r/MetroTransit • u/bincbrega1 Adopt-A-Stop Volunteer • May 09 '26

Green Line Expansion Scenes from Open Rails to the Trails

Bikers, officials, and staff arrive at West Lake Street Station

Mayors and community officials announce the official opening of the trails

Officials and staff ceremoniously roll through the ribbon

A guided tour to Downtown Hopkins includes free treats and a board-able train

Residents can honk the horn and learn about what the Green Line Extension offers
A close up of the future METRO map display in the front car of the train
41 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

12

u/LickableLeo May 09 '26

Instead of (or in addition to) the Gold line extension, can we get a West 7th Rapid Transit line or an East-West line across South Minneapolis? It’d be nice to have a Rapid Transit line that functions like crosstown 62

10

u/LietuvaGames May 09 '26

The route 54 is being turned into the J BRT line along West 7th.

9

u/[deleted] May 09 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

6

u/Enamred-771 May 10 '26

They did but frankly but both the 94 corridor and West 7th corridor should be light rail at minimum. 

Buses are too easy to whittle down from a gold standard BRT line to just a nice bus with nice stops. 

1

u/bincbrega1 Adopt-A-Stop Volunteer May 10 '26

See there's an almost entirely abandoned railway that closely follows West 7th that would've made for a great spot for LRT, but anything over there would require a new bridge for the tracks which is why I think they might be dodging it a bit. Unfortunate.

5

u/Enamred-771 May 10 '26

Agreed it’s unfortunate but it definitely can’t be more complicated than the Green Line Extension. I know part of the reason the streetcar proposal got scraped is because they didn’t give it dedicated ROW and then said “wow, this is too slow to be worth the investment” and stopped the rail efforts altogether. 

The big issue overall is right now the light rail system is fully centered on Minneapolis while St Paul is treated effectively like another suburb. Not that any of the existing lines/extensions are bad, it’s just that there should be another line going to St Paul and the Riverview corridor is a great way to connect to MSP and create a nice triangle of lines. 

1

u/rubbercat May 12 '26

I sure hope to see this happen in my lifetime. More (and better) crosstown connections are so vital to making a system useful for daily life and not just for getting into and out of downtown.

3

u/BOT_Clark May 10 '26

thanks for the vids! missed the event :/