Call it a cruel April Fool's joke. Somebody distributed fliers about an April 1 public meeting for the Riverview Corridor Transit Study and stated on the flyer featuring official-looking letterhead that the proposed route for the transit project connecting downtown St. Paul with the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and Mall of America had changed.

And at least a few people showed up to the advertised meeting at the Mitchell-Hamline School of Law, only there wasn't one.

"There was not a meeting scheduled for Saturday, April 1 and the information in the flyer was entirely false," officials with the proposed transportation project said in a statement posted on its website on Tuesday. "It is unfortunate that the flyer disrupted people's lives. False information does not serve anybody in our community and we will do whatever can be done to alert you to any similar issues if they arise in the future," officials said.

The flyer said transit would be routed along Grand Avenue rather than 7th Street.

The Riverview Corridor Transit Study team continues to look at bus and rail modes on four potential routes on and near West 7th Street and the CP Rail Spur. The project has drawn some opposition from residents who live along the proposed routes.

The effort to improve transit in the area comes as forecasts predict as many as 32,000 new residents in the corridor bounded by the Mississippi River on the south, Interstate 35E and Ford Parkway on the north, Lowertown and Union Depot on the east and Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and Mall of America on the west.

Up next on the calendar is a meeting of the Policy Advisory Committee at 9 a.m. April 13 and Technical Advisory Committee at 10 a.m. April 27. Both meetings will be held at Union Depot in downtown St. Paul.

Public meetings will be held this summer.

More information about the potential routes and vehicles can be found on the documents page of the Riverview Corridor project website.