Northstar is budgeted to operate at its existing levels for the next year while the Met Council undertakes a study with local funding partners. The agency is also wondering what to do with the oft-beleaguered Northstar Commuter Rail, which serves Fridley, Coon Rapids, Anoka, Ramsey, Elk River and Big Lake. “ great example of a shift in market,” Harrington said.īecause of the shift away from commuter service, which was down 82.5% from pre-pandemic levels during the worst of the omicron surge, and with a new bus garage opening in Minneapolis’ north loop next year, Metro Transit will close a bus garage in Brooklyn Center in March 2023 Metro Transit Director of Service Development Adam Harrington said they had been trying to cultivate ridership for the new park-and-ride for years before the pandemic destroyed commuter ridership potential. With commuter ridership on that corridor cratering overnight, the agency is taking advantage of an opportunity to get a higher federal funding rank - and hopefully, more use not just by commuters - for the project by shifting some 300 parking spaces from a canceled park-and-ride project in Lake Elmo, at I-94 and Manning Avenue, to stations in St. Metro Transit has two more similar lines on the boards, including the Gold Line on I-94 between St. Tim Walz talks with Metro Transit garage instructor Mike Schmidt as he pilots an Orange Line bus for dignitaries on opening day of the new line. A newsletter distributed internally to Met Council staff recently reported weekday ridership doubling over ridership of the route it replaced, Route 535, in the first month of service.
One such route, the Orange Line on I-35W, appears to be a success after opening in December. And while Metro Transit has some commuter service running, it is also working to make all types of its routes faster, from removing stops and branches on the local-service Route 22 * to upgrading the 5 and 21 to rapid routes that run on mostly-dedicated corridors that connect suburb to suburb. Duluth is completely scuttling their downtown express routes this summer and replacing them with routes that stop at points far enough from one another to make trips going anywhere else besides Downtown faster during the day. The transit station was mostly empty one balmy Wednesday morning, save for the ten or so people lining up underneath the canopies for an express bus to take them downtown.Ĭhanges to commuting patterns are just one of many challenges forcing transit agencies to be nimble as they also confront the surge of app-based ride hailing services like Uber and Lyft, increasing gas prices, as well as rider concerns about safety - especially on the light rail.Īnd, like employers everywhere, Minnesota transit agencies are also struggling to find qualified drivers.Īs a result, agencies in Duluth and the Twin Cities are de-emphasizing commuter trips into downtowns. But because thousands of employers are giving their workers more flexibility to work from home, far fewer people are parking there, according to a 2021 Metropolitan Council report. It still is the busiest park-and-ride today. It serves two routes that run express - for the most part - to downtown Minneapolis, as well as other routes to the Mall of America, Savage, Shakopee, and elsewhere in Burnsville. The transit station was the busiest park-and-ride in Minnesota, according to a fall 2019 survey that counted 1,116 vehicles there one weekday. And I’ve actually found myself to be more productive when I’m working remotely.”Īdams drives from her home to the Burnsville Transit Station, where she catches her bus.
And I can also get my job done at the same time. “I like knowing that I can still see students and I could do some laundry, and I can get things done through the day at my house. “I prefer to work from home,” Adams said. Jill Adams commutes from Burnsville to work as an academic advisor at the University of Minnesota three days a week but works from home the other two days, taking advantage of the U’s new hybrid work model.