference, which is expected to attract hundreds of attendees from across the country.

The annual conference will bring together citizen advocates, developers, business leaders, planners, local elected officials, transit operators and government officials from more than 300 communities to discuss ways to build livable communities with transit, Metropolitan Council officials said in a prepared statement.

The Rail~Volution board recently informed the council, the Counties Transit Improvement Board and Minnesota Department of Transportation that their joint application to host the conference in two years was approved.

The year 2014 will be a banner one for transit in the area, with the opening of the Central Corridor Green Line light-rail transit (LRT) route connecting downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul, said Metropolitan Council Chairwoman Susan Haigh.

“The Red Line will be under way; Southwest LRT, the Green Line extension, will be in engineering; and other corridors like Bottineau and Gateway will be out of the gate,” she said.

The year will be exciting for the region not only in terms of transit corridor development, but also for other innovative facilities that support transportation, such as the Union Depot project in St. Paul, said Hennepin County Commissioner Peter McLaughlin.
 
This year’s Rail~Volution Conference will be held Oct. 14-17 in Los Angeles.