Northstar’s Great Success
4th February 2026
Minnesota’s Northstar commuter train made its last run about a month ago. Planners had predicted that the train would carry 5,900 passengers a day, but in 2024 it carried only 435 per day. Collecting fares that averaged $3 per rider, its operating costs were $121 per rider.
Charles Marohn, a planning advocate over at Strong Towns, argues that, as a transportation project, Northstar was “doomed from the start.” This is because it wasn’t designed for transportation. Instead, it was aimed at getting money from the federal government.
“Northstar wasn’t a transportation project that failed,” wrote Marohn. “It was a funding project that succeeded.”
And that funding went to favored companies supplying the trains, building the tracks, and creating the other infrastructure needed for this boondoggle—and, more likely than not, into the pockets of Democrat politicians and bureaucrats (it is, after all, Minnesota).
Your politicians’ fantasies at work.