Bus customers who travel on Hennepin Avenue know traffic moves slowly when the street is full of vehicles. In fact, during rush hour, buses travel an average of just six miles per hour.

Exploring ways to provide faster, more reliable service, Metro Transit and the City of Minneapolis will test bus-only lanes on a portion of the corridor between Tuesday, May 15, and Thursday, May 17. Data and public input will be collected during the pilot to evaluate impacts and determine next steps.

What’s happening? 

A northbound bus-only travel lane will be created by restricting street parking on the east side of Hennepin Avenue between 26th Street and Franklin Avenue each morning from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. A southbound bus-only travel lane will be created by restricting parking on the west side of Hennepin Avenue between 26th Street and the Uptown Transit Center each evening from 3 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. 

Parking meters will be marked in advance of the parking restrictions and vehicles that have not been moved will be towed. The bus-only travel lanes will be marked with traffic delineators that will be removed during off-peak hours.

All Hennepin Avenue bus routes will use the bus-only lanes. Customers who board at stops adjacent to the bus-only lanes will see no changes at their boarding locations.

Why is this pilot being undertaken?

The bus-only lane pilot will help answer three key questions:

 > What are the changes in travel time and reliability?

 > What is the reaction from riders, neighborhood residents, businesses and other property owners?

 > Are there other improvement strategies that would complement the bus-only lanes?

What are the expected advantages?

Bus-only travel lanes are used in many large cities to help buses move more efficiently through busy urban corridors. In the Twin Cities, designated bus-only shoulders allow buses to bypass traffic on more than 200 highway miles. The Marq2 corridor also uses bus-only lanes to provide bus riders safe and efficient access in and out of downtown Minneapolis.

Faster, more reliable bus service makes transit a more appealing alternative to driving alone. The Hennepin Avenue bus-only lanes are expected to improve consistency and save a few minutes of travel time in either direction. The benefits would be even more pronounced when snow or other unforeseen incidents create heavier traffic than usual.

Why Hennepin Avenue?

With 400 daily bus trips, Hennepin Avenue is one of the region’s busiest transit corridors. More than 3,300 people board buses between Lake Street and Franklin Avenue each weekday. During peak periods, nearly half of the people traveling on Hennepin Avenue are on a bus.

Metro Transit is also planning for future rapid bus improvements on Hennepin Avenue. Planning for the E Line will begin with a corridor study in 2018. Like the A Line on Snelling Avenue in St. Paul, the E Line will provide faster service, enhanced stations and larger vehicles.Bus only lanes could also be incorporated into the project. 

Pending full project funding, the E Line could be under construction as soon as 2022, in coordination with other street construction projects in the corridor. The E Line is on track to becoming the region's fifth rapid bus line. 

Share your feedback

• E-mail: service.development@metrotransit.org
• Twitter: #hennepinbuslanes
• Call Metro Transit: 651-602-1500
• Contact the City of Minneapolis through 311

When Thrivent Financial began considering building a new corporate center in downtown Minneapolis, the company had to find ways of helping employees who relied on parking lots that would be lost during construction.

Part of their answer: Promote transit.

Over the past year, the company has invited employees to six commuter education events, including bus and light rail demonstrations. Thrivent also further offset the cost of using transit by increasing its Metropass subsidy, leading to a 40 percent increase in program participation.

The efforts were undertaken in partnership with the Minneapolis-based Transportation Management Organization Move Minneapolis and with financial support from Hennepin County’s Green Partners program.

“The Thrivent workforce lives throughout the Twin Cities area, and around 50 percent of them use some sort of transit or alternative commuting method,” said John Bachhuber, vice president of HR Services at Thrivent. “We’re pleased we’ve been able to help even more of our employees learn about ways they can get to work safely, cost-effectively and efficiently using available transit resources.”

For their efforts, Thrivent was recognized as the Employer of the Year at the annual Commuter Choice Awards on Thursday, April 26. The awards recognize companies, building owners, individuals and organizations that support sustainable transportation in the Twin Cities.

Metro Transit works with area Transportation Management Organizations (TMOs) to organize and host the awards. Other Commuter Choice Award winners include:

Building Owner/Management Company: Opus Group

Opus Group’s Nic on Fifth is the definition of transit-oriented development: its lobby level is fully-integrated into the Nicollet Mall Station, one of the busiest boarding locations in the Twin Cities. In addition to the Green and Blue lines, the building is served by nearly 100 bus routes. The high-rise apartment building, which opened in 2014, also offers secure tenant bicycle parking and a tenant ride-sharing program. 

Commuter Benefits Coordinators: Tim Bruzek and Ericka Palmer, Sleep Number

Tim Bruzek and Ericka Palmer helped nearly 1,000 Sleep Number employees understand their commute options when the company relocated from a corporate campus in Plymouth to downtown Minneapolis. During its move, Sleep Number joined the Metropass program and began offering carpool parking to employees.

Government Entity: City of Saint Paul

City staff worked with Saint Paul Smart Trips-Transit for Livable Communities to make transit and biking more prominent features of the city’s transportation webpages. The city’s website also now provides real-time parking information during large events, allowing people to make more-informed, real-time decisions about their travel choices.

Commuter Champion: Sean Hayford Oleary

Sean Hayford Oleary has led the charge for better bicycle facilities in Richfield for several years. He was the founding member of Richfield Bike Advocates and has served as a commissioner on the city’s transportation commission. As commissioner, he helped advance plans for 2.5 miles of protected bike lanes on 66th Street – the longest stretch of such bike lanes in Hennepin County. 

Honorable mention: Anne Schultz, Richfield Chamber of Commerce President

Organization: Native American Community Clinic

The Native American Community Clinic has been an active promoter of the Transit Assistance Program, which provides qualifying low-income residents reduced-cost fares. More than 70 members of the Native American community have enrolled in the program with help from clinic staff. 

Honorable mention: Ravoux Hi-Rise Resident Council, University of Saint Thomas Sustainable Communities Partnership

Learn how Metro Transit and area TMOs can help promote transit and other alternatives to driving alone 

After finishing Metro Transit’s Rail Rodeo last Saturday, train operator Bill Morris felt pretty good about his performance.

He had reason to be confident: For the second year in a row, Morris earned the best score in the annual skills competition.

“I knew it was just a matter of how well the other operators had done,” said Morris, who has been a train operator since 2012. “Unlike last year when I was actually surprised that I won.”

Morris will now represent Metro Transit at the American Public Transportation Association’s International Rail Rodeo in Denver, Colo., in June.

Joining him will be fellow operator and relief instructor Paul Gillespie who finished second in the Rail Rodeo. Train operator Peter Mooers finished third.

Morris and Mooers participated in the 2017 International Rail Rodeo, finishing in fourth place.

The local and international competitions include written exams and observations of operators in action. This year’s Rail Rodeo included a new test in which operators had just a few minutes to figure out why a disabled train wouldn’t move.

Morris said he’s looking forward to representing Metro Transit in Denver and competing in future agency Rodeos. And while he's been successful, he's not taking anything for granted. 

“The competition is fierce. Any of our operators can step up,” he said. “I’m not going to take this lightly and will continue to work hard.”

Metro Transit’s annual Bus Roadeo​ has been scheduled for Sept. 15-20 and will be held in the Como Avenue parking lot at the State Fairgrounds. 

Last year’s Roadeo champion, Heywood operator Jack Berner, #8927, will compete this May in the APTA Roadeo in Tampa, Fla. 

Starting today, new digital displays on A Line buses will provide real-time information about upcoming stops, connecting routes and service alerts.

The displays have been installed so customers can make informed decisions as they ride. For example, if the displays indicate that the Green Line is delayed, a customer could continue to Grand Avenue and transfer to Route 63 to get to downtown St. Paul.

There are nearly a dozen routes that connect with the A Line, which travels on Snelling Avenue, Ford Parkway and 46th Street. 

“This saves the customer time and the inconvenience of an unexpected wait time for a connecting route,” Technology Systems Manager Gary Nyberg said.

Each bus is equipped with two displays – one attached to the ceiling, just in front of the rear door, and another on the storage compartment behind the operator. The displays have a similar look and feel of the NexTrip feature on Metro Transit’s app and website.

Each of the A Line's 13 buses are now outfitted with the screens.

Metro Transit hopes to learn more about how the system works and what kind of information customers most want. In the future, the displays could be used to show safety and emergency messages, information about upcoming events, or to advertise businesses along the route.

Provide feedback by contacting Customer Relations. 

From General Manager Brian Lamb

Passenger cars and other vehicles are Minnesota’s second-largest source of greenhouse gases, a leading cause of climate change and air pollution. And while advances in technology have led to a steady decline in vehicle emissions, there’s still a lot more to be done.

As an agency, Metro Transit is helping the state meet its clean air goals primarily by offering convenient alternatives to driving alone, providing more than 280,000 rides each weekday.

But the commitment to the environment doesn’t end there. In fact, Metro Transit has a well-deserved reputation for being one of the most sustainability-minded transit agencies in the country. The agency has achieved Gold Level status in the American Public Transportation Association's Sustainability Commitment program. 

As we celebrate Earth Day this week, we wanted to share a few of the other ways we’re reducing our environmental impact:

 > For the past year, we’ve collected compostable materials like food scraps and paper napkins at our Heywood Office, Transit Control Center and Transfer Road facilities. Along with traditional recycling efforts, we’re keeping about two-thirds of what we toss from ending up in the waste stream. We plan to expand these composting and recycling efforts to each of our garages and other support facilities later this year.

 > By the end of this year, around 75 percent of the fixtures at our support and customer facilities will be equipped with energy-efficient LED lighting. This lighting not only uses less energy but is longer-lasting and less-costly to maintain.

  > We continue to install small solar panels at waiting shelters to power lighting at these locations. We also continue to explore opportunities to put more solar panels on the rooftops of our support and public facilities (above, panels at the Maplewood Mall Transit Center and Park & Ride). Coupled with the energy we purchase from solar installations at Council-owned sites, we are on track to achieve our goal of having all our energy needs met by renewable resources as early as 2040.

 > As part of our C Line project, we plan to purchase eight fully-electric buses and install charging equipment at the Heywood Garage and Brooklyn Center Transit Center later this year. We’ll also be adding more electric vehicles to our non-revenue fleet and consider buying electric buses as we replace older vehicles and expand our service.

> Fleetwide fuel economy continues to improve, from just under 4 miles per gallon in 2008 to nearly 5 miles per gallon in 2017. We recently began using synthetic engine oil in our buses, a change that allows us to use less oil by doubling the interval between oil changes. New engine technologies and advanced exhaust filtration systems have also significantly reduced the amount of harmful emissions coming from our buses.

 > The new Metro Transit Police Headquarters will be our most sustainable building ever, with a geothermal system that heats and cools the building, natural lighting and other energy-saving features. Designs for a new service garage north of Heywood also call for a host of energy-saving features.

 > Later this month, we’ll begin using technology that will allow us to capture and re-use more of the energy produced when Blue Line trains brake, a system that could be incorporated into future light rail extensions.

Thank you to all our customers who are doing part to support the environment by riding with us. We share your commitment to the environment and hope to continue building on that commitment in the years to come. 

Celebrate Earth Day with us on April 22

The METRO Blue and Green lines will be operated 100 percent by wind power on Earth Day (Sunday, April 22) with Xcel Energy's WindSource® program. Light rail is always zero-emission travel at the source, since it always operates using electricity. Using wind power for Earth Day makes it a truly sustainable transportation option from the energy source to the vehicle.

Make a sustainable choice every day with Metro Transit! A single bus has the potential to take 40+ individual cars off the road and a 3 car light-rail train can remove almost 600 cars from the roadways when people ride. 

Learn more about our fuel efficient and upcoming all-electric vehicles along with other environmental improvements at metrotransit.org/GoGreener.