Getting around East Hillside, Duluth, Minnesota
Part of the East Hillside neighborhood guide. Back to the full guide.
The rule for East Hillside is the same as for the rest of the Hillside and it is worth internalising before you tour: move along the contour, not up it.
By car this is a short-commute neighborhood. Downtown is about six minutes, Miller Hill about nine, the airport thirteen and Superior fourteen. East Superior Street and London Road run along the bottom, East 4th and East 6th Street run across the middle, and Skyline Parkway runs along the top. The numbered avenues connect them and are the part that suffers in winter.
By bus, service is genuinely usable. The 104 runs the East 4th Street local and the 105 the East 9th Street local, both cross-slope through the neighborhood; the 103 runs Superior Street at the foot, all the way from New Duluth through downtown to Lakeside and UMD; and the 112 serves Woodland and UMD (DTA routes and schedules, accessed 2026-08-14). Everything connects at the downtown transit hub about a mile southwest, where the rest of the system converges.
On foot, the cross-slope streets do the work. The co-op, the school, the bakery and the bus are all reachable on the level from most of the neighborhood. Downtown, the Rose Garden and the Lakewalk are downhill and easy going out, and a climb coming home.
On a bike, the same asymmetry with a bigger payoff: level cross-slope riding, a flat car-free Lakewalk at the bottom, and the Traverse and the Superior Hiking Trail at the top of the street.
Winter driving is hard but not quite Central Hillside hard, mostly because more of the daily movement here happens on the contour. The cross-slope streets get plowed early. The numbered avenues ice in freeze-thaw cycles, are narrow with cars parked both sides, and climb the full height of the hill. Duluth averages about 90 inches of snow a season on the 1991 to 2020 normals (NWS Duluth, accessed 2026-08-14). Winter tires are a requirement rather than an upgrade, and off-street parking is worth paying real money for.
Major roads: East Superior Street, London Road, East 4th Street, East 6th Street, Skyline Parkway, Central Entrance, Interstate 35 below the neighborhood.
DTA bus routes: 103, 104, 105, 112. Routes and timetables change, so confirm with the DTA.
Biking: The same two-axis story as the rest of the Hillside: cross-slope is genuinely pleasant and up-slope is a serious climb. East 4th and East 6th Street connect the neighborhood east and west without altitude, the Lakewalk is flat and car-free once you get down to it, and the Superior Hiking Trail and Duluth Traverse are at the top of the street. For anyone who rides trails rather than commutes, this is one of the best addresses in the city.
The hill: The full Duluth hillside in one neighborhood. Measured points run about 602 feet at London Road by Leif Erikson Park, 670 at East Superior Street, 838 at East Sixth, 962 at the elementary school on North Eighth Avenue East, and about 1,137 at Skyline Parkway above, so it climbs roughly 535 feet from the lake to the ridge. That is why the cross-slope streets (Third, Fourth, Sixth and Eighth) are the ones people actually use and the numbered avenues are the ones that hurt. The lower blocks near Superior Street and London Road are close to lake level and get lake fog; the upper blocks near Skyline get the view and the wind. Elevations measured against the USGS Elevation Point Query Service at geocoded addresses, 2026-08-14.
Getting around next door
West across Sixth or Seventh Avenue East, the other half of the Hillside: denser, cheaper, closer to downtown and the hospitals, and noisier.
Chester ParkEast across Chester Creek, the university-side hillside neighborhood with a much higher owner-occupancy share and higher prices.
East End / EndionBelow and east along the lake, historic housing with lake views at meaningfully higher prices.
Downtown DuluthAbout a mile downhill southwest, with the transit hub, the library, the theaters and most of the region's restaurants.
Congdon ParkEast along the hill, the city's benchmark historic neighborhood, at roughly three times the price.