MN: Twin Cities transit ridership down last year despite rise in rapid bus use

Ridership on Twin Cities public transit fell by 3% in 2025 when compared with the previous year, despite the growing popularity of rapid bus lines and three new routes providing fast and frequent services that debuted last year.

Systemwide total ridership on buses and trains operated by Metro Transit and four suburban providers dropped from nearly 62 million in 2024 to just over 60 million, according to a presentation delivered to the Met Council Transportation Committee on Monday, March 9.

One bright spot: three of the metro area’s four suburban transit providers posted ridership gains, with SouthWest Transit up 14% and Maple Grove up 12% over last year. Plymouth MetroLink was up 1% while the Minnesota Valley Transit Authority reported a 1% drop, giving just over 8,000 fewer rides provided in 2025 compared with 2024.

The strong showing by the suburban providers comes as legislators on Wednesday plan to introduce a bill that would fold them into the Met Council and create one unified transit system in the Twin Cities starting in 2027.

The gains in the suburbs were wiped out by a larger decline of light rail passengers, who took just over 13.1 million trips, about 14% fewer compared to 2024. Ridership was down by 1.2 million on the Green Line and 834,000 on the Blue Line, according to Metro Transit.

The drop comes even as Metro Transit has taken several steps over the last few years to address safety concerns on the light rail system and boost ridership overall.

In December 2024, the agency announced it was allocating about $12 million to improve security and cleanliness on trains and transit platforms. Riders repeatedly said that concern about trespassing, smoking, drug use and fare evasion, among other problems, was prompting them to turn away from transit.

Christian Towalski, of St. Cloud, said he has taken the light rail occasionally and experienced a couple drug instances, but “nothing that made me feel unsafe,” he said before boarding a Green Line train Wednesday to go to the University of Minnesota. “I can see some people not wanting to deal with that.”

Landre Sorlie, of Minneapolis, was taking his mother, Sheila Sorlie, on train ride to St. Paul before she headed back home to Montana. They had visited the Mall of America last week. The train was packed and they had good security, Landre said.

“I think they check your ticket on every ride now,” Landre said.

“Clean and safe,” Sheila said, adding she is an avid train riders and takes them wherever she travels.

Sorlie said maybe ridership will rise once the Green Line extension is operating in 2027.

“They need to have one that goes to the burb in a big circle,” Landre said. “You can’t get from one suburb to another suburb,” he sad.

Officials said the $12 million was a historic investment. A big chunk of the money was to go to the Transit Rider Investment Program (TRIP), which was rolled out in February 2024 as part of 40 steps outlined in Metro Transit’s Safety and Security Action Plan.

Metro Transit officials are also proposing to reduce and simplify fares to make the system easier to use. The plan would have riders of express buses pay less during rush hours but more during off-peak hours, making all express bus trips a flat $3. While reduced fares for low-income riders would remain at $1, the agency wants to extend ages eligible for youth fares from age 12 to age 18, allowing teens to ride for $1.

Public hearings on the fare adjustments are planned for May and implementation would occur in August if the Met Council signs off.

The decline in 2025 follows what had been an uptick since the pandemic decimated ridership beginning in 2020. Still, the system’s ridership in 2023 was only about 60% of pre-pandemic levels.

The pandemic drastically reduced transit ridership here and across the country, largely due to the rise of remote work. As people return to the office, transit ridership has steadily crept back, although it’s unclear whether it will ever reach the 78 million rides Metro Transit provided in 2019.

The agency is now relying on automated passenger count devices affixed on all buses as its primary data source, said Rachel Dungca, senior manager of the strategy and performance team at Metro Transit.

“Although we are changing our methods, the trends remain the same,” she told the committee. “The key message is a slight decline in ridership.”

On the positive side, three of Metro Transit’s newest rapid lines saw significant increases, including the B, E and Orange lines.

“We are seeing a shift from local service to BRT service,” said John Harper, manager of contracted transit services for metropolitan transportation at the Metropolitan Council.

Commuter express rides also shot up, helped by an increase of 83,000 rides taken on the I-94 express running between downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Metro Transit expanded its micro on-demand service to the cities of Roseville, Woodbury, Bloomington and to the Blaine area last year. Ridership on the service jumped by 180% to just over 120,000 last year.

Last year got off to a slow start, with large ridership declines in January and February, with drops of 6% and 14% respectively when compared to 2024. Only one month saw an increase, October, when ridership was up 1%.

As companies rolled out return-to-office policies, Metro Transit has not seen that translate into an uptick in ridership, said Joey Reid, Metro Transit’s principal data scientist.

“That market is not coming back as quickly as we hoped,” he said.

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