Metro Transit to extend Gold Line to downtown Minneapolis in 2027

Metro Transit’s Gold Line, a bus rapid transit line opening in March that will provide service between downtown St. Paul and Woodbury, will now extend to Minneapolis starting in 2027, Metro Transit announced Tuesday.

The Gold Line will provide all-day service along 16 stations in St. Paul, Maplewood, Landfall, Oakdale and Woodbury starting in March. Service is expected every 10 minutes during the day and every 15 minutes on the weekends.

“We’re hearing a lot from the public on all of our lines that they want more fast, frequent, reliable service. And that’s what BRT or LRT provides,” said Nick Thompson, Metro Transit’s deputy general manager of capital programs.

That extended service to downtown Minneapolis will begin sometime in 2027 and add around another 10 miles to the line, doubling the length of the corridor, said Gold Line Project Director Alicia Vap. It will also replace express route Route 94 between downtown Minneapolis and downtown St. Paul and carry around 800 riders daily on weekdays.

“This is just a great opportunity to make an additional expansion and to take advantage of kind of maximizing the kind of potential for this corridor, and having it extend all the way into Minneapolis,” Vap said.

The $505 million project is Minnesota’s first bus rapid transit line to operate primarily within bus-only lanes, which will be constructed north of and near Interstate-94, according to Metro Transit.

The extension is estimated to cost up to $20 million, which will mainly be spent on buses and station construction.

The Gold Line is one of three bus rapid transit lines that will begin service in 2025, in addition to the Metro B Line in the Route 21 corridor and the Metro E Line in the Route 6 corridor.

Comments are being taken on the planned Metro G Line, which will connect with the Gold Line in St. Paul, through Oct. 25.

For more information go to metrotransit.org/gold-line-project.