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News & Views of Phillips Since 1976
Thursday March 28th 2024

Metro Transit: Not Bad, But Not Good Either

by JOHN CHARLES WILSON

Metro Transit announced its quarterly service changes just in time for this month’s alley. Unfortunately, the promise of better service after a hiring blitz isn’t ready for prime time yet. The changes this time around are very minor. For routes that affect the Phillips community, these are the only changes happening on March 18th:


The D Line will have minor schedule and trip adjustments for all days of the week.


Route 5 will have time and trip adjustments from 5 to 10 minutes, all days of the week. The first Sunday southbound trip will be 9 minutes later, the last northbound trip will be 4-5 minutes later every day, and the last southbound trip will be 1-3 minutes later every day.


Route 22 will have two weekday afternoon southbound trips from Brooklyn Center switched. The 3:36 PM trip will leave Brooklyn Center 2 minutes later and go via Penn instead of Dupont Avenue, and the 3:56 PM trip will go via Dupont instead of Penn, with no time change. This primarily affects Patrick Henry High School students on the North Side, but it also means that the southbound 22 that passes Franklin Avenue at 4:30 PM will be 2 minutes later.


It is disappointing that more positive changes aren’t able to be made yet. Maybe Metro Transit should consider new ideas to entice workers, such as a child care benefit or extra pay for driving more “problematic” routes. Right-wing platitudes like “No one wants to work anymore” are as unhelpful as they are untrue.


On a different note, no announcement yet on whether MillerCoors-sponsored free transit will happen on Saint Patrick’s Day as it has in the past. I hope so!

John Charles Wilson is a transit enthusiast who has been interested in this field since the 1970s.

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