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[KevinKorell]

Minnesota Post, Minneapolis, MN, 10/4/16:

Can the Twin Cities build two light rail projects at once?

For years, people in the Twin Cities debated and debated whether the region should build two additional light rail transit lines.

Now, thanks to two recent milestones, a different question has emerged: Not whether they should be built. But whether they can be built.

Blog story

[CNJRoss]

Pioneer Press, St. Paul, MN 1/22:
 

They levy $120M a year for transit — and now might disband

 

 

An influential but little-known metro-county coalition that raises $120 million annually for public transit voted last week to take preliminary steps toward disbanding.

 

Doing so would allow members of the Counties Transit Improvement Board to levy more local taxes for transit, allow each the flexibility to jump-start projects and depend less on the Legislature for funding.

 

Members of CTIB say state lawmakers have been in no rush to foot 10 percent of project costs for the proposed Gold Line from downtown St. Paul to Woodbury, the Bottineau Line from downtown Minneapolis to Brooklyn Park, or the Southwest Line from downtown Minneapolis to Eden Prairie.

 

“For line after line after line, the single biggest impediment to moving forward is the state’s 10 percent share,” said board chair Peter McLaughlin, who is also a Hennepin County commissioner. “That’s what’s holding up the Gold Line. That’s what’s holding up the Bottineau Line. We as counties are going to step forward, and as individual counties are going to pick up the state’s 10 percent share, as well as CTIB’s 30 percent share.”

 

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