The Antiplanner called Minnesota’s Northstar commuter train a “flop” in 2016. It took the pandemic to do it, but it looks like the state has finally agreed and is now considering plans to shut the line down.
Minnesota’s commuter train was a failure before the pandemic and an even bigger failure after. Photo by Jerry Huddleston.
The line, which cost more than $300 million to start up, was supposed to carry 4,100 riders per weekday, which seems absurdly small for the price. Yet it peaked in 2017 at just 2,800 riders and fell to 2,700 riders in 2019. Since the pandemic, it hasn’t recovered to more than about a sixth of that. The state estimates that the costs of running this service would fall from $12 million a year to $2 million a year if it replaced the trains with buses. In 2023, fares covered less than $325,000 of that $12 million in operating costs. Continue reading
