Riders have been slow to hop on the new Gold Line bus route, but there are signs of an uptick

Since Metro Transit opened the Gold Line in March, Fred LaPlant has been taking the new rapid bus line to his job as a lab manager at Solventum on the 3M campus in Maplewood a couple of times a week.

In its infancy, LaPlant said there were days when he had the bus to himself. Occasionally, there were a few other riders.

“Those days are fewer now,” said LaPlant of St. Paul, who added he tries to get more people to ride. “There has definitely been an uptick.”

Built at a cost of about $506 million, the Gold Line running from St. Paul’s Union Depot to Woodbury reaches its four-month anniversary next week. The line averages about 1,100 riders a day on Monday through Saturday, and 770 on Sundays, according to Metro Transit data.

That’s far below original estimates of 6,000 rides a day planners had projected when seeking federal funding for the Gold Line. But that estimate came before the COVID-19 pandemic torpedoed ridership on Metro Transit and other systems across the country, and still has not fully recovered, said Jason Cao with the University of Minnesota’s Transit Impacts Research Program.

Work-from-home options also have kept some riders from returning to transit, he added.

“Therefore, Gold Line ridership should be lower than the projection,” Cao said. “Because of the prevalence of telecommuters during the post-pandemic era, transit loses some market of commuters.”

Travel patterns also have changed, adding another challenge to opening a new bus line. More people are making trips outside normal morning and afternoon commute times, which, in the long run, could bode well for the Gold Line, which offers frequent all-day service.

Unlike other rapid bus lines that have opened in recent years, the Gold Line is a new route, and is not replacing slow urban routes like the A, B, C and D lines have. New routes take time to attract riders. Ultimately, that will come from land-use changes with new businesses and residences along the line, said Eric Lind, with the U’s Center for Transportation Studies.

“It would be unfair to start wondering about ridership levels just a few months in,” Lind said. “The potential for the Gold Line to be a really strong ridership route is by adding residences and business destinations along the line.”

In the first two months of service, Metro Transit provided 73,684 rides from its debut March 22 through the end of May, according to the latest figures available. The busiest segment was between downtown St. Paul and Sun Ray Center, which accounted for about 72% of rides.

The Gold Line’s two-month ridership is twice as high as when the comparable Orange Line opened in December 2021, Metro Transit said. The Orange Line runs along Interstate 35W between Burnsville and downtown Minneapolis. Five months after opening, the Orange Line averaged just over 1,000 riders on weekdays, Metro Transit said.

Lind called the Orange Line a success.

“You have people going both ways, not just during a peak commute,” he said.

The Gold Line could benefit as 3M, the state of Minnesota and other institutions and businesses call employees back to work more days a week. More traffic on the road could entice more people to take transit, Lind said.

Zane Johnson of St. Paul is an occasional Gold Line rider, but says the service running about every 10 minutes has been a game-changer. The line runs from early mornings to about midnight daily.

“I never have to check a schedule,” he said. “It’s been a massive life improvement for me. You want people to use it. People don’t think of it because they have never ridden transit.”

The Gold Line could be more attractive to east metro commuters when the line is extended to downtown Minneapolis in 2027, increasing access to destinations people want and need to get to without having to transfer.

“Having a one-seat ride across the metro will be a significant benefit and improvement to the transit network,” said Metro Transit General Manager Lesley Kandaras.

Perhaps the biggest key in growing ridership will be creating awareness and getting people to change their travel habits, Lind said.

“This is for getting back and forth all day long,” Lind said. “It has to become a habit and make it possible to go about daily life with this bus.”