As I mentioned yesterday, I finally got around to riding the Hiawatha Light Rail line on Tuesday.

Read on for a review.

Let me start with some basic facts about the line. Currently it runs from the Warehouse district in Minneapolis to Fort Snelling. A distance of about 8 miles. The trip takes 25 minutes to get from one end to the other, but about 7 of those minutes are spent in downtown, the slowest portion of the journey. A bus is available at Fort Snelling to get you to the Airport and the Mall of America, two destinations that will be accessible by light rail come December when the remainder of the track opens.

The trains are sleek and stylish, sporting a yellow and gray exterior:

The insides are more drab with cream colored walls and boxy chairs that aren’t terribly comfortable (but not noticeably uncomfortable as well):

The ride is very quiet and smooth, with one notable exception being when the train takes corners you hear the metal wheels grinding against the metal track. It’s no different, however, than any of the other metro lines I’ve ridden on in Washington D.C. and St. Louis.

There is a prerecorded female voice that announces the stops as they come up. In addition, there is a small reader board mounted at each end of the cab on the inside that visually displays the name of the next station. Along the ceiling was a painted list of stops that the train makes.

To purchase your fair for the ride, you use one of these fancy machines that takes both cash and credit card. In the future it’ll be hooked into the Go-To card system that Metro Transit is rolling out. 31 day bus passes, UPass, and Metro Pass are all accepted as fair on the light rail without any additional costs. SuperSaver cards are only good on trains if you get a transfer from a bus first. While this seems inconvenient, it’s not so bad when you consider that MetroTransit is phasing out the SuperSaver cards in favor of the Go-To system which will be easier and faster.

The stations are well marked with both where you are:

and where you can get to by neighboring bus routes:

There were also several Metro Transit representatives at each station waiting to help customers if they had any questions about how to ride the train as well as helping with route changes to the neighboring bus lines.

The train goes pretty fast down large stretches of the track-up to 55 MPH. In downtown, speeds are slower, often restricted to 15 MPH.

However, the real speed boost comes from the traffic preemption. Once the trains leave downtown, they literally don’t stop except for the different stations. We whizzed by the mostly stopped traffic on Hiawatha Ave.

So far ridership has surpassed expectations with 11,800 riders on Monday, well above the projected 9,500. On both directions of my trip the train was full to the point where a few people had to stand. This is a good sign since I was traveling at about 6pm, a little after the peak rush time.

I’m optimistic that the light rail will continue to serve the region well. I hope that it gets expanded into other parts of the metro also. I think that the North Star line to St. Cloud should be funded next, followed by a line that would connect Minneapolis to St. Paul along University or another large street. It is my opinion that MetroTransit did err in not having the line pass thru the U of M since many college students ride public transportation and commute on a regular basis. It’ll be interesting to see how ridership numbers turn out after the line is completed in December.