Let’s talk about a rare Northstar success story, one that’s completely unrelated to the doldrums of today. A story about a small group of queer Minneapolitans in search of transit-oriented alcohol adventures.
It all began with a proposition: What if we took Minnesota’s only commuter rail to a place to grab drinks where we could return on transit afterwards? A short investigation resulted in the only way this would work.
Arriving at Anoka (hopefully on time) at 5:57 p.m. would allow us just under an hour to walk the 16 minutes to downtown and consume a reasonable amount of alcohol before catching the Route 852 back to downtown Minneapolis. Along with that, should we be able to walk from Anoka Station to the bus stop across the street within 5 minutes, we’d be able to catch Route 805 to downtown Anoka and save several minutes of crucial drinking time.
Attempt 1: July 28, 2023
A thunderstorm threatened the trip’s viability; however, the gang of four travelers got to Target Field station by 5:30 p.m. to enjoy their first trip on Minnesota’s only commuter rail.
Seeing the antiquated train in person made me feel like it was 2009 again, I could only imagine how packed it was back when ridership wasn’t virtually zero! Three other people were with us in our upper level in the train car. Only one looked like a true Office Commuter™ with a briefcase, which definitely made us feel a lot better about the trip.
Seeing the city from these angles was amazing, especially given that back in these dire times, only three years after the COVID outbreak, transit ridership had fallen off precipitously and a majority of office workers were still at home. Only two trips in each direction were scheduled and on weekdays only. This was a rare view!
As we pulled into Fridley station it felt like the doors didn’t even open because only one or two people got off. It was no surprise in retrospect, because the land use around the station looks like this . . . with no local bus routes or dedicated bike infrastructure to feed into the transit mode.
The route nearby is the Express Route 852 across the western parking lot, which also goes to downtown Anoka, our final destination! Duplication much? Each of the four-story “transit-oriented” apartments adjacent to the Fridley stop have surface parking and each has underground parking garages. I guess we were lucky to see anyone get off the train at this stop!
At Coon Rapids Station, the train’s next stop, it was a similar affair. Very few people got off. Was anyone even with us on this train? The reason was probably that the station was built 10 years before its creation spurred any “real” development, which was three more four-story “transit-oriented” apartment buildings that brag about their own heated underground parking garages. They even boast about their FREE surface parking, because, let’s be real, are you living without a car in Coon Rapids even if you’re 200 feet from a “commuter rail” station? With all the development ongoing around the Southwest LRT, I’m hoping we’ve learned from mistakes like these.
Shoutout to Aster Apartments for being LGBTQ+ friendly on Google Maps. The queer community is saved thanks to an apartment building!
At last, we arrived at our commuter destination. We felt invigorated and in need of even more depressants after our 27-minute tour of rarely-used infrastructure. Anoka Station is probably something that can make anyone feel useful. This “For Sale” sign has been ironically placed adjacent to the station sign since at least 2017, according to Google Street View, and that only underscores the amount of value this station adds to the community as a whole. A “transit-oriented” development could have materialized here . . . and then had any utility nuked by parking minimums like in the case of Coon Rapids and Fridley.
Ultimately we stopped by 10K Brewing (“nice beer, nice people”) for a couple brews and grabbed food at a nearby restaurant. Nobody believed us when we told them we took the train here! While finishing up our pizza at a nearby restaurant the last Route 852 bus left the area for downtown Minneapolis, so we were forced to rideshare downtown for more drinks at Number 12 Cider (RIP).
Final costs for the day:
- $3.25 for the one-way Northstar ticket.
- $13 per person for the unanticipated rideshare.
- About $100 invested in the local Anoka economy by transit riders.
- A friendly and wonderful experience from Northstar staff and Anokans!
Attempt 2: August 3, 2023
My friend and I decided to finally complete the loop that we missed out on by only a couple minutes: Ride the Northstar up and Route 852 back down to the city.
With much of the same along the route, we arrived back at our favorite station a mere six days after we had been there last. Google Maps may have declared the station as “busier than usual” at the time, just because of us! Luckily we speed-walked to the Route 805 stop and grabbed some novelty pictures of the sign-by-road style of bus stop, which everyone loves the most.
We made our tight transfer and saved ourselves a dozen minutes as we zoomed a few stops on the single-door bus to our final destination. This extra time on our time-limited journey allowed us to hit up The Hardware Store, a cocktail bar speakeasy that we didn’t know about the first time around.
Just like with last time, nobody believed us that we took the Northstar up from the city! This tasty cocktail started off our evening quickly, and the staff were lovely enough to let us pay our tab in a jiffy so we could grab more downtown drinks elsewhere. We had enough time to grab two beers at 10K Brewing before scurrying over to our beautiful chariot…the Route 852! We chose not to spend the additional 80 minutes in Anoka by taking the last bus, choosing a shorter version of the trip instead. One really could spend a lot of time in Anoka’s downtown using the Northstar!
The ride back to Minneapolis was comfortable but also long, as it involved a layover at Northtown Transit Center and detoured through neighborhoods to grab people at roadside stops. This route was necessary and useful for some folks on a random Thursday evening, and should definitely be serviced more by the extra dollars a Northstar closure would provide. The driver, their trainer and the other passengers were probably not anticipating two intoxicated queer urbanites yapping in the back of the bus, but at least we were all getting where we needed to go!
Final costs for the day:
- $3.25 for the one-way Northstar ticket.
- $2.50 for Route 852 Express.
- About $80 invested in the local Anoka economy by transit riders.
- Another lovely time thanks to the staff at 10K Brewing, The Hardware Store, and Metro Transit!
Two years on, it appears the Northstar is really going away this time around. There was no rebound for the service after COVID completely changed the metro’s commuting patterns, although traffic is back and worse than before the pandemic. Studies show that larger cars on Minnesota roads are making traffic worse, and we may be paving the way (literally) to make highway expansion legal again to solve the self-fulfilling prophecy of induced demand. Transportation is the No. 1 source of carbon emissions in the state, and we’re clearly going nowhere while also stuck in traffic.
Missed Opportunity?
Doing a quirky trip like this with my other queer friends was fun, but the fact that it wasn’t easily repeatable only reminded us how mediocre the regional transit is here in the Twin Cities.
- We missed the opportunity to make the Northstar into a frequent railway connecting St. Cloud, Minneapolis and St. Paul.
- Anoka, Coon Rapids and Fridley really could have embraced the railway as a way to build a new downtown or attract city dwellers to suburbs. Creating reliable and cheap transportation to and from places only brings positives.
- Diverting the funds from a soon-shuttered Northstar to create regional rail services should be a priority, along with funding local bus routes to improve equity.
- Finally, we’re starving our nightlife and street-life scene by closing public transit after 10:30 p.m.
Until then, finding quirky transit route combinations like this is a way to have a little transit-themed fun!
Photo at top by River Flom