Maplewood Mayor Marylee Abrams and some members of the Maplewood City Council are hoping to pass a resolution opposing the Purple Line on both White Bear Avenue and the Bruce Vento Trail at a City Council meeting tonight (Monday, September 23) at Maplewood City Hall (1830 County Road B East). You may also watch the meeting via livestream.
This follows a council meeting on September 9 in which the mayor and two members of the five-person council said new data showed that the Purple Line route along White Bear Avenue — the common sense solution after neighbors strongly opposed tearing up part of the scenic Bruce Vento Trail — would disrupt too many businesses and draw too few riders, according to reporting in the Star Tribune.
The apparent change of heart endangers a project that would increase transit access to thousands in the often overlooked east metro. The Purple Line would run from Downtown St. Paul to Maplewood through many communities made up primarily of people of color and low-income residents. A Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) line, it would speed up transit trips by having the buses operate in their own lanes, reducing stops and running at greater frequencies. It would also bring in federal money to reconstruct dangerous streets like Maryland and White Bear avenues.
These communities have enjoyed less transit investment than other parts of the metro area. The arguments that the Maplewood City Council and mayor are making to justify their decision have serious flaws that demand a response.
Multiple people on the Maplewood City Council claimed that the ridership numbers do not justify the project cost or its impacts to drivers and businesses. Metro Transit projects a current year ridership of up to 4,700 riders per day and predicts a 2045 horizon-year ridership of up to 5,025 riders per day.
In fact, I believe we will have higher ridership than this for several reasons:
- First, projections can only be made based on current data — in this case, 2023 ridership. These ridership formulas are still from pre-COVID and do not accurately reflect the rapid regrowth in transit ridership. In 2023, Metro Transit’s BRT routes increased ridership by 15.3%. The first seven months of 2024 had an increase of 19.6% over the same period in 2023. That growth alone would raise the current year ridership above the horizon year projections.
- Consider, too, that our transit network has exceeded ridership projections in the past. The Green Line surpassed its 2030 horizon year estimates by 1,500 riders just four years after the line opened. We should not be taking ridership estimates as gospel.
- Additionally, according to information that project staff provided to the council, “long-range land use plans do not anticipate significant changes in land use from what is there today.” That also dampened ridership projections. However, Maplewood City Councilmember Chonburi Lee pointed out at the September 9 meeting that Maplewood hopes to exceed 50,000 residents by 2040 (the population currently is about 40,000, according to numbers from 2022). New developments will need to house these new residents.
The Purple Line would attract transit-oriented development that, in turn, would further increase ridership. Multi-unit buildings could provide less parking and cause less congestion, since these new residents would have options to move around the city without driving. The city has already seen the value in less parking and less congestion, as Maplewood City Council candidate Stephen Fitze, who is DFL endorsed, recently pointed out in a League of Women Voters candidate forum. “The current council majority used the building of the Purple Line as a justification for reduced parking spaces at several affordable housing projects,” he said.
A Safer White Bear Avenue
Mayor Abrams explained her reasoning at the September 9 council meeting: “The sheer disruption of reducing White Bear Avenue to a single lane and the impact on the 23,000 drivers who use it daily just doesn’t make any sense to me,” she said.
Plainly, though, White Bear Avenue needs a disruption. It is a four-lane road that tries to accommodate speeding cars to Highway 36 and Interstate 694 with connecting residents to grocery stores and other businesses along the road. Some portions are missing sidewalks. Out of 23 segments studied in a Ramsey County analysis of four-lane roads, the two segments in Maplewood on which the Purple Line would travel had the third and sixth highest crashes per mile between 2013 and 2017. Without the county getting federal money through the Purple Line, White Bear Avenue will not be reconstructed any time soon. More crashes will happen, and given the high speed of traffic on the road, people potentially could die.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) offers a comparable case study:
- Maryland Avenue between Payne Avenue and Johnson Parkway used to have four lanes, just as White Bear Avenue does today.
- It carried 21,000 to 23,000 vehicles per day, the same amount as White Bear.
- When a car lane was eliminated in each direction, crashes were reduced.
- Even though average speeds were reduced, the road has performed better most of the time, and traffic is congested for only one more minute per day.
Fewer driveways on the street, which the Purple Line route is proposing, helped ensure better travel times. The Payne-Phalen Community Council reported that traffic did not appear to be diverting onto side streets. If a similar road diet wasn’t a significant problem in St Paul, why should it be a problem in Maplewood?
Business disruption is a legitimate concern during construction of BRT lines, as businesses along Lake Street in Minneapolis and Selby Avenue in St. Paul have experienced during construction of the B Line, which will largely replace the notoriously slow Route 21A. A two-year construction time would be difficult for some businesses. Some transit projects have acquired construction mitigation money to help keep businesses afloat.
Great idea! Instead of using their voices to fight this equity- and climate-focused project, the City of Maplewood should advocate for construction mitigation funding. Once the Purple Line is complete, businesses will have access to more customers. When a bus runs more often, which BRT lines do, transit riders are more comfortable with getting off to visit a place they’ve never been to before. They can rely on another bus showing up soon.
In a final blow, Mayor Abrams compared the Purple Line to a floppy disk, because it was started 28 years ago. Since then the project has evolved considerably. At one point it was called the Rush Line because it would have extended all the way to Rush City as a commuter rail route along portions of what is now the Bruce Vento Trail. But the Rush Line, which some residents heavily opposed, was an entirely different project than a Purple Line BRT to Maplewood. Would we say streaming media is outdated because we have evolved from the floppy disks used 28 years ago?
Maplewood’s Proposed Alternatives
The mayor brought up a few alternatives for transit instead of the Purple Line in Maplewood.
First, she said that the city should explore Microtransit. These are small mini buses that function like Ubers to give door-to-door service. I have good news for the council: Metro Transit announced in its Network Now plans that Microtransit will be coming to Maplewood by 2027. Unfortunately, this is not a one-size-fits-all solution. In order to be reliable, Microtransit has to operate in a small area. The optimal way to run Microtransit is to anchor it to a frequent route like BRT and have it be a first-mile, last-mile solution. Maplewood will also be getting new and more frequent buses serving the city under Network Now. These routes work best when they can connect to a fast, frequent BRT route. Just like a city has a hierarchy of roads — with arterials and freeways — so should there be hierarchy for transit with local routes and BRT routes.
There was also interest in pursuing an aBRT route like the A Line on Ford Parkway and Snelling Avenue in St. Paul or the D Line from Brooklyn Center to the Mall of America. These routes have strong ridership, and we should continue to build more of them, but the majority of their routes lack dedicated lanes, which means they wouldn’t qualify for federal money to reconstruct the roads for greater safety.
Purple Line riders deserve their own lane, and all potential riders will use transit more often if they have efficient train and bus lines. Trips on buses can sometimes take two to three times as long as car trips. That’s a lot of lost time that could be spent with loved ones, relaxing or patronizing some of Maplewood’s businesses. Cars have advantages everywhere; it’s a major equity issue to ensure that at least on one street, people on a bus are not the lowest priority.
Take Action!
The Purple Line is a much needed investment for the entire East Side of St. Paul. It will bring people to our businesses from across the region and connect our residents to the rest of the metro. It will make trips more equitable for those who can’t or don’t want to drive. It will stimulate new housing and strengthen the property tax base for the City of Maplewood. And it will make White Bear Avenue safer for all users.
If you agree that the Purple Line should continue to go through Maplewood, please contact the mayor and City Council members with your thoughts. You may also click here to sign a Move Minnesota petition in support of the White Bear Avenue route.