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 15th, 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. The C Line turns south onto Penn Avenue, 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.

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.[10] 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.[11]

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.[19] 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.[20] 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.[21] Ridership increased on weekdays by 30%, Saturdays by 25%, and Sundays by 40%, five months after opening.[7]

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.[26] These buses were manufactured by New Flyer Industries in Saint Cloud, Minnesota and have three doors and wider aisles for faster boarding.[27][28] 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.[29]

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.[30][31] 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.[32] The electric buses returned to service late-October the same year.[33]

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.[34]

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.[35] 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.[36] Metro Transit began study of 11 corridors for their potential for arterial bus rapid transit in 2011-2012.[37] 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.[36] 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 possible alignment but an addendum to the study released in January 2013 added the Penn Avenue corridor as well as extended the Chicago Ave corridor to become what is now the D Line project. Both the Penn Avenue corridor and the future D Line corridor were selected as the next two priorities behind the A Line and the Riverview Corridor, which was then named the B Line.[38]

The A Line was selected as the first corridor for implementation in 2012, with the line opening in 2016. After the B Line project was postponed so the corridor could undergo further study as the Riverview Corridor,[39] the C Line was selected as the region's second arterial bus rapid transit project in 2014. 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.[40]

• C Line Project Website