The Met Council is rebranding the light rail system, which will be known as "Metro" once the Central Corridor starts up. Minnesota Public Radio says the Hiawatha line will be the "blue line." The Central Corridor will be the "green line." And the up-and-coming bus rapid transit routes on 35W and Cedar Avenue will be the orange and red lines.

The Gateway Corridor Commission says there isn't enough space on the Interstate 94 bridge overlooking the St. Croix River for a light rail transit crossing.

The second-generation trains for the Hiawatha light-rail line will include better braking technology, better heating and cooling systems as well as audio capability to the video surveillance cameras.

Nearly 150 bars, restaurants and a variety of other businesses have borrowed more than $2 million from a "forgivable" loan fund as they try to stay afloat during disruptive construction of the 11-mile Central Corridor Light Rail Transit line, the Pioneer Press reports. The line will connect the downtowns of Minneapolis and St. Paul by 2014.

Workers near the Metrodome this week are connecting the Hiawatha Light Rail Line, which runs from the Mall of America in Bloomington to Target Field in Minneapolis, to the 10-mile Central Corridor line from downtown St. Paul to downtown Minneapolis, which is scheduled to open in 2014. It marks the first time since the trolleys of the 1950s that the two cities have been linked by light rail, officials say.

Three lawsuits--only one of which is still pending--have added more than a million dollars to the Central Corridor light rail construction project. Taxpayers are on the line for the extra costs but the Metropolitan Council says it doesn't anticipate any cost overruns.