ABOVE: A Prairie Lakes Transit bus pulls up to drop people off and pick them up as needed at Mayo Clinic in Fairmont. Prairie Lakes Transit and its routes were recently added to MnDOT’s transit planning website, which aims to be a one-stop interactive map for people to plan public transit needs wherever they are.

FAIRMONT – A project by MnDOT to make information on public transit across Minnesota more readily available has now added Prairie Lakes Transit to its map and database.

This information is made more readily available via a map, located at mntransitplanner.com. You can enter a starting point and a destination, and a route will be shown based on the map’s knowledge of public transit systems. MnDOT Public Affairs Coordinator Joseph Palmersheim said the idea is to expand coverage for public transportation over as much of Greater Minnesota as possible.

“I think this is a big step toward having transit options be available, easily found, for all of Minnesota,” he said. “Like I said earlier, it’s really about increasing the visibility for these different agencies. Trying to provide more useful information for people who live all over the state who may want to use these services and either don’t know these services are provided, or how they can use it in in an accessible way.”

Currently, 13 organizations have had their public transit maps added to this service, but Palmersheim said it is an ongoing process.

“The goal is to try to get as many as we can across the state,” he said. “It is a voluntary thing. It’s not mandatory. We trust our transit partners to do what works best for them.”

By having this resource, Palmersheim said it gets to the root of what transit is about.

“Transit is about giving people options,” he said. “There are people [where] driving a car isn’t an option. They still have to get to the store, go to medical appointments, do the things we all take for granted in making modern life possible. Equipping people with the information about what is available and how they can access it and plan ahead, that empowers transit users to use the services available in their area.”

Prairie Lakes Transit Director Jeremy Monahan has been aware of the project since it was a pilot program in 2023. The work to add Prairie Lakes had been ongoing for a while.

“In the last year, there was a [MnDOT] consultant working with us, shoring up our data to make sure the data they had for us was accurate,” Monahan said. “They were basically looking at our website, seeing our route maps and understanding what our system had available in terms of service. They wanted to know about timing and stuff like that. They have detailed ways of working with very complex geocoding.”

Besides the electric bus program, which Prairie Lakes Transit is in the process of finalizing, Monahan said this is the first time they’ve worked with MnDOT on a program this new. He hopes the program can bring benefits to the Fairmont area for citizens and tourists.

“I think it can have benefits,” he said. “Obviously, the more information about our system out there, the better. The more ways people can find us, the better. It just needs to be accurate.”

While trips can be planned on the MnDOT transit map, for now, riders will still need to call Prairie Lakes Transit to purchase riding tokens or reserve a trip in advance.

For more information on the MnDOT transit map, visit mntransitplanner.com. For more information or to inquire about Fairmont area transit, call Prairie Lakes Transit at 507-235-5558.