Metro Transit starts Lake-Selby rapid line construction B

Line bus service to replace Route 21

By H. Jiahong Pan

Contributing Writer

Vernon Crowe, owner of Selby Wine and Spirits, never understood why Route 21 took a weird dog-leg bend into Midway—running on University between Snelling and Hamline Avenues— on its way to and from Minneapolis. The angled route was implemented to bypass an unsafe bridge spanning Selby Avenue between the two streets, which was closed in 1989.

“The bridge is back up,” said Crowe. “I don’t know why they don’t continue running the bus down Selby to Fairview, turn off Fairview, and [go] left on Marshall.”

Beginning late next year, the dogleg onto University will be eliminated as 21 is restructured. The B Line, a rapid transit bus line similar to the A Line on Snelling Avenue, the C Line on Penn Avenue, and the D Line on Chicago and Fremont Avenues, all of which make stops at specially-designed stations, will replace 21A’s existing routing. The new B Line will operate similar to the pre-1989 Route 21 alignment. Meanwhile, the 21A itself will be split into two segments–one will only run in Minneapolis, while the other segment will only run in St. Paul.

“It is connecting people to a thriving community. This is an opportunity for us to get to jobs, housing, transit stations, key destinations,” said Metropolitan Council chair Charlie Zelle at the groundbreaking for the new bus line. “I always say this is not a commuter line. This is the ‘live your life in the city’ line,” he added. However, not all riders are happy with the change, and some businesses are worried about the impacts the B Line will have on them during and after it is built.

The B Line project has been in the works for years, one of 11 transit corridors studied by the Met Council in 2011 and 2012. Originally envisioned to operate along stops between the Lake Street Southwest Light Rail station and Snelling and University, the proposed route was extended to serve downtown St. Paul stops in 2019, after rider feedback. The agency plans to extend the proposed route to serve the Minneapolis-St. Louis Park border, at Lake and France avenues.

The project will cost $65 million, with funding to come from state and federal sources. Hennepin County will receive $12 million from a Department of Transportation grant to reconfigure Lake Street with two lanes, a turn lane, and a westbound transit lane. The project east of Hiawatha will be built by Rogers-based Thomas and Sons Construction, who built the A, C and D Lines, while the agency will put the project west of Hiawatha out to bid later this year.

Ahmed Ahmed likes the idea of converting the 21 to the B Line. “That makes me feel good. It feels different and will be faster,” said Ahmed Ahmed one Saturday morning as he rode the 21 to a friends’ house in Minneapolis.

Not everyone agrees with him. Some riders the MSR spoke with on the 21 did not like the idea of the B Line, in part because the B Line makes fewer stops and they appear to be accustomed to Route 21, having relied on it for their transportation needs for decades.

Some corridor businesses left in dark Some business owners in the Longfellow and the Rondo neighborhood said they did olis Park and Recreation Board (MPRB), finally approved its proposed “Hiawatha Master Plan” by a vote of 4-3. The Park Board plan includes reducing the public golf course from 18 holes to nine holes, improves water management and addresses long standing flooding issues. The flooding problems reached a critical point meaning the golf course now joins the list of historic preservation sites across the country. However, the fight to keep Hiawatha as it currently is—an 18-hole course—continues.

Last March, the Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) believed that the site was National Register-eligible and helped with the application process. In a statement, TCLF President and CEO Charles A. Birnbaum said, “The National Register designation of the Hiawatha Golf Course, an action we first called for on March 1, 2022, reaffirms the cultural and historic significance of the site. The designation reminds us that African American history is American history, and the recognition includes important information about Hiawatha that we believe is essential to any decision-making process about the course’s future.”

Beginning in the early 1930s, Hiawatha has been a gathering place for African Americans in the city for recreation and golf, at a time when they were discriminated against and often excluded from public spaces.

Last September, after three previous attempts, the Minneap- in June 2014, when significant rainfall flooded the Hiawatha golf course—described as a “100-year flood”—and forced its closing, until it was fully reopened in 2016.

MPRB Commissioner Becka Thompson’s motion last July, to separate the water issues from the course redesign was rejected. In addition, a rift between Black community members, who are mostly against the “Hiawatha Master Plan,” and Native Americans, who support it because they want the land returned to its ancestral roots, became apparent during public-comment meetings.

When asked last week by the MSR, about Hiawatha’s new historic status, MPRB President Meg Forney said, “Hiawatha golf course’s National Register listing does not impede the Minneapolis Park Board’s implementation of the Hiawatha Plan but requires the MPRB to consult with the State of Minnesota regarding future work.”

The Minneapolis-based Bronze Foundation, which commissioned the National Register nomination, paid more than $18,000 for a study to look into water issues, while maintaining the golf

■ See HIAWATHA on page 5