Metro Transit's free rides on Green Line opening weekend defy bad weather blues

The nov­el­ty of the new Green Line plus free rides on bus­es and oth­er trains gave Metro Transit a big bump in rid­er­ship last week­end when Green Line trains made their de­but.

Num­bers re­leased Fri­day by the Metropolitan Council showed that 107,000 rides were tak­en on the Green Line that runs be­tween Union Depot in down­town St. Paul and Tar­get Field in down­town Minneapolis.

When bus rides, the Blue Line and the Northstar Com­mut­er line were add­ed in, Metro Transit pro­vid­ed 392,733 rides over the June 14-15 week­end.

"We were pleased with the re­sponse this week­end and had peo­ple from all walks of life," said trans­it spokes­man John Siqveland. "Op­er­a­tion­al­ly it was a suc­cess and it gave us a chance to intro­duce serv­ice to new rid­ers and say hel­lo to our longtime cus­tom­ers."

Num­bers might have been even high­er had it not been for storms that rolled through the met­ro area June 14 and forced the can­cel­la­tion of fes­tivi­ties cele­brat­ing the open­ing of the $957-mil­lion line. More than 61,000 rides were tak­en on the Green Line on June 14.

Regu­lar Green Line rid­er­ship is pro­ject­ed to be 27,500 daily by 2015 and 40,000 by 2030.

About 250,000 peo­ple use Metro Transit's bus­es and trains on a nor­mal week­end. The free rides gave the trans­it a­gen­cy a 12 percent boost, Siqveland said.

Sup­ple­men­tal serv­ice and those op­er­at­ed by the Met Council ac­count­ed for a little over 8,000 rides while Minnesota Valley Transit Authority pro­vid­ed 1,904 rides.

Metro Transit also de­buted its big­gest make­o­ver of bus routes since the Blue Line op­ened in 2004. Free rides al­lowed rid­ers to try 17 new and reconfigured bus routes, many of which feed into the Green Line.

A­mong the chan­ges:

New route (83) on Lexington Avenue in St. Paul.

In­creased fre­quen­cy on routes 62, 63, 67 and 84 with stops at Green Line trans­it sta­tions along University Avenue.

Route 50 to the University of Minnesota is gone.

"This is a once-in-a-life­time op­por­tu­ni­ty to launch a serv­ice like this, and by giv­ing free rides it al­lows peo­ple to try out those con­nec­tions," Siqveland said.

Mon­day marked the first day rid­ers had to pay to ride the Green Line. Siqveland said Metro Transit will soon re­lease open­ing-week rid­er­ship to­tals.

Tim Harlow • 612-673-7768