Metro C Line (Minnesota)

The northern terminus of the C Line is at Brooklyn Center Transit Center in Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center. Station facilities include an indoor waiting area, restrooms, bike racks, and ticket vending machines and Go-To card readers for off-board fare collection.[8] Brooklyn Center Transit Center also has rapid chargers for battery-electric New Flyer buses, but as of October 15, 2019, electric buses have been pulled from service due to charging problems at their garage.[9] From there, the C Line begins traveling southbound along Xerxes with one stop at 56th Avenue, adjacent to the former site of Brookdale Mall. The line then continues south on Brooklyn Boulevard with a station at 51st Avenue before entering the City of Minneapolis, where Brooklyn Boulevard changes to Osseo Road. An infill station at 47th Avenue will be constructed between 2023 and 2025.[10] The C Line turns south onto Penn Avenue, splitting from the under construction Metro D Line, stopping the next block at 43rd Avenue. From there, the line stops every .25 miles (0.40 km) to .5 miles (0.80 km) serving North Minneapolis along Penn Avenue. At Olson Memorial Highway, the C Line turns east to head towards downtown Minneapolis with four station stops along the highway.

A Metro C Line bus heading northbound in the 7th Street bus lane installed in 2021.

The route enters downtown along 7th Street, which splits into one-way pairs; 8th Street southbound and 7th Street northbound. Southbound, three BRT stations are currently open, at Ramp A/7th Street Transit Center and 8th Street at Nicollet Mall and at 3rd/4th Avenues. Stations on 8th Street at Hennepin and Park Avenues will fully open at a later date, with buses still stopping there on request.[11] After the final stop at Park Avenue, buses continue to 11th Avenue where they layover and await the return trip northbound.

Heading northbound from downtown, the C Line begins its route at Park Avenue Station located under Hennepin County Medical Center and continues north on 7th Street. Stations are at 3rd/4th Avenues, Nicollet Mall, and Hennepin Avenue. These stations are Metro Transit's standard bus rapid transit stations with off-board fare collection, real-time information, and near-level boarding. After exiting downtown, the C Line follows the same route north to Brooklyn Center Transit Center.[12]

The C Line runs every 10 minutes during daytime service on weekdays and weekends, with reduced frequencies of up to 30 minutes in the early morning and late evening.[22] Route 19 was retained as 30-minute underlying bus service along the line. Select rush hour Route 19 trips are rerouted along Thomas Ave to serve areas previously served by terminal branches of Route 19.[23] Five months after opening the route in October 2019, combined ridership for Route 19 and the C Line was roughly 8,300 weekday rides. Previously the corridor served 7,000 weekday rides with just Route 19.[24] Ridership increased on weekdays by 30%, Saturdays by 25%, and Sundays by 40%, five months after opening.[7]

A C Line New Flyer XE60 battery electric articulated bus in service in June 2020.

The C Line has fourteen 60-foot articulated buses assigned to the route. Six buses are diesel XD60 models and eight are battery-electric XE60 models, the first electric articulated buses in Minnesota.[29] These buses were manufactured by New Flyer Industries in Saint Cloud, Minnesota and have three doors and wider aisles for faster boarding.[30][31] The fleet is also equipped with transit signal priority, Quantum wheelchair securement, free WiFi, and USB chargers. Each bus was given a unique name by communities along the corridor.[32] The electric buses had an effective range of 120-140 miles depending on the weather but lost 40% of their range in the winter due to the cold weather.[33][34] Diesel heaters help heat electric buses during cold weather.[35]

Electric buses on the route haven't always been available due to charging and mechanical issues.[36] Over the first 631 service days from opening until February 2021, there were only 10 days with every bus and charger available.[33] Due to issues with charging equipment at garages, all eight electric buses were temporarily removed from service in July 2019 and then again in October.[37][38] Because of this, three Gillig BRTPlus buses ordered for the A Line were temporarily placed into service on the C Line from July 2019 through January 2020.[39] Additionally, five New Flyer XD60 buses were retrofitted with their fareboxes and Go-To card readers removed and repainted into METRO branding to be used on the C Line and A Line as necessary.[40] While the electric buses returned to service late-October 2019,[41] they were again removed from service in March 2021 until December 2021.[34][42] Electric buses require long layovers to charge the buses midroute and due to Metro Transit's bus driver shortage, electric buses are used on a limited basis to allow for more opeartor availability. Only three electric buses are in use at one time and they are only used at most 8 hours at a time in a day rather than the up to 20 hours other buses are used.[35]

The Metropolitan Council, the metropolitan planning organization for the Twin Cities, completed a 2030 Transit Master Study for the region in 2008 which identified arterial bus network corridors and encouraged further study of arterial bus rapid transit projects. The study identified some corridors that had the potential for high ridership but lacked the necessary space for dedicated running way for transit.[43][44] The Council set the goal of doubling transit ridership by 2030 in their 2030 Transportation Policy Plan and identified implementing arterial bus rapid transit as a method of increasing ridership.[45] Metro Transit began study of 11 corridors for their potential for arterial bus rapid transit in 2011–2012 in their Arterial Transitway Corridors Study.[44] Those 11 routes served 90,000 riders per weekday, which was close to half of the total ridership for urban routes. Ridership on implemented routes was predicted to increase 20 to 30 percent after the first year of opening. Corridors were evaluated on capital and operating costs, potential ridership, and travel time savings. At the time, an opening for the first BRT line was hoped to open in 2014.[45][46]

The Penn Avenue corridor was not selected in this initial evaluation of 11 corridors in 2011-2012 because planning for the Bottineau LRT proposed Penn Avenue as a possible alignment. The Penn Avenue alignment for the Bottineau LRT project faced difficulties with constrained right of way and the need for eminent domain to take property.[47] The alignment chosen traveled on Olson Memorial Highway and BNSF freight right of way. While the selected alignment avoided major disruptions along Penn Avenue, it almost completely avoided north Minneapolis. The city of Minneapolis agreed to the selected alignment in June 2012 with the understanding that two new bus rapid transit projects would be built from downtown Minneapolis, through north Minneapolis, to Brooklyn Center Transit Center.[48][49][50]

An addendum to the Arterial Transitway Corridors Study released in January 2013 added the Penn Avenue corridor as well as extended the Chicago Ave corridor through north Minneapolis becoming the Chicago-Fremont corridor.[51] The Snelling Avenue corridor was selected as the first corridor for implementation in 2012, with the A Line opening in 2016. After the B Line project was postponed so the corridor could undergo further study as the Riverview Corridor,[52] both the Penn Avenue corridor and Chicago-Fremont corridor were selected as the next two priorities with the project named the C Line and D Line respectively.[53] The C Line was selected as the region's second arterial bus rapid transit project in 2014.[54] At the time Metro Transit believed construction could begin in 2016. The corridor already had strong transit usage with buses making up 2% of vehicle traffic on Penn Avenue but carrying 26% of people. There were however limited bus shelters or benches despite Route 19 carrying 7,000 daily riders.[53]

On June 28, 2021, it was announced that an infill station, Osseo & 47th Avenue, would be built as part of Hennepin County's reconstruction of Osseo Road. The station would also be used by the Metro D Line. The original C Line plan included a station at Victory Memorial Parkway, later expanding the scope to 47th Avenue, but was shelved due to low ridership, physical restraints, and opposition from the Minneapolis Park Board. The removal of the station resulted in an uncharacteristically long 1.2 mi (1.9 km) gap between 43rd Avenue and 51st Avenue stations, in addition to rail yards creating a physical barrier to the north.[55] The infill became planned because feedback received during the planning of both the C Line and D Line warranted inclusion of a new station. The station will be constructed with the roadway project beginning in 2023. Later 2021 an amendment will be released for the station plan.[10]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Metro C Line.

• C Line Project Website