Metro Transit breaks ground on Gold Line from Woodbury to St. Paul

Frederick Melo, Pioneer Press
·4 min read

Most major transit services survive more than one near-death experience before the first passenger boards. In the case of Metro Transit’s coming Gold Line, the potentially fatal planning shocks hit over the course of more than a decade, but they weren’t enough to wipe away the smiles on Wednesday as east metro officials came together for a groundbreaking.

“It’s going to be completed by 2025, which is not too bad compared to some projects,” quipped U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, to widespread laughter outside the Hudson Road construction field office in Woodbury.

The modern bus line will operate between Woodlane Drive Station in Woodbury and downtown St. Paul’s Union Depot, mostly on frontage roads parallel to Interstate 94, with stops in Oakdale, Landfall and Maplewood. Roughly 70 percent of the route will follow bus-only lanes, a first for a bus rapid transit project in Minnesota.

“It’s a line with buses on its own dedicated lane, and that’s an incredible accomplishment,” said Charlie Zelle, chair of the Metropolitan Council, the regional planning agency that oversees Metro Transit.

ALL-DAY BUS SERVICE

Zelle noted that like the A Line in St. Paul and the C Line in Minneapolis, the $505 million, all-day bus service will depart every 10 to 15 minutes, offering many of the same conveniences as light rail at less construction cost. Passengers will pay before boarding at heated station stops offering electronic departure/arrival information.

Plunging pandemic ridership in the era of remote work has thrown a gray cloud of uncertainty over most estimates of future transit demand.

Still, modern amenities, as well as fewer stops and faster boarding at either door, had helped boost pre-pandemic ridership on Metro Transit’s bus rapid transit lines well past the traditional bus lines they’ve eclipsed or replaced.

Laura Baenen, a spokesperson for Metro Transit, said five of the future Gold Line buses will be electric and 12 will be diesel.

EMPLOYERS IN, LAKE ELMO OUT

Lead organizers from Ramsey and Washington counties said at a time of severe labor shortage, the Gold Line will help employers in downtown St. Paul, the Sun Ray Shopping Center, 3M’s Maplewood headquarters, Tamarack Hills and Woodbury Village benefit from improved access to future workers. Roughly 93,500 jobs sit within a half-mile of Gold Line stations.

“It’s a win/win,” said Will Schroeer, executive director of the transit advocacy coalition East Metro Strong, in a written statement. “People in Dayton’s Bluff get access to more jobs, and suburban employers get access to more employees.’’

A city not represented in the line-up is Lake Elmo, which chose — by a city council vote of 3-2 — to pull out of the municipal coalition planning the Gold Line in 2016.

That wasn’t the bus corridor’s only major setback. The project landed in limbo after receiving a rating of “medium-low” from the federal Transit Administration in early 2020. The Met Council added 350 more parking spaces to the proposal, which boosted projected ridership and helped earn the Gold Line a rating of “medium-high” a year later.

New park-and-ride facilities will be built at the Sun Ray Station in St. Paul, the Helmo Avenue Station in Oakdale and the Woodlane Drive Station in Woodbury. The existing Queens Drive park-and-ride in Woodbury also will offer parking for Gold Line riders.

GROWING REAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENT

In 2020, Met Council officials tallied more than $388 million in permitted construction activity along the future Gold Line corridor, with an additional $1.2 billion in development planned. They pointed Wednesday to the example of Norhart, a Forest Lake-based developer, which began construction this summer on a seven-story, 328-unit apartment building in walking distance of the future Helmo Avenue Station.

The rapid bus project includes upwards of $20 million in funding for new pedestrian amenities, as well as partial funding for a new bridge over I-94 connecting Helmo Avenue in Oakdale and Bielenberg Drive in Woodbury, which is expected to lessen heavy traffic on Radio Drive and Inwood Avenue.

Klobuchar said that the $505 million bus line — whose capital construction costs will be nearly half federally-funded — might not have gotten off the ground but for the $550 billion bipartisan infrastructure legislation signed into law in November 2021.

To launch the Gold Line, Metro Transit will receive $240 million from the Federal Transit Administration, $13 million from the Federal Highway Administration, and additional support from the state of Minnesota, Ramsey and Washington counties.

Washington County has implemented a 1/4-cent sales tax since 2008 to fund transportation and transit projects, and Ramsey County maintains a half-cent sales tax for public infrastructure.

The Gold Line will rely on “zero property tax,” said Ramsey County Commissioner Rafael Ortega, who joined the former Gateway Corridor Commission in 2010 to begin bus corridor advocacy and planning.

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