Met Council finally pulls plug on failed Northstar rail line

“Better late than never” may be the best that can be said for the Metropolitan Council’s announcement it’s finally pulling the plug on the failed Northstar commuter rail line, following freefalling ridership and tens of millions in taxpayer subsidies that hit $173 per passenger ride in recent years. The long-overdue news about the 27-mile Big Lake to Target Field line became public in a joint statement with the Minnesota Department of Transportation.

“MNDOT’s recent Twin Cities–St. Cloud-Fargo/Moorhead Corridor study makes it clear we can provide more cost-effective transit service in the corridor currently being served by Northstar Commuter Rail. As the world and consumer demand changes, we must be willing to be flexible and innovative to offer better service while saving dollars. We have jointly started the process to explore transitioning to bus service.”

As recently as November, Met Council Chairman Charles Zelle celebrated what an American Experiment post hailed “Northstar’s 15 years of failure” by doling out cookies to passengers.

Zelle fully acknowledges his rail line from Big Lake to Minneapolis has always fallen short of the hype, yet blissfully continues to go along for the ride, dragging taxpayers with him.

“Northstar has never lived up to its aspirations,” said Zelle, who, as the headd of the Met Council, oversees transportation planning in the metro.

The $320 million commuter rail project never lived up to expectations. A 2023 article in Thinking Minnesota magazine summed it up this way.

Compared with similar lines, it has the lowest ridership and highest taxpayer subsidy per passenger.

The per-passenger subsidy for every ride on the Northstar Commuter Rail catapulted from $19 per passenger in 2019 to $173 in 2021 — an increase of 800 percent following a devastating decline in ridership post-COVID. But then, what do you expect from an operation that barely manages to take in $500,000 a year in passenger fares, while spending up to $18 million to get riders where they’re going?

In fact, Northstar has never been on track since opening for business in late 2009, even in the best of times. The $320 million train line fell short of passenger projections out of the gate, never drawing the 897,000 riders planners promised for the first year, much less any year since. At its peak of popularity, Northstar nearly notched 800,000 boardings in 2017 and 2019, before plummeting to 50,000 passengers in 2021, followed by 77,000 riders last year.

Word the Met Council has finally come to grips with reality came just hours before a long-time Northstar critic introduced legislation to phase out the rail service, according to Bring Me the News.

In the Minnesota Legislature, Rep. Jon Koznick (R-Lakeville) is proposing a bill that, if approved, would require the Met Council to submit a plan to the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) to discontinue NorthStar operations within 90 days.

“This bill puts an end to 18 years of wasteful spending and forces the Met Council to do what’s right for taxpayers,” Koznick said in a statement. “Instead of continuing to pour money into a failing system, we need to focus on solutions that actually serve commuters efficiently and affordably.”

The bill would relieve the state of the obligation to repay federal funds used to construct the commuter line, clearing the way to shut down the service without financial penalty. It may not be a done deal yet, but Northstar Commuter Rail appears to be going the way of the caboose.