Washington: One last Hail Mary idea to save (part of) the Northstar Line

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ABOARD THE NORTHSTAR, Target Field to Big Lake — This train is packed.

Or at least our car was. It was the end car, closest to the station entrance, inviting riders to quickly hop aboard rather than walk the length of the platform in 20-degree weather. Metro Transit officials estimated the passenger count on the inbound train headed to the Vikings game earlier in the day Jan. 4 at 375. Logic would dictate a similar number would be returning; how else would they get home?

As of Monday, Jan. 5, not on the Northstar.

“This is the last one? Oh my gosh!” said Alexandra Lotts of Elk River, who knew the line would be shutting down but hadn’t realized she boarded the last train — her first and last time taking it to see her Vikings dispatch the Packers in their season finale.

Lotts said she understood the reasons for the line’s closure. With its weekday ridership at about 60% of gameday levels, it never recovered from a downturn during the pandemic and ran an unsustainable $116 subsidy per rider.

Shahn Dilks, a season-ticket holder from Elk River, said his family has taken the Northstar to Vikings games ever since the service began in 2009.

“They were always pretty packed,” Dilks said.

Although the trains have stopped running, Metro Transit has promised replacement service via three new bus routes: Route 827 between Fridley and downtown Minneapolis, Route 888 serving Northstar stops in Ramsey, Anoka, Coon Rapids and downtown Minneapolis, and Route 882, running weekdays-only between Big Lake, Elk River and downtown Minneapolis.

The agency’s website is less forthcoming about running buses to future Vikings and Twins games, which Dilks said wouldn’t matter to him anyway.

“Probably won’t take the bus,” he said. “We’ll go back to driving down.”

An opportunity to do exactly that existed at the Northstar’s Fridley Station, just 3½ miles from a major bus hub at the Brooklyn Center Transit Center. An express bus between those stops could have connected riders to downtown Minneapolis in about the same amount of time as the current C Line bus from Brooklyn Center, without the headache of what feels like endless intermediate stops.

And if I’m allowed a postseason Hail Mary to keep a portion of the Northstar alive, couldn’t a shortened version of the line be revived to run from Target Field to Coon Rapids, with Fridley as an intermediate stop? Those stations and parking lots wouldn’t have to be abandoned, and with feeder buses, they would serve much of the same area tapped for the Blue Line light rail extension.

I bring that up because if money is still a worry, it certainly hasn’t stopped the light rail project. With construction still at least two years out, its budget has ballooned from $997 million in 2014 to $2.9 billion today.

I asked Brian Funk, Metro Transit’s chief operating officer, who was on hand to see the final train off, about a Brooklyn Center-to-Fridley bus run.

“I don’t know, honestly, if this particular trip pattern has been evaluated before,” he said, “but it’s one of the things [on which we] can get with the planners and try to see if that’s something that’s viable or worth a test case.”

Melinda called the shutdown “sad.” They both supported continuing a Vikings/Twins train — though Randy qualified: “There’s still the maintenance of the trains and the tracks. You’ve got to take all these things into consideration for individual events to pay for everything.”

True, but you can make the same argument about stadiums.

As for me, with no return train or bus headed back to the city, I also got off at Fridley. I hailed a Lyft for Brooklyn Center. It was $11 — not feasible for a daily commute — but it only took eight minutes.

Boarding the C Line bus with me for downtown Minneapolis was Trey Riser, who wholeheartedly endorsed a Brooklyn Center-Fridley express bus.

“I actually had a job at Big Lots [in Blaine, bordering Fridley]. And because I would have to travel all the way downtown [from Brooklyn Center], I was late every day and lost my job because of it.”