Metro Transit’s Network Now plan is a great step forward. Current and future riders want what Network Now will provide including improved frequency, better amenities and more service on evenings and weekends. These are essential to increasing ridership.
The plan also appropriately adapts to changes in demand caused by the pandemic. The proposed redeployment of resources from peak hour service for downtown commuters to all day service makes sense. Better service on key commercial corridors will help encourage transit oriented development (TOD), particularly in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, where local leaders have legalized denser housing. This will further increase ridership over the long term.
For many years, Sierra Club North Star Chapter was one of the leading partner organizations pushing hard for the State Legislature to pass the sales tax for transit which we finally won in 2023. That dedicated funding is essential. But serving current riders better while also planning for future riders requires both listening and vision. Thank you for taking this first crucial step.
What’s next?
Picking the right corridors for the right frequencies and allocating resources accordingly must be thought of as a beginning and not an end. How to design key transit corridors and what to put on them is the next big step. Should we be satisfied by the base level of arterial BRT and replicate that everywhere? Is that the best we can do on all the identified corridors? Or should we pick key corridors where we aim higher to demonstrate just how great Bus Rapid Transit can be?
The lesson of Hiawatha LRT (now METRO Blue Line) is that one successful project changes the whole debate. By building that project, we showed what is possible with rail. METRO Green Line, the extensions of both Green and Blue lines, and all the resulting growth of housing would not have been possible if we did not have the vision to aim higher. If Bus Rapid Transit can truly be “like LRT, but on rubber tires,” let’s demonstrate that by working with other partners (including Hennepin and Ramsey) on transformation of key corridors around transit.
In our experience, this region has used two different transit planning processes: one for rail and one for arterial BRT. The LRT planning process assumes that LRT is important and that LRT is something we make way for. For example, we assume LRT needs 24/7 dedicated bus-only lanes in both directions and so we must redesign and reconstruct streets completely to provide those dedicated lanes.
By contrast, at least until today, the aBRT planning processes have all been initiated with “Metro Transit doesn’t have any money” assumptions. The assumption is that we don’t make way for BRT and that 24/7 dedicated lanes in both directions are not the default, in part because that may require street investments which we did not have money for. But both state and federal transportation bills changed these assumptions for both transit and road money.
The past approach might be fine for the design of most corridors including some completed projects where the tradeoffs required to get dedicated lanes are not desirable, (C line and D Line are fantastic!). But there are streets where we clearly do have the space for 24/7 dedicated lanes in both directions, maybe even to follow the NACTO design guide. On some corridors, like Central Ave NE and West Seventh, “no money” assumptions could result in huge missed opportunities.
In addition to dedicated bus-only lanes we should be looking at center running transit, “roll on, roll off” level boarding for people with disabilities and full electrification with overheard wires or other forms of in motion charging (IMC). In short, we should be looking for corridors that could be like University Ave, but on rubber tires and with three auto lanes instead of five. Considering the huge success of Green Line LRT on ridership, access, catalyzing housing development and reducing emissions, it is baffling that we are not trying to replicate that success but without the cost of rail.
How Transit Serves Our Goals
Met Council will not be able to do its part to meet Minnesota’s goals on reducing emissions, addressing inequality, or increasing housing supply and affordability if Metro Transit doesn’t proceed with this level of vision. But if it does, Met Council and Metro Transit will have a lot of allies.
Some of the same organizations (Sierra Club, Move MN, ISAIAH and others) who fought so hard for increased transit funding are now working with housing groups to push for land use reforms to allow for more housing near transit. We want to pass policies to ensure we get the greatest possible benefits for transit investments. We also want to ensure that the “climate impacts of highways” law works as intended. This requires us all to break down silos between land use and transportation.
There’s an old “chicken or egg” debate about whether transportation investments drive land use or land use policy drives transportation. We’ve seen this legitimate debate misused often as an excuse for inaction on one while waiting for change from the other. Thanks to victories at the legislature, using this debate as an excuse is now giving way to recognition that the answer is both and we must reform both. We must do so simultaneously and with urgency. MNDOT leadership recognizes this.
Our proposed policies include: relaxing or ending parking mandates, legalizing multifamily housing near transit, legalizing “missing middle” housing (this fourplexes, triplexes, duplexes and accessory dwelling units, legalizing point access blocks (sometimes called “single stair” building design) and tax laws to incentivize better uses of land such as turning surface parking lots into needed housing.
Climate
Land use reforms are an essential component of climate action because current, pro-sprawl policies are damaging to the climate in multiple, significant ways. First, since undeveloped and natural lands sequester carbon and provide habitat, destroying more and more of those lands year after year at the perimeter of the metropolitan area is hugely detrimental.
We also know that new development at the fringe is the most inefficient and polluting. The #1 source of climate emissions from Minnesota – and the nation – is transportation. Our land use policies force more people to be dependent on car travel and also to drive longer and longer distances. Decades of studies show that how our region grows makes a huge impact on how much they pollute.
Racial and Economic Equity
Across the nation, land use policies have perpetuated racial discrimination. This has been well documented by many including Richard Rothstein in “The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America.” Minnesota is not immune, either historically or today. Success in land use reform could be transformative for climate, and also for housing affordability and racial and economic justice by dismantling biases in policies that assume there is one “right” way to travel (in a single occupancy vehicle which you own) and one “right” way to live (in a single family home which you own). These assumptions leave out many, many Minnesotans who can’t (or don’t want to) drive and can’t (or don’t want to) own a single family home.
Land use reforms have passed in both red and blue states and have also garnered bipartisan support here in Minnesota. Conservative, market-oriented reformers recognize that it is the overuse of government regulations (in this case zoning and other controls) that is reducing housing supply and increasing housing costs.
We invite Met Council and Metro Transit to join in this bipartisan effort. This could happen directly through your recommendations to the Governor. But even if the Met Council does not want to advocate for land use reforms at the Capitol, Metro Transit and the Met Council should want to make their own decisions to ensure Minnesotans get the greatest possible benefits for transit investments. That requires us to not settle for the base level of BRT but to have a long term vision, to work with partners and allies, to coordinate road and transit funding streams and to truly transform corridors around all our shared goals.