Improve, Don’t Remove The Northstar Rail [OPINION]

On Monday, WJON reported that the Northstar Rail's future is in peril and could be discontinued altogether. The line, which connects Big Lake to Downtown Minneapolis, peaked with about 3,000 riders per week in 2019 but is now down to about 450 riders per week.

The WJON story quotes State Representative Jon Koznick of Lakeville calling the Northstar a 'failed experiment,' and adding that it's "time to stop wasting 11 million dollars annually on a project that simply doesn't work to reduce congestion or move people."

While it is true that the Northstar Rail is, in its current state, a failure, I don't believe scrapping it altogether is the right prescription for the problem. In fact, I think Minnesota should ADD to the service.

One of the problems I have run into when taking, or attempting to take, the train from Big Lake to St. Cloud is simply the lack of routes.  There are only three departures from Big Lake on a weekday, all before 8 a.m..

In addition, there is only one evening route from Big Lake to Minneapolis, and no train running late to get you back to Big Lake later in the evening (the last one is at 5:50 p.m.).

The other issue is the train not making it all the way to St. Cloud (or beyond). There is a Northstar Link bus that will shuttle you to Big Lake but, again, there are only so many of those in the day. Getting the train to a bigger population center would almost certainly increase ridership.

My kids and I love taking the train to the Twins games. We skip traffic, skip finding a parking spot and paying for a closer spot and we can read, chat or even watch a movie on the way down. It's a wonderful thing and an adventure for the kids.

So, before just washing our hands of the Northstar, lets give it a full chance to succeed.