New or expanded bus routes soon will travel along Lexington Parkway and Dale Street and up to Grand Avenue. A new bike boulevard will shadow University Avenue, albeit two blocks north.

Add to that the new Amtrak platform at the downtown Union Depot, a low-floor, limited-stop bus along Snelling Avenue and a possible streetcar on West Seventh Street, and it’s clear that the face of public transit in St. Paul is about to change.

“This is about a multi-modal transit system,” said Ramsey County Commissioner Rafael Ortega, chairman of the Ramsey County Regional Railroad Authority. “Regardless of what line you’re talking about, you’re always going to realign your bus service to bring people to that transit corridor.”

With the Metropolitan Council planning to announce this week the official debut date of the Central Corridor light-rail line, transit advocates are envisioning a series of transportation links to feed into or off of the new line.

The goal is a more efficient transit system that benefits neighborhood residents as much as people who live or work directly along the light-rail line. From bike paths to streetcars and bus rapid-transit corridors, some ideas are coming together much faster than others.

The Met Council will reveal the long-awaited start date of the Central Corridor line, or Green Line, on Wednesday, and test trains are now a regular occurrence along the $957 million, 11-mile light-rail route between downtown St. Paul and downtown Minneapolis.

Among the future changes:

BUS ROUTES

The first transit changes inspired by the new Green Line will be revisions to the existing Metro Transit bus system. Once trains start rolling, a new Route 83 mini-bus would travel up and down Lexington Parkway, filling the two-mile gap in bus service between Dale Street and Snelling Avenue.

The new route would start along West Seventh Street at Montreal Avenue and mostly serve Lexington and Hamline Avenue to loop around the HarMar shopping area via Lexington and Larpenteur avenues.

With added frequency, a revised Route 65 will provide crosstown service along Dale Street and County Road B between the Rosedale Transit Center and a new stop: Grand Avenue. The 65 will no longer go into downtown St. Paul but will instead extend to Grand Avenue and connect to trains at the Dale Street station.

Meanwhile, while several other existing bus services will add more evening and weekend trips, some routes that shadow the corridor would be canceled or trimmed. Route 50, a limited-stop bus service that travels along University Avenue between downtowns, would disappear.

Route 94, which follows the interstate between downtowns, would no longer offer weekend or weekday evening trips, and Route 16 would run with reduced frequency along University Avenue. Except for late-night trips, Route 16 no longer would go all the way to downtown Minneapolis but instead would terminate at Oak Street on the east bank of the University of Minnesota.

More information about likely bus route changes are metrotransit.org/recommended-plan.aspx.

SNELLING AVENUE BRT

Metro Transit plans to unveil a bus rapid-transit route along Snelling Avenue and Ford Parkway in 2015, offering faster service than the existing bus line.

The state bonding proposal unveiled by Gov. Mark Dayton last week would direct $10 million to buy buses and build stations and shelters, as well as signal systems, for the 10-mile line. The limited-stop route would connect Roseville, Falcon Heights, St. Paul and Minneapolis. Stations will feature real-time information, heating, ticket vending and security cameras.

The $25 million bus rapid-transit line will run as frequently as the light rail and travel 25 percent faster than the existing local bus service, shaving about 12 minutes off an end-to-end trip. Construction is on track to begin in late 2014, with a projected start-date in late 2015. More information is metrotransit.org/snelling-brt.

AMTRAK

In November, the Ramsey County Board approved a 20-year lease with Amtrak to run passenger-rail service through the Union Depot in downtown St. Paul. Amtrak’s twice-daily Empire Builder was expected to begin service to the Depot more than a year ago, but those plans were delayed by longer-than-expected coordination with three freight rail providers and the federal government over signal systems, a stub track and scheduling.

Amtrak leases space on the freight tracks to get between Seattle, Portland and Chicago. It’s still not clear when Amtrak will abandon the existing Midway Station on Transfer Road and pull into the Union Depot, but the lease calls for service to begin in the first quarter of 2014.

“What I can tell you is we will be making an announcement the week of Jan. 27 on Amtrak,” said Deborah Carter McCoy, a spokeswoman for the Ramsey County Regional Railroad Authority.

SEVENTH STREET STREETCAR

City officials are considering a streetcar line that would run from Arcade Street in Dayton’s Bluff and down four miles of West Seventh Street to Randolph Avenue.

The price tag — $246 million to build, along with an $8 million annual operating cost — has given even some transit enthusiasts pause. In July, the Met Council put both Minneapolis and St. Paul on notice that the council prefers to fund new lines along corridors with proven bus ridership rather than explore new routes out of a general hope for economic development.

St. Paul City Council Member Dave Thune sees the streetcar line as a boost for new construction along West Seventh and the first half of a possible new connection from downtown St. Paul to the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

Less elaborate than light rail, streetcars can operate in normal traffic or their own right-of-way and typically stop at everyday bus stops rather than larger transit stations, making them cheaper to maintain. Advocates remain hopeful that streetcars can be added to additional routes in the future.

The St. Paul Planning Commission will host a hearing at 8:30 a.m. Friday in Room 40 of St. Paul City Hall, 15 W. Kellogg Boulevard.

SOUTHWEST LINE

Met Council officials have long envisioned that the Green Line would roll out from downtown St. Paul, through downtown Minneapolis and off into the southwest metro, creating a seamless connection to Eden Prairie.

That vision has gotten bogged down by pushback from residents in both Minneapolis and St. Louis Park worried about how freight traffic might be affected or rerouted.

The 15.8-mile Southwest Line would cost roughly $1.25 billion, making it the most expensive public works project in the state’s history. The Met Council awarded contracts in late 2012 to two firms to begin preliminary engineering; the first 30 percent of the design should take less than two years to draw up.

BIKE PATHS

After years of study, St. Paul plans to unveil a new network of bike paths and bike-friendly amenities that could roll out over the next 20 to 30 years.

An aspect of the plan already public are “bike boulevards,” such as the facilities being constructed along Charles Avenue, Griggs Street and Jefferson Parkway. Built along lengthy crosstown residential streets with low traffic volumes, the boulevards do not create exclusive bike lanes, but signage and street markings still remind drivers to share the road. Medians, traffic circles, and other amenities discourage cars from using the bike boulevards as alternatives to University Avenue and other busy arterial roads.

Frederick Melo can be reached at 651-228-2172. Follow him at twitter.com/FrederickMelo.