Big Lake | |||||||||||||
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General information | |||||||||||||
Location | 19691 County Road 43 Big Lake, Minnesota | ||||||||||||
Coordinates | 45°19′47″N93°43′48″W / 45.32972°N 93.73000°W | ||||||||||||
Line(s) | BNSF Staples Subdivision | ||||||||||||
Platforms | 1 side platform | ||||||||||||
Tracks | 2 (only 1 in use) | ||||||||||||
Connections | Metro Transit: 887 (Northstar Link) [1] | ||||||||||||
Construction | |||||||||||||
Parking | 518 spaces | ||||||||||||
Bicycle facilities | 6 lockers [2] | ||||||||||||
Accessible | Yes | ||||||||||||
History | |||||||||||||
Opened | November 16, 2009 | ||||||||||||
Services | |||||||||||||
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Big Lake station is a Northstar Line commuter rail station in Big Lake, Minnesota, located at 19691 County Road 43, in the southeast corner of Big Lake near U.S. Highway 10. The station features bicycle lockers and a park and ride lot with capacity for 518 vehicles. Commute time to downtown Minneapolis from this station is about 51 minutes. [3]
This station is the northbound terminus until funding for an extension to St. Cloud is secured. In the meantime, a commuter bus branded the Northstar Link (route 887) connects Big Lake with St. Cloud, stopping at the Metro Bus downtown transit center, St. Cloud State University, a commuter parking lot at Lincoln Avenue and U.S. Highway 10 and the Coffee Cup Cafe in Becker. The bus is operated by St. Cloud Metro Bus, rather than Metro Transit. [4]
The maintenance facility for the Northstar trains was built just to the south. [5]
Media related to Big Lake (Metro Transit station) at Wikimedia Commons
The Metro Blue Line is a 12-mile (19.3 km) light rail line in Hennepin County, Minnesota, that is part of the Metro network. It travels from downtown Minneapolis to Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport and the southern suburb of Bloomington. Formerly the Hiawatha Line prior to May 2013, the line was originally named after the Milwaukee Road's Hiawatha passenger train and Hiawatha Avenue, reusing infrastructure from the former and running parallel to the latter for a portion of the route. The line opened June 26, 2004, and was the first light rail service in Minnesota. An extension, Bottineau LRT, is planned to open in 2028.
The Northstar Line is a commuter rail route in the US state of Minnesota. Northstar runs 40 miles (64 km) from Big Lake to downtown Minneapolis at Target Field using existing track and right-of-way owned by the BNSF Railway. Passenger service began on November 16, 2009. The rail line serves part of the Northstar Corridor between Minneapolis and St. Cloud. Planning for the line began in 1997 when the Northstar Corridor Development Authority (NCDA) was formed. The corridor is also served by Interstate 94 and U.S. Highway 10. In 2023, the system had a ridership of 142,200, or about 400 per weekday as of the second quarter of 2024.
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Target Field station is a multimodal commuter train and light rail station in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Located in the North Loop area of Downtown Minneapolis, the station is named for Target Field, the Minnesota Twins baseball stadium. METRO Blue Line light rail service started on November 14, 2009; Northstar Line commuter rail service started November 16, 2009; METRO Green Line light rail service started on June 14, 2014.
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The Metro Orange Line is a bus rapid transit line in the Twin Cities, Minnesota operated by Metro Transit. The line operates primarily along Interstate 35W from downtown Minneapolis through Richfield and Bloomington before terminating in Burnsville, Minnesota. The Orange Line provides access to 198,000 jobs with roughly a quarter of them outside downtown Minneapolis. The route serves a mix of stations located in the center of the highway, stations near highway exits, and on-street stations. The line has features typical of bus rapid transit systems with off-board fare payment, articulated buses with extra doors, stations with improved passenger amenities, and transit-only bus lanes on portions of the route.
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