In one case, seven bus routes will feed the 46th Street station. There are 17 stations on the Hiawatha light-rail line. The bus realignment is an attempt to integrete bus and rail service so that one compliments the other. "There'll be connecting bus service at every light rail in the first phase between downtown and Fort Snelling except at Cedar Riverside," Gibbons says, "So every train station will have coordinated bus service as well." The goal in most instances, he says is to have the bus lines intersect with light rail stations. Gibbons says some bus routes will expanded, others reduced, and a few eliminated. Metro Transit spokesman Bob Gibbons says the bus realignment keeps the hub and spoke arrangement but adds a batch of cross town or east west service that cuts across the spokes. One of the new spokes is the Hiawatha light-rail line that runs from downtown southeast to the Mall of America in Bloomington. There's a hub - downtown Minneapolis - and spokes radiating outward. Think of Minneapolis bus service as a bicycle wheel. The routes are being modified to bring passengers to light-rail stations. Officials say the bus changes affect south Minneapolis, Edina, Richfield and Bloomington. The anticipated June Hiawatha Line startup ushers in a major bus route realignment.
The April 3 start was delayed by the Metro Transit drivers strike. The first light-rail service in Minneapolis will start as early as mid-June. Most of the track has been laid at the Mall of America light-rail station in Bloomington for the projected December startup of service (MPR Photo/Dan Olson) Getting the buses on board with light rail Join the conversation with other MPR listeners in the News Forum.