(MSP) METRO Green Line Opens June 14

[jebr]

Light rail between Minneapolis and St. Paul will link Twin Cities residents to neighborhoods and the two downtowns starting Saturday, June 14 with free rides and day-long community celebrations, Metropolitan Council Chair Susan Haigh said today.

[...]

The 11-mile corridor between the two downtowns links Union Depot in St. Paul’s Lowertown to the State Capitol complex, Midway, University of Minnesota and Target Field. As the region’s second light rail line, the METRO Green Line will connect to the Blue Line (Hiawatha) at Downtown East Station.

Source

More information from Metro Transit

The race is on to who will be at Union Depot first, Amtrak or Metro Transit.

 

[fairviewroad]

Nice. Wonder if they're going to eventually complete the "triangle" and build a line from downtown

St. Paul out to the airport and Mall of America.

 

[Nathanael]

FWIW, the new Target Field station opens on May 17th. (I suspect a decision was made to open the Green Line *after* that, since it changes the operational procedures for that end of the LRT.)

Amtrak's contract with Ramsey County says they're contracted to move into SPUD the "first quarter" of 2014, so Amtrak will probably move in before the Green Line opens. There is supposed to be an announcement about Amtrak's move-in date "the week of January 27th", which means sometime next week (probably late next week).

 

[Eric S]

Wasn't there a study of or proposal for that third leg of the triangle a number of years ago (Riverview Corridor perhaps?) that was shelved or cancelled?

 

[Romany16]

This is great news! I have Tickets on the 27 departing MSP on June 16. This should open up some parking options.

On another note; I rode the METRO Blue line with my kids Saturday and, for the first time in 5 years of riding the Hiawatha LRT, I was asked to present a ticket by a METRO Transit officer.

Sent from my iPad using Amtrak Forum

 

[jebr]

Wasn't there a study of or proposal for that third leg of the triangle a number of years ago (Riverview Corridor perhaps?) that was shelved or cancelled?

Yeah. I think they're working on improving the corridor's bus service instead. 54 currently runs along there and isn't a bad bus to ride...fairly fast since it's limited-stop already.

 

[Ispolkom]

Wasn't there a study of or proposal for that third leg of the triangle a number of years ago (Riverview Corridor perhaps?) that was shelved or cancelled?

Yeah. I think they're working on improving the corridor's bus service instead. 54 currently runs along there and isn't a bad bus to ride...fairly fast since it's limited-stop already.

There's a new plan for a street car on 7th street, which would eventually reach the airport. I wonder if it has any more chance than the St. Paul People Mover.

 

[NorthShore]

How does this affect or impact the University Ave. bus route?

 

[Ispolkom]

How does this affect or impact the University Ave. bus route?

Not much. #50 goes away. The #16 stays, but it might run on a less-frequent schedule. #94 continues, but the perhaps only the C & D varients, with the B going away.

 

[Nathanael]

There's some fiddling around with bus routes. Apart from the #50 going away, it's mostly tweaking. There are actually some new connecting routes. For full, gory details:

http://www.metrotransit.org/central-transit-study

 

[NW cannonball]

Did anyone in MSP see the test run on the green line today? Based on the bare rails and cleared snow along the right-of-way the test train must have run after the 6 inches of new snow was done falling, between about noon and sunset.

Bus driver confirmed they ran "a long one" end-to-end this afternoon. Could have been the first end-to-end test under power from the wire.

 

[Ispolkom]

Did anyone in MSP see the test run on the green line today? Based on the bare rails and cleared snow along the right-of-way the test train must have run after the 6 inches of new snow was done falling, between about noon and sunset.

Bus driver confirmed they ran "a long one" end-to-end this afternoon. Could have been the first end-to-end test under power from the wire.

I saw a one-unit train at the Capitol early this month, but I don't know if it ran the whole route.

 

[Ispolkom]

Another test run on University Avenue today.