From Route 6 to Rapid Transit: The End of an Era on Hennepin

For decades, Route 6 was a fixed feature of Hennepin Avenue, carrying riders through Uptown, past the lakes and into downtown. That ended Dec. 6, 2025, when Metro Transit opened the METRO E Line and retired the 6 in favor of bus rapid transit.

Route 6 was no minor line. It was one of Metro Transit's busiest local routes, carrying about 9,000 rides on an average weekday, the kind of high-volume workhorse that does the heavy lifting of a transit system without drawing attention. That volume is why it was chosen for an upgrade; agencies do not build bus rapid transit on a route few people ride.

Bus rapid transit borrows ideas from light rail and applies them to buses: fewer stops spaced farther apart, off-board fare payment so riders are not paying one at a time at the door, level boarding, transit signal priority that keeps buses moving through intersections, and dedicated lanes. The point is to make a bus feel more like a train. Metro Transit expects the E Line to run up to 20 percent faster on average than Route 6, while coming as often as every 10 minutes for much of the day, and to provide roughly 30 percent more service overall.

Route 6 service did not vanish entirely. Metro Transit added Route 36 to cover some local stops along Hennepin and Xerxes avenues between the Uptown Transit Station and Edina that the E Line's wider station spacing skips.

For longtime riders, the retirement of the 6 carries some nostalgia. A route that stable becomes part of how people picture their city, and watching the familiar number disappear from the front of the bus is a small marker of change on a corridor that has seen plenty. But the corridor itself endures and, by most measures, improves: the E Line inherits Route 6's job and does it faster and more often, on a rebuilt avenue that reopened in October 2025 after two years of construction.