The principal destination of most air travelers to Saint Paul is the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport, 15 minutes from downtown Saint Paul. It is the hub of locally headquartered Northwest Airlines and is the ninth largest airport in America. Eleven commercial airlines and seven regional carriers schedule daily flights to 104 United States cities; direct international flights area also available. There are six reliever airports in the Saint Paul area.
An efficient highway system permits easy access into Saint Paul. Interstate-94 intersects the city from east to west and I-35E from north to south. I-494 and I-694 form a beltway circling the north, south, east, and west perimeters. Serving metropolitan Minneapolis-Saint Paul are seven federal and 13 state routes.
Passenger rail service to Saint Paul from Chicago and Seattle is provided by Amtrak. Bus service is by Greyhound.
Saint Paul proper has an East Side roughly east of downtown, but its West Side actually lies south of the central business district. The West Side should not be confused with West Saint Paul, which is a suburb on the south edge of town (on the west edge of South Saint Paul, another suburb). Other Saint Paul communities include Frogtown, the Historic Hill District, the Midway, Macalester-Groveland, and Highland Park.
Saint Paul's freeway system, moderate population density, and two business districts facilitate high levels of traffic mobility throughout Minneapolis-Saint Paul during both peak and non-peak hours. The average commuting time from home to workplace is twenty-one minutes. The Twin Cities' Metropolitan Council Transit Operations (MCTO), one of the largest bus transportation systems in the country, operates regularly scheduled routes in Saint Paul as well as Minneapolis and the surrounding suburbs.