Mpls Downtown Improvement District

The Minneapolis Downtown Improvement District (MDID), in partnership with Metro Transit, is interested in exploring improvements to bus stops at high ridership, high priority locations in downtown Minneapolis that lack permanent waiting area fixtures.

These sites exist throughout downtown Minneapolis for a variety of reasons: considerations related to the adjacent building and/or business, insufficient space for standard Metro Transit shelter designs, changes in ridership over time, or a previous lack of resources to make waiting area improvements. MDID is interested in this topic because high ridership bus stops without adequate permanent fixtures are common sites of concern for perceived safety and other livability concerns, and they do not offer downtown workers, residents, and visitors a high quality experience.

Common issues identified by downtown stakeholders for sites include: transit riders leaning against buildings, waiting inside doors, loitering, and concerns about transit shelters blocking views into buildings or front entrances. Metro Transit is interested and engaged in this project. In Metro Transit’s 2013/2014 evaluation of bus stops, 10 out of the 27 highest priority sites for a shelter were in Downtown Minneapolis. Two of these bus stops (7th St S & Nicollet Mall and 7th St S and Hennepin Ave) will be addressed in 2015 as part of the Downtown East-West Improvements project.

The remaining 8 bus stops range in average daily boarding’s from 250 to 1,200 riders. This is 6 to 30 times the minimum required for a Metro Transit shelter, respectively.

This project will test temporary, experimental prototypes for addressing transit waiting area needs in the downtown public realm. This project will be aimed at generating design solutions that can be applied to multiple sites and that can be used by Metro Transit to apply toward permanent installations.  

Complete electronic copies of each response must be received by 5 pm on Wednesday, September 9, 2015 to [email protected]. An informational meeting will be held on Tuesday, September 8 from 1-2 pm.