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New transport funding rules have Dakota County on edge

Commissioners fearful that transportation money will be rerouted into the urban core.

By Jessie Van Berkel

November 21, 2014 at 11:34PM

Cedar Grove Transit Station, 4035 Nicols Road in Eagan, is part of the new fast busway infrastructure in the county. (The Minnesota Star Tribune)

A new set of rules for how local entities apply for federal transportation funding has Dakota County officials exasperated and fearful they will lose out on a critical cash source.

The Metropolitan Council and its Transportation Advisory Board spent the past two years overhauling the process of applying for funds to make it streamlined and simplified. But county commissioners say that it seems the new method will channel federal money into the urban core.

"I don't see where the suburbs will get anything, much of anything, because of the new ranking system," Commissioner Liz Workman said.

County officials are applying for funding for 14 projects, including road expansions, reconstructions and installation of traffic management systems for signals. The county also is hoping to receive money to expand greenways and trails.

For now, the commissioners' concerns about geographic disparities in which projects get funding are unproven.

The board will not learn until next summer what projects received support through the new process. Then they will be able to compare how they fared under the old system, which county staff said was working well for them.

Members of the Counties Transit Improvement Board (CTIB), which uses taxes on metro counties to support major transit projects, also expressed concerns with the new process last week.

"I'd say this is definitely not intended to direct where CTIB spends its money," said Cole Hiniker, a Met Council senior planner who presented to the board on the topic, and left with a long list of critiques and questions.

Hiniker said the council is trying to balance many competing interests for funding.

The Transportation Advisory Board, which includes representatives from metro counties, recommends which projects it wants funded. The Met Council can say yes or no to the recommendations as a whole, but cannot pick and choose from them, Met Council spokeswoman Bonnie Kollodge noted.

While regional balance has never been a criteria in the process, the board has and will continue to consider it, Kollodge wrote in an email.

Bus plan rankles county

Dakota County officials also attacked the Met Council's long-range bus service improvement plan last week, saying it, too, favors the urban core and focused investment in areas already well-served by buses and regional transit.

"It's very limited in what they're looking at, and if that's all they want to do until 2030 it doesn't feel like they're representing the real needs of the metro," Commissioner Kathleen Gaylord said.

Density of development and connections to common destinations are among the factors that determine whether a bus route is successful, Kollodge said. As Dakota County grows, the Met Council will continue to work with the local transit authority "to strengthen the local land development and transit service it provides," she said.

Resentment of the Met Council has become a common theme at county discussions. Tuesday's committee meeting, where Workman accused the council of "running amok," was no exception.

Commissioners were going to send a letter to the Met Council with numerous critiques of the bus plan, but decided to hold off and make the language bolder in opposition to numerous parts of it.

Some pieces of plan that county officials wanted altered:

• A bus plan was created separately from a regional transit plan, which county staff said would leave gaps in service.

• It does not account for planned growth in the region.

• Met Council members did not have enough public participation during creation of the plan.

This will be the fourth letter the county government has sent to the Met Council admonishing parts of a plan. The board also critiqued plans for housing, parks and transportation.

Jessie Van Berkel • 952-746-3280

about the writer

Jessie Van Berkel

Reporter

Jessie Van Berkel is the Star Tribune’s social services reporter. She writes about Minnesota’s most vulnerable populations and the systems and policies that affect them. Topics she covers include disability services, mental health, addiction, poverty, elder care and child protection.