After an initial repudiation, Ramsey County officials are offering White Bear Lake residents a spate of options in an effort to shore up the final stop for a new high-frequency bus line stretching through the northeast metro.

The Rush Line, proposed to run from downtown White Bear Lake to St. Paul’s Union Depot via 21 stops and six miles of newly built roadway, is still in its early planning stages; even assuming all goes well, construction wouldn’t begin on it until 2023.

But for that final stop in White Bear Lake, things hadn’t been going well. Out of the 21 stops, its location is still up in the air.

Debate about the station intensified after some residents disseminated a homemade picture showing Maplewood Mall’s existing Park and Ride looming beside White Bear Lake’s downtown. Fears of overbearing parking facilities dominated the discussion, until city and county officials decided they didn’t really need parking anyway.

“We’re not seeing a big demand for that,” senior transportation planner Andy Gitzlaff said this week.

In fact, all six of the new proposed options — each at a different downtown corner — lack notable added space for parking, largely relying on existing lots and street parking.

Gitzlaff and White Bear Lake City Manager Ellen Hiniker argued that even though the station is a terminus, downtown commuters wouldn’t use it any more than the route’s other stops. Some communities that lie beyond the Rush Line’s proposed route — Hugo and Forest Lake, for instance — already have express buses to St. Paul. As does White Bear Lake.

So why do they even need the Rush Line?

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The point of the Rush Line, county officials say, is to have a high-frequency service that those without cars can use all day, not just the few times in the morning and evening that the express routes offer.

They also hope to create a high-frequency “spine,” with buses coming every 10 to 15 minutes, for other routes to connect to. That doesn’t exist in the northeast metro right now — as opposed to other places in the Twin Cities, particularly in the west metro.

$420 MILLION OR MORE FOR 8,000 DAILY RIDERS

County officials estimate an average of 8,000 people will use the system daily.

During a public meeting at White Bear Lake’s city hall this past week, a large crowd of residents perused maps for the six options. Even among the area’s top officials, there was disagreement. County Commissioner Victoria Reinhardt, who is a White Bear Lake resident, picked a spot down the road from mayor Jo Emerson’s preferred corner, while council member Doug Biehn, whose ward the stop will likely lie in, favored a third.

The Rush Line is currently estimated to cost $420 million to $475 million — half of which would have to be secured from the federal government. The other half would come from the county’s half-cent sales tax that goes toward transportation projects.

USING CURRENT FUNDING

Gitzlaff said current funding would accommodate the Rush Line, as well as the county’s portion of the Gold Line, Green Line light-rail operations, and a potential RiverView Corridor line stretching from St. Paul to the Mall of America.

The proposed 16-stop Gold Line — another rapid transit bus system that would stretch to Woodbury — is also estimated to cost $420 million. And the Gold Line will have its own individual road built for it.

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Metro Transit to resume near-normal local bus, light rail schedule, but express bus and Northstar remain clipped But so will the Rush Line — six miles of road along the Bruce Vento Trail, stretching south from Beam Avenue through St. Paul’s east side, using rail authority land which could be used by bikers as well.

When further asked about costs, a county spokesman said the Rush Line was 14 miles long versus nine for the Gold Line, required the construction of two bridges — over Interstate 694 and Minnesota 36 — and the reinforcement of U.S. 61’s shoulder.