For years now, state officials have been warning local officials of a change in transportation priorities.

2008: Minnesota Transportation Commissioner Tom Sorel sends his top deputy to meet with Scott County's civic leadership. That deputy, Khani Sahebjam, speaks of the need for a "difficult conversation" about what's really possible, with revenues declining and costs rising. He talks of European trips in which he saw differing ways of doing things: "managed lanes," using shoulders, "lower-cost fixes."

2009: Sorel comes to the leaders himself and announces a culture change at MnDOT: "A shift in approach in what this department is all about. We're trying hard to not be a pure highway/bridge agency" but rather shift more to transit: to "heighten those activities within the department and make them mainstream."

2010: Sorel and Peter Bell, chairman of the Metropolitan Council, summon all the counties to the University of Minnesota to say that the era of major highway expansion is over, given fiscal realities, and the era of transit and small-scale tinkering has arrived. Later in the year, they release documents showing what they meant.