DTA prepares June 7 bus route changes for Duluth roadwork season

Workers headed to downtown Duluth, students bound for the University of Minnesota Duluth and older riders who depend on fixed-route buses will see the sharpest disruption when the Duluth Transit Authority shifts four routes on June 7.

The DTA said the changes will affect the Blue Line, Route 103, Route 112 and Route 211, with the biggest construction-driven detours on the Blue Line and Route 103. The Blue Line will end on the East Side at 24th Ave. E and Superior St. during the summer detour period, and service to UMD will be paused for the season. Riders going to campus will be directed to Routes 103, 104, 105, 106 and 112 instead.

On the west side of Duluth, the Blue Line will detour around 40th and Grand for the duration of the summer. That matters for riders making daily connections between neighborhoods, job sites and appointments, because the route changes will likely add walking, waiting and transfer time to trips that already depend on tight schedules.

Route 103 will also be reworked. The DTA said it will not serve Morely Heights and will instead provide service on Snively Rd. The route will also express using I-35 between downtown and 40th Avenue West in a pattern similar to Route 109, a shift meant to keep buses moving through the roadwork season.

The agency’s June 7 service-change summary also lists Routes 112 and 211, but the publicly posted details describe those as timing adjustments rather than major detours. For riders who use those lines to connect into the rest of the system, the changes still could affect whether a bus reaches a transfer point on time.

The June 7 update comes on top of broader system changes. The DTA posted a reminder that all schedules changed on June 1 as part of a service-improvement initiative, and said the biggest June 1 shifts involved the Blue Line, Green Line, 103, 104, 110 and 111. The agency has said its redesign was completed in 2021 and took effect in June 2023, changing every route and schedule to create a less complex and more reliable network.

The DTA serves Duluth, Superior, Proctor and Hermantown and says it carries about 10,000 riders a day. With summer roadwork piling up across Duluth, the coming detours will shape how thousands of people get to work, school and medical appointments.