Metro Transit and the City of Minneapolis are developing potential plans to permanently move buses off of Nicollet Mall, though it won’t happen for at least two years.

Proponents believe turning the mile-long stretch of Nicollet into a public plaza will allow the City to activate Minneapolis’ main street and bring more people downtown. “We can do more trees and greenery, or install permanent kiosks for markets or permanent stage infrastructure to make it easier to do the Downtown Council’s concert series,” Ward 7 Councilmember Katie Cashman said in an interview with Downtown Voices. Cashman supports a bus-free Nicollet Mall but still feels it’s important to prioritize robust transportation options across downtown.

The pedestrianization of Nicollet Mall isn’t a new idea, but it’s more recently come to the forefront of downtown boosters’ pandemic-induced revitalization efforts, with support from Mayor Jacob Frey’s Vibrant Downtown Storefronts Workgroup and the Minneapolis Foundation.

Metro Transit and the City still need to agree on an alternative route. Both plan to start collecting feedback from the community this summer.

Where do the buses go?

In a March presentation obtained through a data practices request, Metro Transit staff said the agency is open to moving buses off of Nicollet Mall so long as the City can accommodate future “transit investments” and allow the agency to provide a level of service similar to what it provides on Nicollet Mall today. “Our goal is to ensure any changes provide a customer experience that is as good as or better than today,” agency spokesperson Drew Kerr told Downtown Voices.   

Nicollet Mall is in itself a delicate balancing act, as it attempts to handle people who walk, bike, and take transit. Roughly 10,000 walkers or bikers and 6,000 commuters travel along the street during the busiest weekday, according to figures from the City Council’s Nicollet Mall Legislative Directive. Though it is also the busiest transit corridor in the region, the amount of bus routes supported by the Mall has declined in the past several years, according to figures from Metro Transit. Buses on Nicollet Mall operate at a crawling 10 miles per hour, compared to 20 miles per hour on other downtown streets, including the Marq2 transit corridor along Marquette and Second avenues.

Slow bus operations can affect transit reliability. “They get backed up behind each other because there are so many,” Cashman said.

Metro Transit presented preliminary proposals to the City Council in early December. The agency’s proposed alternatives include Hennepin Avenue, Third Avenue, the Marq2 corridor, or Fourth and Fifth avenues. 

Internal presentations show Metro Transit strongly prefers moving its busiest Nicollet Mall routes onto Third Avenue because it’s “simpler” to use, more direct, balances transit access downtown, and preserves transfers between bus routes and light rail lines. Metro Transit estimates that 4,700 transfers take place between Nicollet Mall buses and connecting light rail and rapid bus services each weekday.

Metro Transit says the earliest buses could be moved off of Nicollet Mall is June 2026. That’s because the agency is busy planning three rapid bus routes set to launch in 2025. Metro Transit also wants to give the City enough time to implement transit priority infrastructure on 11th Street, 12th Street, and Hennepin Avenue.

Metro Transit envisions Third Avenue as a transit-priority street with bus lanes and waiting areas to support high-frequency routes. The street would handle the 10, 17, and 18, three of the top 10 busiest routes in the system. Route 10 had close to 6,000 average weekday boardings last fall, while Route 18 had just over 6,500 average weekday boardings. (Routes 11 and 25 would move to Hennepin Avenue, according to Metro Transit presentations.) 

A presentation slide shows Frey isn’t in favor of Metro Transit’s Third Avenue pitch, though there’s no indication as to why. During a mid-May press conference announcing the debut of the City’s centralized hubs for bikes, scooters, transit, and electric vehicles, Frey expressed his support for relocating local buses to Marq2. “They're moving the buses, in my mind, over to Second Avenue and Marquette,” Frey said. A spokesperson for the mayor, Ally Peters, clarified in an email days later that Frey “is open to other options, and is in close conversations with Metro Transit and Public Works staff.”

Metro Transit isn’t on board with the Marq2 idea because it wants to preserve the corridor for express bus service. Agency officials are worried that mixing local and express buses would slow down all services and prevent them from increasing express bus service. They also argue that bus shelters on Marq2 are already more cramped than stops on Nicollet Mall.

Metro Transit officials believe moving Nicollet Mall routes to Marq2 would double the amount of time it takes people to travel between connecting bus and light rail routes. They also fear it would make fare payment more confusing, since riders boarding Marq2 routes downtown pay as they disembark buses, rather than pay as they board like other routes.

Buses are frequently rerouted off of Nicollet Mall for special events, especially during the summer months, often onto Hennepin or Marquette avenues depending on their direction of travel. Such events include the Downtown Council’s Downtown Thursdays series along Nicollet between Sixth and Ninth streets.

Initially, the City and Metro Transit both planned to render a decision on rerouting transit off Nicollet by April 2024. Metro Transit needed to tell the federal government what route it will use for the F Line, a rapid bus conversion of Route 10, because it plans to obtain federal funding for the conversion. But with construction delayed until 2028, the agency has more time to figure out the route. “A final alignment decision is expected in 2025,” Kerr said. Both the City and Metro Transit plan to use this extra time to engage with people who spend time downtown. 

Despite a tentative thumbs-up from Cashman, she’s concerned about how changes on Nicollet Mall would affect Metro Transit’s Free Ride Buses. Currently, northbound Route 18 and southbound Route 10 buses are free to ride, but only on Nicollet Mall between Third and Grant streets. “It really benefits residents and visitors alike, to be able to just get on the bus,” Cashman said.

Possibilities with a pedestrianized Nicollet

Without buses on Nicollet Mall, City officials and other supporters of the idea imagine endless possibilities for the street. “Nicollet Mall will have more space for events and programming. Cafes, games, festivals, art demonstrations and yoga in the street are all ideas that are possible under a re-envisioned Nicollet Mall,” City spokesperson Greta Bergstrom said. 

Cashman thinks Nicollet Mall could be a candidate for a social district, a dedicated area where people 21 or older can buy and drink alcohol in public. “You could take your drinks from Devil's Advocate into the street if it’s a social district and actually have a block party, public space environment there,” Cashman said.

Anoka became the first Minnesota city to pilot a social district in its downtown in 2023, following the passage of a State bill that allows them to do so. Stillwater and Shakopee are currently working on their own social districts, with business and community input.

Ward 3 Councilmember Michael Rainville, however, isn’t sold on that idea. “I'm not a big fan of walking around with open containers. I know it’s working for (other cities). I think it's a different culture in Shakopee and Stillwater than it is here,” Rainville said. “Downtown should be for everybody. Not everybody drinks. And, as we all know, there’s a certain type of behavior associated with drinking.” 

On a recent sunny Tuesday afternoon, Minneapolis transit users Carla Hairston and Kevin Williams met for lunch and ordered from a nearby food truck, Rollin’ Nolan’s Barbecue, which was parked on the Nicollet Mall busway.

Williams finds the food trucks convenient. A handful of them can be found on Nicollet Mall during lunchtime on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays in the summer. “We don’t have to go anywhere else to get food. Get off the 22 and the food’s right there,” Williams said. 

But both Hairston and Williams are worried about what moving the buses off of Nicollet would mean for the riders who depend on it. “You can have food trucks on a block or two and have the buses go around, but if you cut the buses out of all of Nicollet, it would be really inconvenient,” Hairston said.