Lake Street/Midtown station, also referred locally as either the Lake Street station or Midtown station, is a Blue Linelight rail stop in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The station is located on a bridge over East Lake Street adjacent to Highway 55.
The station offers connections to buses on Lake Street which include Route 21. The future Metro B Line will have stations below the Blue Line station on Lake Street. An eastbound BRT station was built in 2015 and while the west station will be built in 2024 for an expected opening of the B Line in June 2025.
Description
This elevated station spans over East Lake Street along the west side of Minnesota State Highway 55, which is known as Hiawatha Avenue along this stretch of road. This is a center-platform station. Along with the Franklin Avenue station, the Lake Street/Midtown station is one of the two above-grade stations on the Blue Line. Service began at this station when the Blue Line opened on June 26, 2004.
The Midtown Station is one of four stations immediately adjacent to Hiawatha Avenue. Others include 38th Street Station, 46th Street Station, and 50th Street Station. The Hiawatha Corridor features a wide variety of architecture including grain elevators, subsidized housing, and well-established neighborhoods, such as Longfellow and Corcoran.
Just north of the station, the Blue Line crosses over Hiawatha Avenue on a concrete box girder flyover before returning to grade level.
The seasonal Midtown Farmers' Market operates weekly on a space immediately adjacent to the station. The market features produce, meat, cheese, bread, eggs, flowers, crafts, hot food, music and family-oriented entertainment.
In July 2008, local residents teamed up with Metro Transit and Xcel Energy to decorate several electric boxes situated between the station and the park and ride lot. The murals painted on the structures depict grain stalks on a blue sky, and are intended to represent the Midtown Farmers' Market held adjacent to the station. Local residents also encouraged Metro Transit to install sidewalks and stairs along lines of bare dirt where riders frequently cut through a sloping grassy area. This improved station access and reduced erosion problems.[2]
Upon opening, the station hosted a 170-space park and ride lot immediately southwest of the station, leased from Anishinabe Academy elementary school.[3] The lot was only planned to exist temporarily and close when park and ride lots outside Minneapolis opened.[4]
It was regularly filled beyond capacity, with parking overflowing into aisles and onto nearby streets.[4] Residents have complained about the lack of parking (and specifically the overflow onto streets) at neighborhood meetings. Crime has also been an intermittent problem in the parking lot, with victims attributing the lot's poor overhead lighting as a major contributing factor. Local residents and the neighborhood organization called upon Metro Transit to improve the lighting situation, but the process has been complicated by the fact that Metro Transit did not own the lot, but merely leased it from the public school district.
This lot was the only park and ride lot on the Blue Line within the city of Minneapolis. The lot closed March 7, 2015 for redevelopment.[5] There are over 2,500 park and ride spaces at Fort Snelling station and 28th Avenue station at the southern end of the Blue Line.
Bus connections and future bus rapid transit
From the station, passengers go down one level to make direct connections to bus routes 21, 27, and 53.[4]
The station will be a stop on the Metro B Line, an under construction bus rapid transit line that will substantially replace Route 21 along Lake Street and Selby Avenue. Route 21 currently carries 10,000 passengers every weekday, while only making up 2% of traffic on Lake Street. Improvements would include specialized stations and buses and frequent all-day service. To speed up travel times, which usually slows to 8 mph (13 km/h) during rush hours, off-board fare collection, near-level boarding, and transit signal priority will be implemented.
When the line opens, it will provide a crosstown connection to Southwest LRT, Metro E Line, Orange Line, D Line, and A Line with the final terminus at Union Depot in downtown Saint Paul, Minnesota. The eastbound BRT station was constructed in 2015 and includes a distinct shelter and station marker, near-level boarding, heating and lighting, and infrastructure for off-board fare collection once the B Line begins operating. The B Line went through engineering in 2020, with construction starting in 2023, and passenger operations beginning in 2024.[6]
Future
Since opening 20 years ago, the condition of the station has declined with frequent vandalism, shattered glass, broken elevators and escalators, and higher levels of crime. Since 2023 there have been security guards positioned at the station which transit officials say have been effective at reducing crime.[7][8][9] There have been several high profile shootings and assaults at the station.[10][11]
In 2024, the Metropolitan Council awarded a contract to redesign the station with construction potentially beginning in 2025.[7] The light rail system in Minnesota is based on proof-of-payment but the Metropolitan Council is considering enclosing the station with faregates.[12]
