Among suburban commuters ... Catching the bus is catching on

Tony Pistilli never used to take the bus to work. But a new job downtown taught him what it costs to park there. He decided to give it a shot. And he was surprised.

"I really think there's a big misconception out there that buses are stinky and there's all these grimy people on them," said Pistilli, of Brooklyn Park. "And it's just not that way! You meet the same people over and over again, whether it's the 8:02 or the 7:56, and they're just like you."

In fact the only weekdays he ever drives are the days he has to go to a meeting of the Metropolitan Council, which runs the region's main bus system. He's a member of the council.

If Pistilli is the most ironic of suburban transit converts, he is not exactly the only one. On the contrary, the high cost of gas and parking are helping wrench a vast army of suburbanites from behind their steering wheels -- so much so that riders complain they often have to stand, and transit officials are warning that they are bumping up against capacity.

New statistics for 2007 show that ridership on Metro Transit's express services and the major suburban providers has soared by nearly 2 million over the past two years.

Plymouth's system last year grew eight times faster than the year before. SouthWest Transit, serving Eden Prairie and points west, jumped the 1 million rider mark for the first time. A newly launched express service out of Shakopee is seeing double-digit monthly increases.

Transit officials say they could be pulling far more drivers off the road, reducing traffic congestion and limiting the emissions blamed for climate change, if they had the money for more buses and park-and-ride spaces.

"We can't keep growing at these rates," said Beverly Miller, executive director of Minnesota Valley transit, which covers parts of Dakota and Scott counties. "We have no capacity to do that. People aren't going to keep coming to us if there's no place to park, and no place to sit on the bus."

Scheduling limits

Katie Robers of St. Michael is living proof of the system's limits.

Robers, who works for a Minneapolis law firm, had to stop grabbing a Maple Grove bus for a whole school year when her son's school bus started arriving at 8:20 a.m. The last express bus left Maple Grove at 8:26.

"I couldn't get there in time," she said. "If there were a bus at 9, I would have taken it."

Mike Opatz, who runs that system, says there's a reason for that: no place for her to park.

"By the time our last bus leaves, all of our stalls are full. You see a few cars park illegally, sneaking over to a private lot, which we definitely don't promote. I can't put any more buses on after 8:26. There would be nowhere to park. I am not going to make a bad situation worse."

Although the big jump in riders coincides with the big jump in gas prices over the past couple of years, a surprising number of suburban transit users say that heightened concern about emissions and climate change also play a role.

"I do have an SUV, I feel you need one in a northern state," Robers said, "but even though if you knew me you'd be, like, 'You're no environmentalist,' I do like to balance out that cardinal sin with the little things you can do."

Sharon Heimerl of East Bethel agrees. "I'm trying to be 'green' and leave the car at home." Emily Miller, coming in from Eden Prairie, says that while "money is an issue, in some ways it's more environmental. You see the stop-and-go traffic on the crosstown [highway] and just think of all those greenhouse gases."

A mindset change

She agrees with Pistilli that it's a mindset change for many suburbanites. "At first I was very anti-bus. I'm a control freak who wants to drive myself."

And Miller confesses to a certain image, beforehand, of bus riders. "You sometimes think they're creepy people muttering things -- I don't mean that in a bad way -- but it's a bunch of people from Eden Prairie and the southwest suburbs just going to work downtown, or kids to the U. It's not a creepy experience at all. "

Such comments are a sign, however, that the once-controversial decision to allow suburbs to opt out of the region's transit services and create their own is likely playing a role today in easing suburban riders onto the bus.

But there's still some resentment, Pistilli said. "Everyone recognizes there are these nice black buses, more expensive ones, going to the rich southwest suburbs. Living in the northern suburbs, I hear that from people all the time."

Still, many others agree that riding the bus makes everyone who does so a little bit richer. Jan Rivers, of Minnetonka, a competitive intelligence researcher at the big downtown Minneapolis law firm Dorsey & Whitney figures that parking alone would cost her $2,640 a year, or twice what a full-fare ride would cost -- and she, like many others, gets an employer discount.

"Why on earth," she adds, "would I want to drive?"

David Peterson • 952-882-9023