Steve Morris and MaryHelen Swanson
ECM Post Review

Hennepin County has rattled the cage of the Rush Line Task force as it has decided to not fund commuter bus into Minneapolis.

Commuters along the Rush Line Corridor will have to wait until the next task force meeting on Thursday, Oct. 18 to find out what Hennepin County’s decision will mean to the bus service.

Prior to the decision by Hennepin County, a commuter bus service was planned to run from Forest Lake to Minneapolis with a North Branch shuttle and Forest Lake to St. Paul, also with a North Branch shuttle.

Hennepin County’s decision places major moving components of the project on hold.

At the Oct. 18 meeting, the task force will decide if they want to continue with commuter bus, minus the Minneapolis to Forest Lake route.

In the meantime, task force staff is going back to their consulting group SRF, Inc. to reformulate different numbers.

Rush Line Task Force Chairwoman Victoria Reinhardt met with Hennepin County Commissioner Peter McLaughlin who informed her of his county’s decision to not fund the commuter bus service.

She said she was not surprised by the discussion and that their reasons are legitimate.

Hennepin County decided not to fund commuter into Minneapolis for several reasons, one being the fact there is no alternative analysis study completed.

Secondly, the county is of the opinion commuter bus should be paid for by the metro transit, not the counties, Reinhardt said.

“We had a good discussion. The reasons made sense; I couldn’t argue with them,” Reinhardt said.

The third reason Reinhardt said was because light rail along the Forest Lake to Minneapolis route is not scheduled anytime in the near future.

Reinhardt said getting people to work in Minneapolis is still possible using commuter bus. She said a solution would be to have riders take commuter bus into St. Paul and then transferring onto an express metro transit bus to Minneapolis.

However, Reinhardt said it all depends on what the task force decided to do.

“Everyone is a little bit concerned about the funding of it,” Chisago County Commissioner and task force member Ben Montzka said. “Before, I was certain it would happen. Now, we will have to wait and see what will happen.”

At Wednesday night’s county board meeting, before the discussion of the Hennepin County issue, North Branch City Councilwoman Theresa Furman implored the county board to support and try to make the commuter bus plan happen.

She said she was speaking for the entire North Branch council who strongly support the proposed commuter bus plan.

Chisago County Engineer Bill Malin talked about the need for Chisago County residents to get to Minneapolis as well as St. Paul.

Commissioner Montzka said it would be nice to have the commuter bus go to both cities.

He felt that Minneapolis needs to “step up to the plate,” adding it was good for Minneapolis to have its commercial buildings full inferring that commuters from this area are important to the economy of the city.

The Chisago County board agreed they had to wait until after the Oct. 28 task force meeting to continue discussions on funding the project.

Chisago County has been asked for $131,000 as its share of the current bus plan. That number could change after the re-calculations.

Top of Page