The Blue Line Extension Project Decision Board held a meeting Wednesday, where the possibility of an early construction package at the line's interchange with the existing system was discussed. The goal is to minimize interference with the Green Line Extension.
Some things to note:
- the $32M proposed cut represents about 2% of the Met Council's $1.6B 2025 budget
- the amount is about 3% of the Council's transportation budget
- Council estimates collecting $473M in sales tax revenue in 2025
- in 2023, fare revenue was $54M
My thought on this: if the state is going to be out of the picture on funding transit, it should be out of the picture on governing it as well. Metro-area residents will pay for the entire system, and that means they should control it.
Governor Walz has released his budget recommendations for the next biennium. Here are some notes on transportation parts:
The governor recommends that MnDOT be loaned an unspecified amount from the Met Council's transit sales tax, in order to fund the F Line BRT project.
The Governor also recommends that the pilot of free regular-route transit fares for Metro Mobility customers be made permanent. The pilot expired at the end of the year, and the Council, lacking legal authority to discontinue fares, instead made them 1 cent for eligible customers
Finally, the Governor recommends slashing $32 million yearly from the state's appropriation to the Met Council. The Council uses this money to pay for transitway (light rail and Northstar) operations. The Governor suggests that the Council use reserves and sales tax money instead
wpb003 retweeted
The Amtrak Borealis line just got $38 million in federal funding to continue running from Saint Paul to Chicago.
Grateful to Amtrak, our neighboring states, and the Biden-Harris Administration for their partnership in making travel safer and more reliable across our region 🚄
For my ride back to Rosedale, I tried something. Roseville is already covered by a fixed-route transit network. I wanted to see if the micro app would tell me to take the nearby Route 227, rather than get a duplicate microtransit ride. And... It did not. Room for improvement!
A new transit option is launching today in some Twin Cities suburbs: Metro micro! Two new zones will serve Roseville/Arden Hills and Woodbury, in addition to the existing North Minneapolis area. Let's try it out!
metrotransit.org/micro
What I hope is that it will be a meaningful last-mile extension to transit, which promotes the usage of the existing system.














