Minnesota lawmakers are considering billions in transportation funding. What's in it for transit riders?

[MUSIC PLAYING] CATHY WURZER: Also at the Capitol today, lawmakers from the House and Senate will be meeting this afternoon to resolve differences in another pair of big spending bills. Those bills increase funding for roads, bridges, and transit across the state. Both bills would also create a new program to address safety concerns on buses and light rail lines in the metro area, and they would also allocate funding for a passenger train between Duluth and the Twin Cities.

Sam Rockwell has been watching all of this. He's the Executive Director of the transportation advocacy group Move Minnesota, and Sam's on the line. Welcome to the program.

SAM ROCKWELL: Thanks a lot, Cathy. I'm really glad to be here.

CATHY WURZER: So many lawmakers, Sam, would agree that there are tremendous unmet needs in all transportation sectors of the state. And these omnibus transportation bills, these big funding bills, would dedicate billions of dollars to addressing those needs, money going to all modes of transportation, all parts of Minnesota. What's your opinion on what you're seeing in these measures?

SAM ROCKWELL: I think this year at the legislature is the most exciting year for transportation that we've seen in a long, long time. Move Minnesota, where I work, is really focused on transit and active transportation, but we want to see a full transportation system that works for everybody. And we're seeing dedication from both the House and the Senate to get something done to get real funding for a visionary transit system for a transformed transportation system across the state that will increase access and benefit our climate and help create more equitable communities. So I think it's a really, really exciting time to be working at the legislature.

CATHY WURZER: All kinds of different measures in these bills, as you mentioned. There's the Northern Lights Express passenger train between Duluth and Minneapolis. There's funding for bike lanes, transit systems. I see some money for electric vehicle infrastructure. Can you give us a sense as to-- it's a lot of money being spent, but is it enough?

SAM ROCKWELL: That's a good question. I think we have had, for years, not enough money going into the system, and particularly in transit and biking and walking investments, and then also into some of that clean energy transition pieces.

So I think that this year, if we can get over the finish line with the higher funding amounts that are proposed in the House bill for transit, and if we can help close the deal on this new delivery fee, which is important to help make sure that we are able to fill our potholes and fix our roads and bridges because that delivery fee is going to take the place of some of the gas revenues that are coming down because of electrification which we need to do, if we can get all that over the finish line, we're actually looking in really good-- we're in a really good situation, which is-- again, it's not often you can say that when you're talking about funding bills at the legislature, but this is a big year.

CATHY WURZER: Boy, that delivery fee rankles people though. It's a $0.75 fee for retail deliveries, Amazon, the pizza delivery guy. That's in the House version of the bill but not the Senate's.

So I wonder, if it doesn't make it in the overall omnibus bill, what about funding? You mentioned the gas tax. That's the workhorse of the system. That is forecasted to decline. Past efforts to increase or index the gas tax have consistently failed. I don't know, where do you look for money then?

SAM ROCKWELL: Well, that's a good question. And you're getting me a little bit out of my depth here since a lot of our focus is on transit funding, and we're supporting our labor allies and roads and bridges repair folks. But I'm less qualified to answer that.

I think indexing the gas tax is something that's always on the table, although it hasn't gotten any traction in past years. I know that the federal administration in the IIJA, the federal bipartisan infrastructure law, has floated some money for vehicle miles traveled tax pilot program. So there's a lot of creative ideas out there.

CATHY WURZER: Now, your organization's advocating for changes to the bus systems in the metro area, I believe, including things like microtransit services. Can you explain what those are?

SAM ROCKWELL: Yeah, microtransit services are sort of a non-traditional full bus or full train, but it's a service that acts a little bit more like people think of a taxi or an Uber or Lyft being able to take people from door to door in places where that fixed route transit, the traditional transit we think of, just doesn't work as well because of how distribution of land uses are, and how densities are, and so forth.

CATHY WURZER: And under any of these bills that we're talking about, House or Senate versions, any money to expand microtransit?

SAM ROCKWELL: Well, there's a lot of money going towards transit in both the House and the Senate bills. And that's through a metro area sales tax that would dedicate long-term money to transit. And that money would be available for microtransit, although it's not specifically dedicated. But it would be available for funding for trains and bus rapid transit and local route buses and microtransit, suburban transit, and urban transit.

So that's really there as a full pot to support all of the metro area transit systems. And then there are some pools of money also from the motor vehicle sales tax that would be increasing funding to greater Minnesota transit systems as well. Again, I don't believe there's money specifically earmarked to microtransit, although I could be wrong on that, but microtransit is a viable use of those funds.

CATHY WURZER: Of course, and as you say, under the umbrella of transit services just basically. I'm wondering, let's talk about transit for just a moment, if you could, and safety. I mean, that seems to be such a big concern this year after several incidents of violence at light rail stops in the Twin Cities. What do you think of some of the safety aspects of these two bills?

SAM ROCKWELL: I think there's some really exciting ideas in these bills. And so we're really excited to support them. I think, first off, when we're thinking about safety on transit, there are safety issues on transit, but those are a reflection of safety issues and social issues across our society. And so when we think about how we're addressing transit, we need to be thinking about how we're addressing homelessness and social services and everything across our full society.

And those issues tend to concentrate on transit because transit's one of the few public spaces still available. And it's a public space, particularly in the winter, that's available, that's warm. So some of the measures in the House and the Senate bills take that into account.

There's a proposal for a new, what they call Transit Rider Investment Program, which we have advocated for a number of years and called it transit ambassadors, to create a new class of employee within Metro Transit who will be on the buses, on the trains, there to provide direction for folks to social service resources, to housing resources.

They can do some fare checks with new fare decriminalization, which is really important for justice throughout our criminal justice system. And so that's, I think, a really exciting way of thinking about how we create a new welcoming transit environment where there's an official presence. It's not an official presence with a gun that creates a threatening atmosphere for some, but it's somebody who's there to help, there to be of assistance to transit riders.

CATHY WURZER: OK. So it sounds as if, all in all as you look at these bills, you're pretty pleased.

SAM ROCKWELL: We are pretty pleased. It's really exciting to have a significantly more functional transit system. It's really important for our climate. It's important for increasing access across the metro, for bringing down transportation costs for families. So we're really, really excited for this session to come out with a strong finish.

CATHY WURZER: All right. Sam Rockwell, thanks for joining us.

SAM ROCKWELL: Cathy, thank you so, so much for having me.

CATHY WURZER: Sam Rockwell is executive director of Move Minnesota. That's an advocacy group focused on transportation.