Lake Street / Midtown (Metro Transit station)

Lake Street/Midtown

The Lake Street / Midtown station, viewed from the southwest in 2014
Location 2310 Lake Street East
Coordinates 44°56′54″N 93°14′20″W / 44.9483°N 93.2389°W / 44.9483; -93.2389Coordinates: 44°56′54″N 93°14′20″W / 44.9483°N 93.2389°W / 44.9483; -93.2389
Owned by Metro Transit
Line(s)
  Blue Line
Platforms Island platform
Connections Routes 21, 27 and 53
Construction
Disabled access Yes
History
Opened June 26, 2004
Services
Preceding station   Metro Transit   Following station
toward Target Field
Blue Line

Lake Street/Midtown is a light rail station on the Blue Line in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

This station is a bridge above Lake Street along the west side of Minnesota State Highway 55 (Hiawatha Avenue) in Minneapolis. 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.

A complex array of public transit, including light rail and bus, multi-lane roadways, and foot traffic all converge upon the Lake Street/Hiawatha Avenue intersection. Even before the current high traffic volume, city planners had long-recognized the importance of the Hiawatha Avenue Corridor as a key artery for the city, connecting downtown Minneapolis and the airport.

Just north of the elevated Lake Street station, the Blue Line crosses over Minnesota State Highway 55 on a concrete box girder flyover bridge 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.

There is a park-and-ride lot immediately southwest of the station. Located on the site of the Anishinabe Academy elementary school, the lot contains 170 spaces.[1] The lot is regularly filled beyond capacity, with parking overflowing into aisles and onto nearby streets. 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 have called upon Metro Transit to improve the lighting situation, but the process has been complicated by the fact that Metro Transit does not own the lot, but merely leases it from the public school district. This lot is the only park-and-ride lot on the Blue Line actually within the city of Minneapolis. The lot will close for good on March 7, 2015 to make way for redevelopment.[2] There are over 2500 spaces in park-and-ride lots near the southern end of the line in Bloomington.

In July 2008, local residents teamed up with Metro Transit and Xcel Energy to decorate several large electrical enclosures 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 nearby. 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 greatly reduced erosion problems.[3]

This station is planned to be served as the terminus of the Minneapolis Streetcar System's Midtown Greenway/Lake Street Line.

Bus connections

From Lake Street/Midtown Station, there are direct bus connections to routes 21, 27, and 53. Passengers have to go down 1 level to make connections.

Notable places nearby

References

  1. ↑ "Park for free then ride the smart way". Metro Transit. Retrieved 2009-02-08. Archived April 13, 2010, at the Wayback Machine.
  2. ↑ "Lake Street/Midtown Station Park & Ride will close March 7". Metro Transit. Retrieved 12 February 2015.
  3. ↑ Corcoran Neighborhood Organization (2008-07-08). "Corcoran residents champion improvements at light rail station". The Neighborhood Advocate. Retrieved 2009-02-08.
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