Tag Archives: met council

Legislative Auditor: To Improve Transit Governance, Met Council Should Have Elected And Appointed Members

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The Legislative Auditor has released a report, Governance of Transit in the Twin Cities Region, that recommends the Metropolitan Council be restructured to include both appointed members and local elected officials serving staggered terms. According to the report, local electeds would provide accountability, while staggered terms would provide institutional knowledge and “stability in strategic vision”.

Having a combination of local elected and appointed officials would provide the Council with an effective mix of regional and local perspectives. Additionally, having local elected officials on the Council would increase its credibility and accountability with transit stakeholders in the region. Option 2 would also enable the Council to implement regional priorities and provide continuity among its membership for ongoing initiatives.

I find the report to be a little too negative about directly electing Met Council representatives, claiming that it would not “promote consideration of regional perspectives”. Of course, this only applies if all members are elected from small districts, rather than at-large. I also fail to see how local elected officials can be seen to be less parochial than at-large elected members. The report notes that the Portland Metro is composed entirely of directly elected members, and we all know how poorly they do transit governance out there.

The good news from the report:

When compared with 11 peer regions around the country, transit in the Twin Cities region performed favorably. For example, in 2008, the Twin Cities region’s transit system performed better than most of its peers on efficiency measures, including subsidy per passenger and operating costs per passenger. The Twin Cities region also compared favorably when evaluating service-use measures, such as passengers per hour and passenger miles per mile of service.

An Elected Met Council? A Met Council Of Electeds?

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The new chair of the Metropolitan Council was sworn in last week, and her first week on the job was accompanied by a flurry of suggestions about how to improve the Met Council and it’s policies.  Commentary by Dave Van Hattum and Jim Erkel is particularly persuasive to me, calling for focusing more growth along transit corridors and maintaining a focus on building and enhancing transitways.

Many critiques of the Council include some variation on the idea that the current composition, only individuals appointed by the Governor, is not adequate.  Many think the Council would be more transparent or responsive if it’s members were elected.  This seems to be a perennial issue, and was argued about even during the formation of the Council in 1967.  A Minneapolis proposal suggests the a majority of the Council members should be local elected officials, like mayors, council members, and county commissioners. Continue reading →

Could new FTA “livability” funding rules change Southwest LRT route?

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The two alignment choices in Minneapolis

The big news this week is that the planned Central Corridor LRT line will get three new stations between Minneapolis and Saint Paul, and the reason seems to be the new FTA rules which relax the sole focus on cost-effectiveness from travel time savings to include broader goals of “livability“.  With the three new stations, the project would not have met a “medium” rating for cost-effectiveness, and therefore would not likely not have been funded by the FTA under the old rules.

What implication might this have for the planned Southwest LRT line and its contested route?  It’s hard to say, but it certainly seems like the alternative routes should be re-assessed under the new formula before telling the feds that 3A is the Locally Preferred Alternative (LPA).  More below the break.

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