C’mon ride the train
This weekend, I did something in Minneapolis that I’ve always wanted to do, but never got around to doing: I rode the trolley that goes between Lake Calhoun and Lake Harriet. It’s actually part of the Minnesota Streetcar Museum, and just recently reopened after being closed for construction during most of the summer. It’s in operation until the middle of November, with a Halloween themed run the last weekend in October. For two bucks, you can get on the streetcar at either end of the line, but the depot, along with most of the information is on Lake Harriet, just a little ways counter-clockwise around the lake from the Bandshell. The other end is on Lake Calhoun on the east side just south of W. 36th St.
It’s not a long trip, just back and forth, but it’s a fun little thing to do on the weekend during your walk around the lake. Cheap, too. There’s also a trolley out in Excelsior, which I’ll have to check out sometime. On the website, they talk about having a streetcar on the Midtown Greenway, which sounds pretty cool to me. Now if they could just bring one back to Nicollet. How about that, instead of having busses on Nicollet, why not have a couple of trolley cars that just go from one end of the mall to the other and back again. It sounds like a lot of people really like the fact that the busses are routed off of Nicollet in the evening hours right now, and as far as I can tell, the doom and gloom that business owners predicted didn’t occur. Wouldn’t that be a lot more pleasant, having a trolley bell every so often instead of the roar of the bus engines?
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that reminds me of something I’ve always wanted to do in Minneapolis:
take a fishing boat or a canoe through the locks by the grain belt bridge.
I do so prefer the quiet of a trolley (or even the light rail) to bus engines.
I’ve been thinking about catching the trolley. I see it go by all the time. I should go now before I forget about it.
The trolley in Excelsior is great, as you get to stop by the garage where they restore old trolleys. It’s also a heckuva lot cheaper than the Lake Harriet/Lake Calhoun one.