Rochester readies $3.25 million park-and-ride lot for service to start Monday

Randy Petersen, Post-Bulletin, Rochester, Minn.
·2 min read

May 29—ROCHESTER — Years of work to launch Rochester's 75th Street park-and-ride lot were celebrated Wednesday morning.

The 478-space lot along Prairie Vista Drive Northwest, just southwest of the intersection of U.S. Highway 52 and 75th Street Northwest, joins four others throughout the city to provide a combined 1,919 available free parking spaces for commuters.

"They are our workhorses for our transit system," said Ia Xiong, Rochester's interim transit and parking systems manager.

Each of the lots are connected to downtown through dedicated routes during peak commuter hours, and several see bus service throughout the day.

Xiong said the lots account for more than 1,000 weekly bus trip.

The 75th Street lot is the first city-developed and owned park-and-ride lot. The other parking spaces are rented at existing IBM, Graham Park, North Broadway and Rochester Community and Technical College lots.

The project cost $3.25 million, with $2.52 million provided through federal grants. The site is currently owned by the state, but a land transfer is in the works to make it a fully city-owned site.

Bus service to the new park-and-ride lot is set to launch on Monday, with the available spaces exceeding the 300 leased spaces on the IBM campus.

While park-and-ride lots are open to any users at no charge, the transit service to the 75th Street lot is being designed specifically for downtown commuters, with buses arriving at 20-minute intervals during peak hours — 5:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Buses departing the site are expected to arrive at Saint Marys Hospital within 17 minutes and at the Downtown Transit Center within 22 minutes.

Rochester City Council President Brooke Carlson said the new lot will provide benefits for the hundreds of people who won't need to seek out other parking options on a daily basis.

"This park-and-ride facility will certainly make people's lives a little bit better," she said. "It will save commuters time and money, it will support sustainable transportation, and it will certainly make the last 15 minutes of someone's commute a little more relaxing."