urbanMSP

The "majority of cities vote" provision is a disguised poison pill. In Hennepin County alone there are 45 cities. Anyone want to come up with a list of 23 of these who would vote for higher taxes for transit? Most of these cities don't even have transit; I count ten or eleven certain or likely.

Bloomington, Brooklyn Center, Brooklyn Park, Champlin, Corcoran, Crystal, Dayton (partial), Deephaven, Eden Prairie, Edina, Excelsior, Golden Valley, Greenfield, Greenwood, Hanover (partial), Hopkins, Independence, Long Lake, Loretto, Maple Grove, Maple Plain, Medicine Lake, Medina, Minneapolis, Minnetonka, Minnetonka Beach, Minnetrista, Mound, New Hope, Orono, Osseo, Plymouth, Richfield, Robbinsdale, Rockford (partial), Rogers, Shorewood, Spring Park, St. Anthony Village (partial), St. Bonifacius, St. Louis Park, Tonka Bay, Wayzata, Woodland

I can see Excelsior, Wayzata, Minnetonka, Champlin, Medicin Lake and St Anthony Village as likely too.

Wait. Met Council can only spend money on bus capital and operations. Period. So CTIB is the *only* entity that can spend money on rail. Met Council could not backfill in emergencies.

It would kill Midtown LRT since CTIB will never fund it.

No way.

Well, it seems like the bill is dead this year anyways.

Is it time to set up memorials for the Southwest LRT yet? Or is there a sliver of hope?

But roads get $300MM. Still a better result than passing a bad long-term bill. We have some election work to do.

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I think Met Council will scrounge the money together. If the bill had passed they wouldn't have been able to.

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4th time's the charm? 5th time's the charm?

"chances of a transportation breakthrough" fading at the state legistlature...shocking. this is such a pathetic state government.

Yay GOP

Heh, Senate (Latz) amended the bonding bill from the house to include more transit funding literally minutes before the effective end of session. So no bonding, no transportation.

Yay GOP

I blame all of them, regardless of party affiliation. They work for Minnesotans, yet only consider themselves. How long was the session and why are they waiting until the bitter end? It's ridiculous...vote out all incumbents this November and support those who actually might care about you.

How exactly is it the Democrats fault that they've been trying to compromise for months and the GOP refused to?

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I blame all of them, regardless of party affiliation. They work for Minnesotans, yet only consider themselves. How long was the session and why are they waiting until the bitter end? It's ridiculous...vote out all incumbents this November and support those who actually might care about you.

People like this, right here, are why American politics is broken.

It simply isn't honest to say that it's both parties' fault. The DFL made offer after offer throughout the entire session; the GOP stonewalled, because it believed that a looming deadline would allow it to extract even greater concessions. Why not? Thanks to people who believe things like this, the GOP knew that it would never receive more than half the blame.

Oh, I blame the DFL as well. We should have had a transportation bill in 2013. 2017 is 4 years - 4 sessions - after 2013. Botched botched botched botched.

Yeah, there's surely enough blame to go around.

However, voting all incumbents out would just get us a DFL-controlled House and GOP-controlled Senate, probably with the same results. Or even less productivity, since you'd be dumping all institutional knowledge of the processes.

I'm just thankful we didn't extend GO bonding authorization for roadbuilding projects.

Oh, I blame the DFL as well. We should have had a transportation bill in 2013. 2017 is 4 years - 4 sessions - after 2013. Botched botched botched botched.

Sure, but there's a real difference between shortsightedness and malice. The DFL can be stupid or corrupt or whatever, but at least it works in good faith. You can't say that about Daudt.

Oh, I blame the DFL as well. We should have had a transportation bill in 2013. 2017 is 4 years - 4 sessions - after 2013. Botched botched botched botched.

Sure, but there's a real difference between shortsightedness and malice. The DFL can be stupid or corrupt or whatever, but at least it works in good faith. You can't say that about Daudt.

Good faith, like last session when Bakk stripped Rebecca Otto of some of her authority and eliminated the MPCA's citizen board for opposing him in the past? There's plenty of petty backstabbing on both sides.

Reports are that Daudt and friends planned the late bonding bill and early adjournment weeks ago. The whole thing was political theater.

I can handle people that disagree with me. I cannot abide disingenuousness.

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