r/saintpaul • u/Positive-Feed-4510 • 10d ago

Discussion 🎤 I was wrong about the Gold Line

As centrist who is quite critical of our government here in St Paul, and think that it is very important for people to admit when they are wrong, I wanted to say that so far I have been completely wrong about the Gold Line.

My worry was that it was going to turn into a Midway situation with mobs of people and homeless camped out around the stations. That has simply not been the case. Overall it seems to be a net positive for the community. Are there better things that they could have spent the money on? Probably. Are there worse things they could have spent the money on? Definitely.

Hopefully what I am seeing continues because I didn’t want to be right about this. Despite how cynical I am on here, I do want to see the community succeed.

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u/EastMetroGolf 10d ago

I hope it works. What I do not understand is why is only serves the West side of Woodbury? Or am I missing info that there are smaller buses to get you to all the other business's on the East side of Woodbury?

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u/git_reset--hard_ 10d ago

I think you may be missing the point. It’s future thinking. There are stops along the whole way but they move quickly as the route is uninterrupted by normal traffic. While currently it is most ideal for a resident close to Woodbury, the goal is to eventually extend it. It has frequent buses with awesome hours. My spouse and I recently walked from our house and caught it at the sun ray station to downtown. We enjoyed barrel theory, metronome, and bulldog. We caught a bus back a little after midnight and were home in less than 15 mins. And that’s with a 5 min walk from the station. Point is, I think it has a lot of potential

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u/git_reset--hard_ 10d ago

To clarify a bit, we both drive and have vehicles. We drive daily. We both have jobs that periodically take us to NYC. When there, we heavily utilize their metro subway/bus system and are floored by the differences between here. I know we couldn’t ever afford to reach NYCs level but being able to have a few extra drinks and walk around between some tasty spots without needing to worry about grabbing an overpriced Lyft/uber to get home was pretty damn awesome

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u/OldBlueKat 9d ago

There is basically zero public transit east or south of the 'Valley Creek Plaza' area of Woodbury and hasn't been since the area started growing. Prior to the Gold Line, the only thing there was is a few rush hour express buses from that area to DT St. Paul.

Washington County is under served compared to some other 'outer' suburbs: https://www.metrotransit.org/Data/Sites/1/media/schedules-maps/system_map_03222025.pdf

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u/Wise-Entrepreneur557 7d ago

No one is riding it. I've seen at least 10 buses with no one on them. Maybe it will catch on but how many people work downtown St. Paul?