Agenda - Council - 01/24/2017 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Transportation In the interest of safety and traffic management, Metro Cities supports further study of rail safety issues relating to water quality protections, general public safety concerns relating to derailments, traffic implications from longer and more frequent trains and the sensitive balance between rail commerce and the quality of life impacts on the communities through which they pass. 5-C Transit Financing The Twin Cities metropolitan area is served by a regional transit system that is expanding to include rail transit and dedicated busways. Any operating subsidies necessary to support this system should come from a regional or statewide funding source. The property taxpayers of individual cities and counties should not be required to fund the operation of specific transit lines or routes of service within this regional system. MVST revenue projections have not been reliable and the Legislature has repeatedly reduced general fund support for Metropolitan Transit. As a result, the regional transit providers continue to operate at a funding deficit. Shifting demographics in the metropolitan region will mean increased demand for transit in areas with and without current transit service. Metro Cities supports stable and growing revenue sources to fund the operating budget for all regional transit providers at a level sufficient to meet the growing operational and capital transit needs of the region and to expand the system to areas that currently have little or no transit options. Metro Cities supports an increase in the regional sales tax to fund the expansion of regular route service, the continuing capital expenses and expanded operational needs of the metropolitan transit system if the increase is accompanied by sufficient local controls over the collection and expenditure of the new revenue and geographic balance is maintained in the expansion of service to allow cities to appropriately plan for growth in population and service needs along new and expanded transit service. Metro Cities opposes diversions of the uses of this tax for any other purposes. Metro Cities opposes using the currently dedicated Metropolitan Transportation Area Sales Tax proceeds to further subsidize operational funding for Metro Transit and suburban transit providers that are the responsibility of the Legislature and Metropolitan Council. Any increase to the sales tax already dedicated to transit should be used to benefit the transit system as a whole. 5-D Street Improvement Districts Funding sources for local transportation projects are limited to the use of Municipal State Aid (MSA), property taxes and special assessments. In addition, cities under 5,000 in population are not eligible for MSA. With increasing pressures on city budgets and 2017 Legislative Policies 53