Terminal 1–Lindbergh station
Template:Short description Template:Use American English Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox station
Terminal 1–Lindbergh station is a light rail station on the Metro Blue Line. It is the only underground station on the Blue Line and is located Template:Convert below ground level at Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport. It is a center-platform station that is accessed by escalator or elevator. Service began at the site when the second phase of the Blue Line opened on December 4, 2004.
DesignEdit
.jpg){kind=link}
The location of this station directly below a major airport caused challenges for its designers. The tunnel and the station both had to be carefully designed to meet Federal Aviation Administration safety requirements.<ref name="NAT">Template:Cite book</ref> Passengers can access this station from the transit center in the "Hub Building", which is reached by taking the Minneapolis–St. Paul Airport Trams, a people mover from the main terminal.<ref name="MT">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Due to concerns about terrorism, the tunnels were designed to be highly blast-resistant. The underground portion was the costliest section of the entire rail project.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
This station was excavated after the two main tunnel tubes were constructed with a tunnel boring machine (though cut and cover was used near the ends of the tunnels).<ref name="NAT" /> The station box is Template:Convert high, Template:Convert wide, and approximately Template:Convert long. The station is the largest subterranean public space in Minnesota.<ref name="twin-tunnels">Template:Cite news</ref> During the excavation of the tunnels, a buried river valley was encountered a few hundred feet south of the station.
Lindbergh Station is unheated, but maintains a temperature of roughly Template:Convert year-round because of its underground location.
ServiceEdit
Airport shuttle operationEdit
Service between this station and Terminal 2–Humphrey station is free to passengers and operates 24-hours a day.<ref name="MT" /> The Blue Line is the main way for travelers to transfer between terminals.<ref name="MT" /> Along with Terminal 2-Humphrey station, the station is owned and maintained by the Metropolitan Airports Commission rather than Metro Transit.
ConnectionsEdit
From the station, there is a direct bus connection to Route 54 to Downtown Saint Paul and the Mall of America.
Public artEdit
The station contains the artwork Dragonfly by Andrea Myklebust and Stanton Sears. The artwork consists of a Template:Cvt by Template:Cvt terrazzo floor pattern of a dragonfly wing on platform complemented by an airfoil wing suspended from the ceiling. The artwork is owned and maintained by the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport. Myklebust and Sears have several other terrazzo floor artworks at the airport.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The walls of the station are fabricated to look like an outcrop of Saint Peter Sandstone through which the tunnels have been bored.