Metro Transit will suspend service on 16 bus routes, many of them running parallel to existing light rail lines, while reducing trip frequency throughout much of the rest of its transit network.
The changes will take effect Dec. 4.
Adam Harrington, Metro Transit’s Service Development director, said roughly 5 percent of existing service hours will be reduced in an effort to improve reliability.
“Over the past couple months in particular we’ve had difficulty hiring bus operators, which is a challenge when you need to have 1,100 to 1,200 operators,” said Harrington, noting MetroTransit.org has been marketing hiring incentives such as signing bonuses since March. “Right now we’re about 80 operators short of where we need to be. Quite frankly, we’re better off than many other transit providers around the country. We still have a lot of good service on the street.”
While Metro Transit’s local buses and light rail have been operating 92 to 100 percent of their pre-pandemic service, suburban park-and-ride express buses and the Northstar Commuter Rail are operating at 40 percent of pre-pandemic levels. Metro Transit ridership, overall, is currently 46 percent of what it was before the pandemic.
Will some of the suspended bus routes ever return?
“We’re going to be evaluating our whole system in 2022,” said Harrington, noting service adjustments happen every three months. “A lot of it depends upon (having sufficient) operators and where we see ridership patterns.”
REDUCED FARES, MINIMAL SERVICE AFTER MIDNIGHT
Metro Transit, which temporarily cut service by 40 percent in the early days of the pandemic, reduced all fares to $1 in September and October in hopes of luring customers back to its trains and buses following more than a year of heavy ridership losses.
The transit authority has already frozen most bus and light rail service around midnight, or shortly thereafter.
As of Oct. 23, light rail trips that used to roll out every 10 minutes now roll out every 12.
In a written announcement Tuesday, Metro Transit said it had evaluated service cuts “with an eye towards reducing impact on communities of color and low-income” areas.
Other factors included minimizing ridership impact and identifying where customers have an alternative route, and preserving transit frequency to every 10 to 15 minutes where possible. In some cases, posted bus schedules will be altered to better reflect actual travel times, or a Saturday schedule will be adjusted to match a Sunday schedule.
ROUTE CHANGES
Among the scheduled changes:
- The Route 16 bus, which travels University Avenue into downtown St. Paul, will be suspended entirely. Riders can look to the Route 62, which follows Rice Street into downtown St. Paul, and the Green Line light rail.
- The Route 70 bus along St. Clair Avenue will be suspended entirely.
- The Route 84, which travels Snelling Avenue onto West Seventh Street, will be suspended entirely.
- The Route 21 bus, which had traditionally departed every seven or eight minutes with stops on Lake Street in Minneapolis and Selby Avenue in St. Paul, will instead roll out every 10 minutes.
- The Route 94 bus will add eastbound and westbound stops at Snelling Avenue, allowing better connections to the Midway, the Metro A Line and the Green Line.
REDUCED SERVICE
Weekday service will be reduced from every 10 minutes down to every 12 minutes on the Metro A Line, a bus rapid transit corridor that travels Ford Parkway and Snelling Avenue in St. Paul to Rosedale Center in Roseville.
Weekday service will roll out every 30 minutes, instead of every 20 minutes, on the Metro Red Line, a bus rapid transit corridor that connects the Mall of America in Bloomington to the Apple Valley Transit Station.
Service is slated to begin Dec. 4 on the Metro Orange Line, a bus rapid transit corridor that will launch weekday trips every 15 minutes along Interstate 35W through Minneapolis, Richfield, Bloomington and Burnsville. The Orange Line will replace bus Routes 535 and 597.
Saturday and Sunday service will be suspended entirely on the Route 46 bus, which travels from Sibley Plaza in St. Paul along West Seventh Street, Cleveland Avenue, Ford Parkway, through South Minneapolis and into Edina. The Route 46 schedule will be adjusted to better connect with the new Orange Line.
Alternate service at Cleveland Avenue will be available on the Route 87B, which will be extended to Ford Parkway, West Seventh Street and Sibley Plaza seven days per week. Peak service, however, will be reduced from every 20 to every 30 minutes.
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November 03, 2021 at 05:10AM
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Metro Transit to cut trips by 5 percent, eliminate bus Routes 16, 70, 84 and others - TwinCities.com-Pioneer Press
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