Let’s check in with some of our favorite urbanist advocacy organizations about their goals for this year’s legislative session!
Links
- Land Value Tax Episode
- All Aboard Minnesota
- Our Streets
- Bicycle Alliance of Minnesota
- Sustain Saint Paul
- Neighbors for More Neighbors, Yes to Homes
Attributions
Our theme song is Tanz den Dobberstein, and our interstitial song is Puck’s Blues. Both tracks used by permission of their creator, Erik Brandt. Find out more about his band, The Urban Hillbilly Quartet, on their website.
This episode was hosted, edited, and transcribed by Ian R Buck. Many thanks to Brian Nelson, Joe Harrington, CJ Lindor, Cody Fischer, and Jacob Hooper for coming on the show! We’re always looking to feature new voices on the show, so if you have ideas for future episodes, drop us a line at [email protected].
Transcript
[00:00:00] CJ: E-bikes are not legal for kids that are under the age of 15 to ride, so for those K-8 students, the information at this point in time is essentially like, “you’re not allowed to use that, so don’t do it.” That may not be…
[00:00:12] Ian: Abstinence-only bike education. How does that go?
[00:00:21] CJ: Right? That is, I mean, that’s essentially what our state is offering.
[00:00:25] Ian: Welcome to the Streets.mn Podcast, the show where we highlight how transportation and land use can make our communities better places. Coming to you from beautiful Uptown Minneapolis, Minnesota, I am your host, Ian R. Buck. It’s that time of year again: The state legislative session is about to start, so we’re going to check in with some of our favorite urbanist advocacy organizations about the agendas that they’re pursuing this year. But first, a little context. The makeup of the legislature is the same as last year, so the house is still evenly split with an awkward power sharing agreement likely to happen. This year they do not have to balance a budget, so there will be a lot more policy focus. They could pass a bonding bill, though, to raise money for initiatives. We are, of course, entering this legislative session with the federal occupation of Minnesota communities top of many people’s minds. My house representative, Katie Jones, tells me that the DFL caucus has over 80 strategies that they’re working on around protecting Minnesotans from ICE. However, without established connections in that space, I wasn’t able to line up any interviews on short notice. So with all of that in mind, let’s jump into the urbanist legislative agenda. All right, here we are chatting with Brian Nelson, who is a founding member of All Aboard Minnesota and was president of the organization until last year. He’s still a current board member, and he’s been on the show a couple times before to chat about the organization at large and also to talk about legislative agenda stuff. So Brian, welcome to the show.
[00:02:07] Brian: Thank you. It’s great to be here. Thanks for asking me. So a lot of people ask us where the Northern Lights Express project is at, the new Twin Cities to Duluth service. So a couple sessions ago, the legislature did appropriate federal matching funds, which we did receive. And so that project either has or is about to move into step two of the FRA corridor ID program. In other words, it is advancing, it is moving forward. There was quite a bit of news last year around the fact that the legislature clawed back some money from that project. And that’s true. That did happen. So $77 million that was initially appropriated was taken back. However, that does not impact the infrastructure work or the planning that needs to happen. So the project in and of itself is still moving forward. What that $77 million was for was to buy into the new Midwest passenger car pool to obtain new equipment for that service. So what that means is the state won’t be able to do that now unless, of course, the legislature re-appropriates to those funds. But the project in and of itself is still moving forward. It is not dead. It’s moving. MnDOT is working on it in conjunction with WISDOT. So the Wisconsin Department of Transportation.
[00:03:47] Ian: They do have one station.
[00:03:51] Brian: Right. They do. Yes. Very important station. So that is moving forward. We are very supportive of that project. There were a lot of questions last year around ridership assumptions, which had been done several years before. So it is our understanding that MnDOT is actively working on moving that through the FRA corridor ID process. Yeah.
[00:04:13] Ian: And speaking of equipment rolling stock, there’s been a lot of talk over the last year about okay, if we’re getting rid of the North Star commuter rail, what are we going to do with those cars and engines? Is that within the purview of the state legislature? Could they just help direct like MnDOT to where they should put that equipment to use in the future?
[00:04:43] Brian: Well, it’s my understanding that that equipment was leased by Metro Transit, some to Amtrak to run in the Chicago to Hiawatha service. I don’t believe that all of it has been leased out by Metro Transit, but since it did fall under their purview, I believe that a lot of those cars have already been leased out. So they’re a different type of car than a long distance passenger rail.
[00:05:16] Ian: Yeah. I wouldn’t want to sit in one of those all the way to Duluth.
[00:05:19] Brian: Yeah. No, no. I mean, they were great for what they were purchased for, for commuter rail service, but that’s my understanding was that those lease agreements were put in a while ago and that a lot of them will be used in the Chicago to Milwaukee service. Because as is sort of painfully clear, Amtrak is woefully short of the equipment and that is a very much of a concern for us right now. When the Horizon coaches were sidelined last year on the Borealis, Superliner equipment was substituted and capacity reduced on the Borealis. So you have almost sold out trains daily and the demand is there for at least another car, if not to. But Amtrak just doesn’t have it.
[00:06:18] Ian: Now, if I remember correctly, last time that we had All Aboard Minnesota on the show, we were talking about some of the corridors that the organization is most actively pushing forward and that being the day time, studying day time service from St. Paul to Fargo and then also a brand new service corridor from the Twin Cities down to Kansas City. Are those part of our legislative agenda or is that a different step in the process?
[00:06:57] Brian: No. So last year, we introduced a bill in the House and the Senate, which directs MnDOT to apply to the Federal Railroad Administration to apply for those two corridors. They have not applied for those two corridors. So with the federal funds still available and a lot of states in the Midwest gearing up for more new passenger service, we’re asking the legislature to pass this bill to direct MnDOT to apply for those two corridors to get in the program because if we wait too long, who knows what could happen in a federal reauthorization of the bill that appropriated all those buckets of money for federal state partnerships. So we need to act. We need to act now. And so it is our goal to get those bills heard in March, Ian, and as we’ve done before, we will offer verbal as well as written testimony as to explain the need for those corridors, the populations they would serve, the economic benefits just like we’ve done before. So that’s very high on our priority list. We’ve worked with cities up and down those two lines to pass resolutions. We’re excited by the support in all of the communities that have passed resolutions and we’re going to package those up for the legislature. There’s a lot of momentum building. People are very excited about it. City councils, chambers, mayors, all up and down those two routes are like, yes, this would benefit us. This would benefit our college students, people that don’t want to drive, you know, especially in the winter. So there’s a lot of momentum building and there’s a lot of excitement for both of those routes.
[00:08:56] Ian: Is there going to be like a coordinated push for, people giving testimony or writing into their you know, legislators? Would that be something that like the All Board of Minnesota newsletter is going to be, you know, asking folks to do?
[00:09:09] Brian: The short answer is yes. So in the past, what we’ve done are send out what’s called action alerts to alert our members and friends that, hey, this is coming up. The more that, you know, transportation committee chairs hear from you, the more the governor’s office hears from you, the better chance these have because citizen advocacy does work. That is a big part of our communication plan to include social media, our website, newsletters, individual meetings, all those elements.
[00:09:44] Ian: Is there anything like in particular stopping MnDOT from submitting the request to the FRA for those corridors? Like, is legislative action required for them to be able to do that? Or are they just kind of, you know, being sticks in the mud and the legislature has the ability to push them for it?
[00:10:07] Brian: Well, so it’s a couple things. You know, we meet with MnDOT fairly regularly. And from what we understand, it’s a resource issue. You know, there’s very few people working on passenger rail in the MnDOT office and especially with the Northern Lights Express project, some other things that they’re working on, you know, managing the Borealis service, keeping the state, you know, involved in that. It’s basically a resource issue. So in the FRA program, like I mentioned, if the FRA accepts their application, they’ll get $500,000 to begin the initial scope study for each corridor. That would allow them to hire people to conduct those studies. Resources that they don’t have right now. So I can completely understand why they’re not applying, because they, again, our understanding. They just don’t have the resources. But to answer your question, if they wanted to apply for those two corridors on their own, they certainly could.
[00:11:17] Ian: Okay. Yeah, it is always frustrating being part of an organization where you’re like, I know the work that I need to be doing and I wish I could be doing it, but there’s all this other work that’s getting in the way of the work.
[00:11:33] Brian: Exactly. Yeah. And we’ve met with them several times. We’ve explained, you know, that we’re going to advocate and educate for these routes. They’re very well aware of that. Our last meeting with them, we mapped this out again. We’ve given them the bill numbers. So I mean, they’re well versed in our work and what we’re doing. And we absolutely respect our partnership with them. And so we try to keep the lines of communication very open.
[00:12:06] Ian: Yeah. Tim Walz just needs to hire another nerd or two to, you finish, finish filling out those applications.
[00:12:15] Brian: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Because it’s a fairly involved process to do that. I mean, you have to, but one of the things that we have done is we’ve (All Aboard Minnesota) is we’ve studied both routes. And we’ve provided MnDOT with those studies to help them. Now some of that information was done a few years ago, but it at least provides the basis for them to, you know, know things like what’s the station infrastructure? You know, what’s the, what’s the infrastructure of the railroad? Things like that can at least give them a reference point to start with. And those are all published on our website too.
[00:12:55] Ian: Yeah. Awesome. All right. Well, Brian, thanks for joining us on the show. And folks should keep an eye out for communication from All Aboard Minnesota later on in March-ish.
[00:13:07] Brian: You bet. As soon as we know when that hearing is scheduled, we will shout it from the rooftops.
[00:13:21] Ian: All right. Here we are chatting with Joe Harrington, who’s the Policy Manager at Our Streets, the premier freeway fighters here in Minnesota. So Joe, what have we got going on for this legislative session?
[00:13:39] Joe: Hey Ian, it’s great to be here with you. Thanks for having us on the show. And you know, it’s amazing that we’re already in mid-February nearly and starting session again. It feels like just yesterday that we were wrapping up last year and someone, Jim Erkel, who I really respect and admire a retired environmental lawyer, he always says that the next session starts the day that the previous one finishes. So there’s been a lot of work in the background. And you know, this year in particular, I think we’re really given the context, you know, again, the split house, we’re really not going to see a ton of bills move really, you know, what we’re hearing from committee leadership is focus on bipartisan bills in the house, which really doesn’t set up a whole lot of broad transformative work to take place. Kind of coming into it under those contexts, a lot of advocates and a lot of forward-thinking legislators are really looking to 2027. Of course, we don’t want to count chickens before they hatch, but are hopeful for more favorable conditions to really get some good work done and, you know, build on 2023 and 2024 and undo some of the transit cuts that, you know, we saw last session and some of the defensive work that really needed to take place to defend some of those other wins as well. So definitely a lot on the horizon. Our Streets in particular, we’re working on a variety of different issues, but our kind of platform generally stems from the idea that we need to reduce car dependency, we need to invest in innovative infrastructures, we need to improve public health and climate, we need to work on making the process at MnDOT more transparent and accountable to communities and to legislators and to local governments. And also generally, you know, in this context, spending tax dollars really responsibly. And, you know, of course, there’s a fiscal responsibility, you know, language out there, but it doesn’t really take into account how wasteful it is to spend on expanding highways, especially in the metro. You know, each lane mile induces more traffic and really doesn’t actually improve mobility or any other kinds of outcomes. So we’re really wanting to push that conversation this year in the moment where, you know, even if we do get a trifecta back in 2027, there’s not going to be a huge surplus in the budget to be, you know, spending a lot on these really great transformative transportation projects. We’re going to have to really think carefully on how do we spend the money we do have more responsibly. And also thinking about policy fixes to really improve the way that MnDOT and Met Council, Metro Transit, other state agencies work for the people. That’s kind of where we’re coming in from.
[00:16:15] Ian: Yeah. So okay. So what are the, since you said that we need to focus on bipartisan policies, like what are the bipartisan policies that get us towards that goal?
[00:16:28] Joe: Yeah, that’s a great question. And that’s something we as advocates have been asking, because there’s kind of a Venn diagram of policies that set up the future of transportation and policies that are bipartisan. And that Venn diagram basically doesn’t have any overlap.
[00:16:43] Ian: Because like fiscal responsibility sounds all well and good in the, you know, conservative playbook until you talk about, you know, roads and highways. And then all of a sudden it’s a cultural war, right?
[00:16:55] Joe: Absolutely. Yeah, there’s definitely a broader conversation to be had there. And I think, you know, this year as advocates, we’re kind of expecting, hoping really to have that conversation more publicly, like what do we really get back when we expand a highway? You know, of course, there’s labor income. And we really do want to support those good paying careers, building infrastructure, but that doesn’t have to be a highway expansion. It can very easily be transit projects or highway removal project that would really build a lot of benefits and not cause additional harm and still bring, you know, benefits to labor who’s building those infrastructures. I think more broadly, too, I mean, the state budget, Minnesota is required by the federal government to monitor our maintenance gap for roads and bridges across our state. So that’s how much additional money we would need to spend to have our entire system in a state of good repair. And Minnesota has the fourth highest lane miles in the country, not by per capita, just total right miles, right? We make 22 in population and 19 in economies in the GDP. So it’s bigger than we really need.
[00:18:01] Ian: And probably bigger than we can afford.
[00:18:05] Joe: Absolutely. We already can’t afford to maintain our system. It’s, you know, three and a half billion maintenance gap as of 2022 for roads and bridges, projected to grow to 17 billion by the mid 2030s. So it’s a hole that we’re not going to be able to fill. And I think one of the helpful things to think about in our own lives, if you had a leaking roof, you wouldn’t add an addition to your house before you dealt with the roof, you know, really center that. So to your original question, though, I think a lot of us as advocates are thinking kind of in similar terms as 2025. We will play a little bit of offense, which is really sometimes the best form of defense. We’re, you know, thinking about different bills that we can bring, for example, last year, Our Streets in collaboration with BikeMN and also Sierra Club, North Star chapter and Move Minnesota, were nearly successful in redefining the definition of a highway. So basically a clarification, it seems pretty wonky and in a lot of ways it is, but it would functionally allow highway dollars to be spent really efficiently on transit and active transportation projects, as well as vehicle miles traveled mitigation projects. So all that would mean essentially is when you’re building a roadway project, you could spend money flexibly on transit and active transportation to meet the needs of that corridor. Currently today, for example, they’re planning the F line BRT up to the Northern suburbs connecting like Blaine, Columbia Heights, Fridley with Minneapolis.
[00:19:32] Ian: Right. And that’s on Central Avenue?
[00:19:35] Joe: Correct. Yeah. Central and University and, you know, trunk highways our state highway system take many different forms from like Central and University and Snelling Avenue all the way up to like I-94. And in their case, MnDOT said that if they didn’t align the funding for the BRT project and the highway improvements for safety and roadway condition, that it would cost three extra years of construction delays and an additional 18 million in construction costs. So we’re really wanting to build good governance and make sure that we’re spending money efficiently and really building, we’re building so much transit in the Metro that we can’t afford to be losing money through those things. It just makes sense to clarify highway purpose and allows to meet our VMT reduction goals too, which are critical. And, you know, the VMT law is a really powerful tool to get there.
[00:20:23] Ian: All right. So what are the specific bills that we’re bringing?
[00:20:27] Joe: Yeah. So really continuing from 2025, really excited to pick up the work again on highway purposes with, you know, all of our partners. I think it’s safe to say that it was definitely moved farther last year than in past. On top of that, we’ve continued to lead the push for improving community engagement at MnDOT. So our Community Preferred Alternatives Act is really directly addressing some of the challenges that we’ve seen on projects like Rethinking I-94 and Highway 252, where a lot of folks have felt like they haven’t been adequately engaged. We really do want to see meaningful co-creation as opposed to coming to get a rubber stamp on a polished idea. Last year, the mayor of Brooklyn Center, April Graves, joined us at the Capitol to share experiences on what it’s like as a local government, not being heard by MnDOT, where, you know, they asked for a safety project up on 252 to improve safety, and they got a highway expansion instead, which has continued to double down on all of the problems that highway expansions can bring. And on top of that strip, you know, upwards of 30 properties in Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn Center by eminent main. Some of the other work we’re doing includes cumulative impacts of transportation. So, you know, there was a pretty groundbreaking law in 2023 that looked at, you know, factories, power plants, other permitted facilities, and tried to understand kind of the environmental burden in neighborhoods around those facilities and really tried to, again, create community benefits and mitigate some of that environmental injustice. But unfortunately, that bill left out one of the biggest sources of pollution in communities across our state, which is-
[00:22:04] Ian: transportation.
[00:22:07] Joe: Yeah, of course. You know, of course, there’s the climate impacts, but there are also local impacts like, you know, the wear from tires and brakes, which cause really significant health disparities, including high rates of asthma, high rates of cancer, cardiovascular disease and heart attacks and so on. So there’s a lot of impacts there. What we’re hoping to see MnDOT do is kind of live up to its own statutory goals. Their second goal is to build a multimodal system that puts no undue harm on one community or another. It’s really creating a streamlined process where they can incorporate environmental justice considerations from the start, which we feel will actually really improve their process for developing projects, because making costly modifications on the back end after local pushback is much more difficult, and it really slows projects down, leads to costly overruns and delays and, again, makes it less stable for union jobs who are building those infrastructures. So we’re hoping to see a fairer process developed there. And our last big priority beyond general work to make MnDOT more transparent and accountable, I would say is our Fix it First, Fix it Right policy. Essentially, this year, as we were talking, you know, again, we really want to have a conversation about how irresponsible it is to continue expanding our highway system without meeting maintenance goals first. And it kind of comes from the question of affordability, both from the state’s perspective, like we really do want to maintain the system we have before expanding it. So we don’t continue to grow a maintenance burden so large we can’t afford to meet it. But at the same time, you know, not investing in a holistic system that prioritizes maintenance and better, you know, active transportation and transit kind of hurts household affordability in two critical ways. You know, one, it’s really more and more expensive every year to own a car. It’s upwards of 15,000 nationally. That’s national average every year. And, you know, having better access to active transportation and transit can reduce household costs by quite a bit and really have more choices and more flexibility there. But having roads that aren’t well maintained also increase costs. So MnDOT’s own research with the Center for Transportation Studies at the U of M found that poorly maintained roads could actually cost Minnesotans upwards of almost $500 a year and additional repairs and maintenance on their vehicle. So it’s really a kitchen table issue in this session. It’s really important to have that conversation. So what we’re asking the legislature to do is commit to fixing our existing roads before building new ones. And we’ve created a policy that actually is tied to something measurable. It’s tied to the maintenance gap that, you know, we already track and identify through federal requirements. It’s called the Transportation Asset Management Plan. So we’re required to do that already. We really should commit to maintaining our system and meeting that gap before we expand. And the flip side of that is to fix it right. So when you actually do initiate a new project, study a variety of things, including transit and active transportation to meet the transportation need, also study reducing the size of the roadway. So we’re kind of on autopilot at MnDOT. Sometimes it actually makes more sense to slow down and build a smaller road back where a bigger one was built in the first place and reduce our maintenance burden long term. It could also give back tax, you know, tax base and community amenities like housing and green space to neighborhoods along highways, which have been bearing that harm for so long. And I think more broadly, we want to see a better process for evaluating the benefits and costs of different investment approaches. So over time, that would really build in more good projects and less harmful ones. Yeah. So that’s what we’re dealing with this year.
[00:25:52] Ian: Yeah. Fix it First, Fix it Right sounds like the most likely one to get bipartisan support. You know, if I were to make a gut check on all those. Because it slots so nicely into, you know, the fiscal responsibility aspect.
[00:26:09] Joe: Yeah. I mean, you would think it’s pretty difficult to see bipartisan work happening. And hopefully, you know, something like that we really want to have a public conversation on because it’s an election year. And, you know, it is really hypocritical to claim desire to have fiscal responsibility and when it actually doesn’t fit their interests to not support it. So that’s kind of a part of the work we want to do. And I think in the moment we’re in with an affordability crisis, transportation is the second highest household spending category after housing. And, you know, here in Minnesota, a lot of folks just take it for granted that you have to drive. We really should be prioritizing building a system where you don’t have to. And really, again, that’s like the bedrock of transportation equity in so many different ways and build so many fringe benefits from like a better urban form and more tax base to better health outcomes. So certainly a lot of luck going on there.
[00:27:06] Ian: Yeah. I mean, that’s the whole thesis of Streets.mn, right?
[00:27:13] Joe: So yeah, two other quick things. We’re asking legislators in this moment. Again, we’re under an unprecedented situation with the federal government. And that extends to transportation as well. They’ve asked us to strip out environmental justice and other key priorities like racial equity, climate, community health from environmental review processes on major projects. So, for example, the Highway 252 and 94 projects, they’re going to be completing their environmental review, which are really important binding legal documents without referencing any of those really critical local and state values. So what we’re asking folks to do is really to just one, take a beat and pause those two projects. MnDOT’s still moving forward with their Rethinking I-94 in-person community engagement right now, which, you know, we went to one of those meetings as Our Street staff last week. And one, there were hardly anyone there. And two, most of the people were there were white people for fear of being, you know, targeted, leaving their home. It’s really difficult to engage with a process like I-94 right now. And we want MnDOT to recognize that and really slow down if they want to do a reparative process. This just isn’t the bandwidth at the moment. And two, we’re asking them to really uphold our values and environmental law. You know, MnDOT has essentially just capitulated to the federal demands and stripped those out of the environmental review documents. And we’re pushing them really to center that, to create a parallel process through MEPA, which is the Minnesota Environmental Policy Act. If we’re willing to strip those values out of our biggest, most important projects, it shows that we never really stood up for them in the first place.
[00:28:55] Ian: Yeah. And that name is so much cuter too. MEPA.
[00:28:59] Joe: You know, again, we want to keep pushing a positive vision, because it’s really important to do that even now. Like it’s organizing is almost like a relay and there’s going to be a vacuum to show long-term. And we’re really thinking through those questions of, you know, what do reconnected communities actually look and feel like and how they support people’s dignity and quality of life and economic, you know, upward mobility. So thinking through those questions is really critical. But we’re also, again, keeping an eye towards 2027, wanting to build a framework and a foundation for success there and hopefully get some really good policy work done between now and then.
[00:29:37] Ian: Fantastic. Joe, keep up the good work and thanks for coming on the show.
[00:29:43] Joe: Thank you, Ian, and thanks to Streets. You know, love the work you do.
[00:29:53] Ian: So we are sitting down with CJ Lindor, who is the Education and Policy Manager at Bicycle Alliance of Minnesota. Where are we at for this year?
[00:30:06] CJ: Yeah. Well, hi, Ian. Hi, Streets.mn friends. In 2023, we had the Democratic trifecta in office and we were able to pass a whole raft of legislation that had been probably a decade or more in the making. That was all under the name of the Bill Dooley Transportation Safety Act. That’s really our prerogative going into this session is identifying those areas where we can find common agreement. I think we’ve got some areas where we are feeling optimistic about this and we can get into that in a little bit. We’re also looking ahead to setting the stage for some of the bigger things that we want to accomplish. And I think what’s going to be important is for helping to frame the conversation to make the issues understandable so that the solutions that we’re proposing fit within the context of what we’re talking about. I think that’s, you know, some of the things that we have proposed and brought to the legislature are maybe more of like the technical kind of fixes or changes that we propose to do. So for example, decriminalizing jaywalking is something that we propose to do. Our Streets supports that, but I think that BikeMN has been the lead on that piece. That would just essentially legalize what we already all do, which is to cross when the street is clear, regardless of what the traffic signal might be telling us to do. It removes that as a primary offense. What that means is that that doesn’t give, it can’t be the main reason that a person is stopped for an enforcement action. However, if there’s something else that is something else they’re doing wrong that gives a reason for an enforcement action, like they cause a crash, for example. Then in that case, then that action can be looked at and can be, they can be assigned fault based on an illegal crossing. So that’s sort of an example of one of the smaller technical types of fixes. We propose a number of other ones that the decriminalizing jaywalking maybe more than the other ones is one of those that could have a path to bipartisan support. It does kind of fit within some of our common sense reforms. There’s the safety component to it. It’s still the duty of the person crossing to make sure that it’s clear and safe when they do so. It just says that if it is, and that’s the only thing they’re doing wrong, then leave them alone. That’s no reason to be harassing people. I think there’s a principle as well in law and policy that things that are common practice ought not be criminalized. So three things that the House Republicans told us are important priorities for them related to active transportation are public safety, keeping people safe inside and outside of vehicles. However they’re traveling. They shared that they have a strong interest in fiscal responsibility using our public resources judiciously to make sure that we move people efficiently, taking care of our public dollars. And lastly, they are concerned and interested in cracking down waste, fraud, and abuse across all systems. We share that concern. We do see that our spending disproportionately on automotive infrastructure and neglecting other modes of transportation is wasteful spending. That’s not necessarily a framing that everybody will agree with, but at least the intention with those things about taking care of our public dollars to maximize safety and efficiency is something that we think that a lot of these policies can address, and that should be things that people on both sides of the aisle could agree on.
[00:34:01] Ian: Yeah. Anything really juicy that’s like bike specific that we’re going for this year?
[00:34:08] CJ: You know, something that has been coming up a lot in media and news reports in a lot of different areas has been related to e-bikes. And often when we hear about e-bikes, what we’re really hearing complaints about are things that are not legal e-bikes but are being called e-bikes. They might be more appropriately termed e-motos or electric motorcycles because they exceed speed thresholds or power thresholds. They can accelerate with the throttle above 20 miles an hour, which a legal e-bike couldn’t do. And they’re being used in places that they don’t belong. They’re being used on sidewalks. They’re being used on non-motorized trails. They’re being used in all kinds of ways that are causing conflicts and concerns in communities across Minnesota. So what we’re proposing to do with that, we actually do have some bipartisan legislation we’re bringing forward on an e-moto definition to clarify in statute about these types of things that are not legal e-bikes. And many of them already do have a definition that would apply to them in statute, either under a moped or an electric motorcycle or an off-highway vehicle. And then with that, what regulations and rules should be applied to them that relates to things like insurance and registration, which are required for many of these vehicles. It also treats where they could be used. So they are not supposed to be used in non-motorized spaces like a sidewalk or a shared trail. It would be hypothetically possible for somebody to register and insure a device and to follow the laws and to use it legally. But that’s often not being done. And many times it’s through just ignorance of the law, which we know is not an excuse.
[00:36:03] Ian: So given that BikeMN is a big fan of education as a means to improve outcomes, are we pushing for MnDOT to have a big public awareness campaign? Or are we approaching that side of things?
[00:36:21] CJ: We do have a little bit of e-bike education that’s included with the student education. There’s a new program from MnDOT called On My Way that addresses the education requirements that schools provide bike and pedestrian education for students in grades K through 8. That was passed in the 2023 legislation. So that is now a program that MnDOT has been developing. BikeMN’s been a partner on that. There is information in there related to e-bikes. E-bikes are not legal for kids that are under the age of 15 to ride. Right. So for those K-8 students, the information at this point in time is essentially like, you’re not allowed to use that. So don’t do it. That may not be…
[00:37:07] Ian: Abstinence only bike education. How does that go?
[00:37:11] CJ: Right? That is, I mean, that’s essentially what our state is offering. Yeah. You’re not allowed to use it. So we can’t teach you how to use it because that would be implying you’re able to use it. So we could definitely talk about how that could be improved.
[00:37:27] Ian: Sure, sure.
[00:37:30] CJ: On the policy kind of things that BikeMN’s looking at, one of the principles maybe that underlies the policy approach is the idea of what MnDOT and other engineers are calling a safe systems approach. Unfortunately, we had a presentation queued up for our day on the hill with a MnDOT engineer who is going to present on this. We still will probably do that. I was in touch with Sonja Piper today about trying to make a recording of this instead of doing it in a live presentation. As I understand it though, it’s kind of a holistic approach to our transportation system that understands that a built environment dictates a lot of the behaviors that we see in our transportation system. So that safe systems approach though I think is something that we’re wanting to see implemented more often.
[00:38:22] Ian: So what we’re talking about approaching for this legislative session is like specific changes to the design documents that engineers follow in Minnesota?
[00:38:33] CJ: That is such a good segue into what I should be talking about. There’s another piece of legislation that was introduced last year. It’s Senate File 2162. The transportation lead in the Senate, Senator Dibble, introduced this. This legislation is specifically around providing flexibility for engineers on state-aid roadways. There’s a lot of roads in our communities that are technically state roads but that are operated by the city or the county and those roads get funding from the state. So there’s some kind of cost share there. Because of that funding, the state has rules about how they are required to be built and they’ve created their own set of guidelines called Minnesota state-aid rules that apply to all these roadways. That requirement ends up being pretty restrictive about what kinds of changes can be done on that roadway in ways that are not necessarily supporting safety for all modes. There’s a very recent local example here on Pelham Avenue. Pelham is a bikeway in Saint Paul and an important connector and was recently rebuilt. The bike facilities on there were built to a substandard design and they cited the MSA standards on the lane width as a reason why they weren’t able to accommodate a standard safe design for bikes and pedestrians on that. The legislation that we proposed and that Senator Dibble has brought would allow for our agencies, city, state, county at all levels, to adopt existing standards that are national standards. There’s some that are named in the bill or any other design guide recognized and approved by the Federal Highway Safety Administration. So it gives a lot of flexibility to a lot of engineers. What it really does importantly is preempt the exemption process that cities or counties would currently have to go through to change the design on their roads. And what we’ve heard from a lot of folks around the state is that they’re often unsuccessful when they do apply for a variance on the MSA standards, they get denied. And so the result of that is roads that are built like a highway, even when they’re going through communities and neighborhoods.
[00:41:03] Ian: Right. And that’s like a devil’s bargain that we don’t want cities to have to take.
[00:41:07] CJ: So something else that we’re interested in is making sure that our state agencies and our transportation planners and designers are doing the things that we expect them to be doing, which is not always the case. There are education requirements. I already mentioned the K-8 requirements the Department of Education has yet to inform schools about these requirements. So we would like the Department of Education to be a good faith partner and to communicate with schools about this education requirement. And then within MnDOT, the legislature has passed complete streets policies. We passed VMT reduction and GHG greenhouse gas. Sorry, VMT stands for vehicle miles traveled. The projects are not necessarily being designed to account for that. So we’re still building for capacity, even that we’re not planning to have on our road systems. That’s requiring that we’re spending more money than we need to to support a system that won’t serve us in the future.
[00:42:09] Ian: So you just want there to be some teeth with the existing rules?
[00:42:15] CJ: That’s it. And so we’ve proposed a couple of different mechanisms for doing this, including an Office of Inspector General or a project reporting portal where project designers would need to input both the expected outcomes on, for example, different metrics including pedestrian and bicycle safety and also driving time and things that they’re already doing. And then they would need to evaluate and see how they did on achieving those expected outcomes. So yeah, we’re concerned that we don’t have enough accountability, that we aren’t getting good enough results for the money we spend, but we don’t have the data to tell us how we could be doing better or which projects are serving us least, for example. So there’s work to be done on accountability and whether or not there’s bipartisan agreement on doing that remains to be seen, but it is something that we’re going to continue talking about as a need to improve in our transportation world.
[00:43:17] Ian: Yeah. So unfortunately, BikeMN is not doing the day on the hill big get-together this year because it’s not safe for everybody to leave their homes right now. Are there any other recommended ways that folks at home can get involved?
[00:43:37] CJ: We are pivoting to do virtual engagement around our issues. So we’re going to be recording still some of the program sessions that we planned for that event. We’ll have a plan to share those out. It won’t be like a one-day, you know, sit all day in front of your computer and watch Zoom meetings. That’s not the goal. Nobody wants that, including us. So it’ll be more of like bite-sized consumable pieces to provide education about some of what we’re working on. We’ll also have some more kind of resources to support people who are still interested in advocating directly to their legislators. That can be done like as a video meeting, a recorded video, or just a letter writing. So we will be doing some virtual engagement kinds of things. We may have some smaller in-person offerings as session goes on and as things continue to evolve with kind of the situation on the ground. So as we have to do every session, it’ll be a little bit of kind of playing it by ear and responding to the hand we’re dealt.
[00:44:53] Ian: Awesome. And I assume that, you know, folks can sign up for the BikeMN newsletter to hear more about like what those opportunities are going to be.
[00:45:00] CJ: Definitely. The newsletter is a great way to stay informed on that.
[00:45:03] Ian: All right, CJ, thanks for coming on the show.
[00:45:05] CJ: Always a pleasure talking with you, Ian.
[00:45:15] Ian: Here to talk about housing related legislature, we have Cody Fischer, who is a board member at Sustain St. Paul and Jacob Hooper, who is the sole staff member, paid staff member for Sustain St. Paul. Here to represent kind of the whole broad housing coalition. What other organizations do we have as part of that movement? Like we’ve got Neighbors for More Neighbors, we’ve got… Sure, yeah. So Neighbors for More Neighbors, Isaiah is involved, Sierra Club, Minnesota Housing Partnership, obviously us. There’s actually a whole lot. There’s a huge list of groups. A lot of them are local around the state, but a lot of them are these kind of larger ones, Common Ground, which has been working on the issue for a really long time.
[00:46:08] Ian: All right, so let’s get a low down of like what our legislative packet is this year.
[00:46:15] Jacob: Sure. So yeah, my name is Jacob. I’m with the staff member for Sustain St. Paul, and we’re really working on three things at this upcoming… Well, really it depends on how you define it, right? But we’re working on three things at the state level right now. Two of them are moving through the legislative session, and one of them is… If you’re moving through a slightly different process, the stair reform. But the three are first, this bill package called the Yes to Homes package, which is a variety of upzoning bits done at the state level, and then one is called land value tax, which would be cities allowed to do a special alternative to things like property tax and sales tax.
[00:47:02] Ian: And we got a pilot of that. Did we get a pilot of that?
[00:47:05] Jacob: We did not. No. And then the…
[00:47:07] Ian: So are we pursuing a pilot again, or are we pursuing like broad anybody can adopt it?
[00:47:12] Jacob: I think we’d love to have ever anybody can adopt it, right? That’s always been the goal. The pilot was explored briefly in an attempt last year to try to make any version of this happen. But I think the people who are opposed to the package in general are opposed to the pilot as well. So I expect that when we’re able to pass this, we’re going to be able to just do the whole thing.
[00:47:39] Ian: Sure. And if listeners want a really deep dive on why land value tax is important, what exactly it means, we made an episode like two or three years ago. So I’ll put a link to that in the show notes for folks.
[00:47:51] Jacob: Great. And then the third item is single stair reform, which is more of a bureaucratic process thing, but that’s also happening at the state level. And that’s going to be a big boon to land use. So it’s going to allow us to build buildings more than two stories that have one egress. And that makes it a lot easier to design buildings that are a lot smaller and more climate friendly and all kinds of stuff.
[00:48:28] Ian: So yeah. So Cody, let’s let’s jump into the single stair stuff high level. Like what is it? Why do we care about this? Why does it matter?
[00:48:37] Cody: So in the United States, our building codes have a huge impact on the economics of what gets built. It’s not when people think about abundant housing, we often start with zoning, but then once we get through the zoning hurdles, we start to realize how the building code can prevent the kind of density that we’re actually wanting to see, especially in existing urban neighborhoods where you have 40 foot wide parcels, you might have zoning that allows for much bigger stuff, but the land prices are so high that the geometry of what the building code requires because of egress requirements on taller buildings makes it impossible to develop more housing. So what we see mostly these days is you assemble a whole bunch of parcels together. It takes a long time. It’s really expensive. And you build a building with above today. If you go above three stories, you have to build a building with two exit stairs accessible on every level, and those stairs are connected with a long corridor. And then there’s units on both sides. It’s like a hotel double loaded corridor. It’s dark. It’s unpleasant. And it’s a lot of extra square footage that widens the buildings. It makes it expensive to build the buildings. The intention there is to increase safety. But there’s been a historic kind of decoupling between what actually improves safety in the event of a fire and what stairs do. We could have 40 stairs and it wouldn’t make the building safer.
[00:50:08] Ian: Just one more stair, bro.
[00:50:11] Cody: So currently, it allows you to build up to three stories with a single stair. If you go above three stories, you have to have a second stair, and then that’s when you get into this double loaded corridor situation. And that basically makes it impossible to do a multi-family apartment project on a single, typical urban lot in a place like Minneapolis or St. Paul. And so if we want to take advantage of the progress on zoning that we’ve made in the Twin Cities over the last decade, we have to make it possible to build taller, skinnier buildings, basically. There’s a whole bunch of benefits beyond just being able to build that come along with allowing taller single stair buildings. One being you have more corner units, generally. So you can have windows on multiple walls that open. You get cross flow ventilation. You get more sunlight. There’s a variety of things like that. When you spend less money building square footage for hallways, you can lower the cost of the building and make it less expensive to rent. You can have family sized units that are maybe more than a two bed. There’s lots of benefits like that. So that’s why we care about how big we can build with a single stair. But we also care about the safety piece. And so the key question as advocates have been pushing to allow slightly taller single stair buildings in our building code is how do we do that safely compared to the other types of housing that we’re already allowed to build in the building code? And unfortunately, we’ve had a history and code development where you have this opaque, very technocratic process. They’re not relying necessarily on what the latest and greatest fire engineer research and data might point to as effective risk mitigation strategies, but rather what we’ve done in the past and we just keep adding on to the future without ever reconsidering what we’ve done in the past. There is legitimate concerns around legislating building code changes and not following the administrative process that exists. Do you want a why on that?
[00:52:23] Ian: So that is typically something that is just done through an agency at the state executive. Interesting.
[00:52:33] Cody: So we have the department of labor and industry which oversees the code update process, but they basically take the new release of the model-
[00:52:40] Ian: from the “international, whatever, whatever.”
[00:52:43] Cody: And then they they see, do we want to change anything for the Minnesota context? And then we roll that out. Right.
[00:52:51] Ian: And so so this is something that could happen without without legislative like input. Interesting.
[00:52:57] Cody: But it’s extremely difficult to go through that administrative process, especially like kind of the non data research risk analysis basis in which these conversations happen. We’ve actually gone through the advocacy process has gone through that administrative process. There’s two parallel tracks. So fast forwarding to today, where are we? We, you know, ended up getting a funding to commission a study to look at what we have today with two stair requirements. How do we do that with one stair and get the same safety outcomes or better? So there’s about $200,000 allocated for that study. That study was completed at the end and released at the end of 2025. So we’ve got that in hand now.
[00:53:45] Ian: Yeah, excellent. Yeah, we’re in a good spot.
[00:53:47] Cody: We’re in a good spot. So currently we allow with three, three story single stair buildings. They have to be sprinkled. You know, basically the study found that you can go up to eight stories and have them be sprinklered as long as you’re again, not really making any other changes other than one adding smoke detectors and fire alarms in common areas. So in the stair and in the corridor, and two, increasing the frequency of inspection of the sprinkler systems to make sure that they don’t fail. Sure. Right. So if you do those two things, which costs almost nothing, you get life safety outcomes that are equal to or better than what we currently allow in the code. So it’s like very decisive data driven slam dunk. Let’s do this. Unfortunately, the Department of Labor and Industry has indicated that they want to put that study on a shelf and they’ll reconsider whether they want to bring it into the Minnesota Building Code in the next code update in 2030.
[00:54:53] Ian: Great. Yeah.
[00:54:57] Cody: That is ultimately going to be likely what the advocacy around this issue this session is going to be is getting a small amount of funding to support this moving forward.
[00:55:06] Ian: Because that has to happen legislatively faster than 2030. Yeah. Okay. Okay. How do you feel like we’re sitting on the rest of these items?
[00:55:14] Jacob: The Yes to Homes Coalition particularly has done a lot of work over the last year and continuing to do outreach to particularly like the suburban legislators which are really the people who had skepticism about it last time. Groups like Neighbors for More Neighbors and ISAIAH have really been doing a lot of work over the last year and they’re feeling pretty confident that this is really the year especially because the crisis has only continued to metastasize. It was pretty close last time anyway. So, there’s a lot of confidence about Yes to Homes this time. We’re land value tax. We’re still building. I think if we don’t make it happen this year, I think it’s much likelier to happen next year. I don’t, I never want to count us out. I want to, we’re going to be pushing.
[00:56:07] Ian: Yeah. So, speaking of that grassroots support, where can folks plug into this effort?
[00:56:13] Jacob: For Yes to Homes, you should be paying attention to both, if you’re in St. Paul, Sustain St. Paul’s newsletter and also if you’re in Minneapolis or really anywhere across the state, you should be also tuning into Neighbors for More Neighbors about this. There’s going to be a lot of actions in terms of trying to get people to show up at the Capitol and testify about their own experiences with struggling to find housing, with struggling with housing affordability. We really want you to share your stories and there’s going to be opportunities to do that. In fact, actually right now I know Neighbors for More Neighbors is collecting video testimonials. If you have anything to share with them, we really want to make a big push on this in the first month because we know that that’s really where the things that are most likely to actually get done.
[00:57:04] Ian: The earlier the better.
[00:57:05] Jacob: The earlier the better, that’s right. So, keep an eye out for testifying opportunities.
[00:57:10] Ian: All right.
[00:57:10] Jacob: I think those are the big ones.
[00:57:11] Ian: Sweet.
[00:57:12] Jacob: Yeah.
[00:57:12] Ian: Jacob, Cody, thanks for coming on the show.
[00:57:14] Cody: Thanks for having us.
[00:57:15] Jacob: Thank you.
[00:57:18] Ian: And thank you for joining us for this episode of the Streets.mn Podcast. The show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Non-Derivative license. So feel free to republish the episode as long as you are not altering it and you are not profiting from it. The music in this episode is by Erik Brandt and the Urban Hillbilly Quartet. This episode was hosted, edited, and transcribed by me, Ian R. Buck. We’re always looking to feature new voices on the Streets.mn Podcast. So if you have ideas for future episodes, drop us a line at [[email protected]]. Streets.mn is a community publication and relies on contributions from audience members like you. If you can make a one-time or recurring donation, you can find more information about doing so at [https://streets.mn/donate]. Find other listeners and discuss this episode on your favorite social media platform using the hashtag #StreetsMNPodcast. Until next time, take care.