Nearly 12,000 rides from Newport Transit Station to state fair

Home News Nearly 12,000 rides from Newport Transit Station to state fair

Nearly 12,000 rides from Newport Transit Station to state fair

Metro Transit officials report that 11,833 transit riders used the Newport Transit Station Park and Ride lot as a state fair park and ride this year. Red Rock Corridor park and rides in Newport and Cottage Grove provided a combined 41,000 rides to the fair!

This is the first year that the transit station was used as a fair park and ride. Preliminary numbers show that overall transit ridership to the fair increased 8.2 percent from last year.

The Newport Transit Station is part of the Red Rock Corridor, a proposed 30-mile transitway, connecting the Twin Cities’ southeastern suburbs to St. Paul and Minneapolis. The transitway will originate in Hastings and stop in Cottage Grove, Newport, and St. Paul’s Battle Creek neighborhood before connecting to the St. Paul Union Depot. Riders may access many destinations from the Depot using other transit service like express buses, local buses, and the Metro Green Line.

“Developing awareness of the corridor will be key to growing ridership in the Red Rock Corridor in the future,” said Washington County Commissioner Karla Bigham, District 4. “With such a large use of the transit station to connect with the express buses to the State Fair, more and more residents of the southeast metro are getting an introduction to their future transit options.”