Professional Documents
Culture Documents
GETS ON BOARD
TRANSIT RIDERSHIP GROWS
WHILE INVESTMENT DECLINES
Conrad deFiebre
Minnesota 2020 Fellow
December 2009
Table of Contents___
Introduction & Key Findings 1
Addressing Inequality 4
Turf Squabbles 6
Mismatched Needs
& Assistance 10
Conclusion
& Recommendations 12
Appendix 13
Cover photo by Randy Stern used under Creative Commons.
Introduction & Key Findings___________
In the eyes of many Minnesotans, public transit is a creature of the big cities, a way to get around the urban
jungle that is generally praised by policy progressives for enhancing mobility and prosperity, but denounced by
conservatives as welfare on wheels.
This ongoing debate tends to overlook the growing role of transit in Greater Minnesota, where it enjoys
support from citizens and local officials across the political spectrum and ridership gains that significantly
exceed the metro area’s, despite chronic resource challenges. It’s not hard to see why when you consider the
stories of people like Dan Wieberdink of Pennock, Minn.
Kandiyohi Area Transit (KAT) gives Wieberdink, 25, a lifeline to work and volunteer opportunities miles from his
rural group home despite cerebral palsy that keeps him in a wheelchair. “I take the bus wherever I go,” he said.
“It gives me my independence. I’m able to do things on my own.”1
For six years, Wieberdink has ridden KAT’s lift-equipped vans to his job as an administrative assistant for the
Willmar Area United Campus Ministry and volunteer shifts at the Bethesda Pleasantview Nursing Home.
Without KAT, founded in 1999, “it would be a lot different,” he said. “I wouldn’t be able to do half the stuff I do
now.”
KAT is one of 60 different Greater Minnesota transit services that cover most, but not all, rural counties in
the state as well as urban centers such as Duluth, Rochester and St. Cloud. Ridership on this far-flung system
reached a record 11.2 million in 2008, an astonishing 7.8 percent increase over 2007 (compared with Metro
Transit’s strong 6.1 percent gain). Ridership outside the Twin Cities is on track for another 4.2 percent rise this
year to an estimated 11.6 million.2 Still, state officials say fiscal constraints keep non-metro service far short of
need and demand.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) says this gap is likely to widen as the state’s elderly
population doubles by 2035, bringing parallel increases in the numbers of disabled and the poor who depend
on transit for basic mobility. MnDOT also envisions greater demand for rural transit job commuting, especially
in growing regions north and northwest of the Twin Cities, but no boost in resources to meet it.
Applications by rural Kittson and Pine counties to establish transit services this year were rejected by state
officials because of stagnant funding, including $1.9 million in transit unallotments by Gov. Tim Pawlenty.
That left four counties in Minnesota lacking any public transit and eight others having only municipal, not
countywide, services.3
“It’s really unfortunate,” said Pine County Engineer Mark LeBrun. “We’re left with people not going places
because they can’t, or spending more driving when they shouldn’t.”4
That’s largely because state-level transit funding hasn’t kept pace with demand or the growing contributions
from federal and local sources.
The federal government increased its contributions to Greater Minnesota transit operations from $3.1 million
in 1999 to an estimated $10.3 million this year, a 232 percent boost. Over the same period, state General Fund
support grew by less than one-tenth that rate, from $13.2 million to $16 million, not even enough to cover
inflation.
Local property taxpayers in Greater Minnesota kicked in rapidly growing shares of transit funding totaling
$16.2 million from 1999 through 2001 before a portion of motor vehicle sales taxes (MVST) was dedicated to
1
Telephone interview, August 2009.
2
Tom Gottfried, MnDOT Office of Transit, telephone interview, September 2009.
3
MnDOT Greater Minnesota Transit Plan draft. Kittson, Pine, Waseca and Wilkin counties have no transit service. Blue Earth, Cass,
Clearwater, Freeborn, Le Sueur, Nicollet, Olmstead and Rice counties have services only within some city limits.
4
Telephone interview, Sept. 22, 2009.
This year, with the state facing a huge budget deficit, General Fund transit support was cut statewide, although
a shift of 1.25 percent of MVST revenue from roads to transit is expected to maintain current operations in
Greater Minnesota. The shift totals $6 million over two years, but $4 million of that is to finance Northstar
commuter rail operations that began in November and new dial-a-ride services in outlying areas of the seven
Twin Cities counties starting in January.
State officials say that leaves no room for expansion of basic transit in the 80 Greater Minnesota counties.5
Meanwhile, under bipartisan legislation being pushed by U.S. Rep. James Oberstar of Minnesota in Congress,
federal transit investment would increase 90 percent from current levels to $99.8 billion over six years,
continuing Washington’s aggressive support for rural mobility.6 That initiative, however, appears to be bottled
up until next year at the earliest. The Obama administration has called for delaying it into 2011.
5
Tom Gottfried, MnDOT Office of Transit, telephone interview, Oct. 13, 2009.
6
U.S. Rep. James Oberstar, statement before U.S. House Ways and Means subcommittee on select revenue measures, July 23, 2009,
p. 2. http://transportation.house.gov/Media/file/Full%20Committee/20090723wm/Ways%20and%20Means%20Testimony%20
72309.pdf
The transit services themselves can do more as well to boost outreach and save money. Multi-county transit
coordination in Minnesota’s northeastern Arrowhead, southeast corner and western prairies has produced
fare box recovery measures comparable to those of fixed-route buses in Minnesota’s largest cities.8
More coordination is needed, as well, with at least 62 separate federal programs administered by eight
different departments that provide special transportation services to the disabled, the elderly and the poor.
This “presents a challenge to coordinate services in the most cost-efficient and effective manner,” MnDOT says.
“Each program may require different data to be reported and may operate under a different funding cycle [and
with] different billing systems … In many cases, insurance requirements prohibit agencies from sharing vehicles
or clients.”9
For example, at least 86 different hospitals, nursing homes, nonprofits and units of government operate elderly
and disabled transportation services in Greater Minnesota – all separate from the 60 public transit agencies
serving the same area.10 This can multiply capital and administrative costs that eat into operating budgets and,
7
Tom Gottfried, MnDOT Office of Transit, telephone interview, Oct. 30, 2009.
8
MnDOT, Op. Cit. Greater Minnesota Transit Plan draft, p. 59.
9
MnDOT, Op. Cit., p. 3-26.
10
MnDOT, Op. Cit.
“Transit systems in rural Minnesota are absolute lifelines,” said Tony Kellen, president of the Minnesota Public
Transit Association. “But right now we’re just maintaining a basic level of service. Sometimes people have
to wait a week to get a ride.”13 Not all the obstacles to rural transit come from shortages of public funding
or inefficient use of it. In some places, city and county officials resist authorizing service for fear that newly
mobile residents will do their shopping in the next town or county, damaging the local economy.
Those concerns are mostly unfounded, as attested by the broad popularity of rural transit once it’s established.
No Minnesota county has ever dropped transit on economic grounds.
11
Ibid.
12
Ibid.
13
Telephone interview, September 2009.
“Without our services in this rural region, senior citizens, people with mental and physical disabilities and
low-income individuals would be unable to attend to the normal, daily activities that the rest of us take for
granted,” said Earl Henry, director of Northeast Iowa Community Action Transit, which serves five counties and
has regularly scheduled service to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
“Activities such as medical and dialysis appointments, getting to work, grocery shopping, meal site preparation,
barber and beauty shop appointments, visiting spouses, family and friends in nursing homes and hospitals, as
14
MnDOT Greater Minnesota Transit Plan, Op. Cit. Appendix D, p. 21.
15
Marc Hall, Pipestone County Transit director, telephone interview, Sept. 29, 2009.
16
TCRP Report No. 34, 1998. http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/tcrp/tcrp_rpt_34.pdf
Added Jody Hane, United Way of 1000 Lakes executive director: “The most important thing is that when the
study is complete, we will have some specific, concrete tasks to begin bridging the transportation gap and to
help all residents start thinking differently about transit.”21
17
Earl Henry, quoted in Community Transportation magazine, summer 2002. http://www.ctaa.org/webmodules/webarticles/
articlefiles/ct/ruraltransit02/roundtable.pdf
18
Dave Engstrom, telephone interview, Sept. 22, 2009.
19
United Way of 1,000 Lakes, “What Matters – An Assessment of Human Services Needs in Itasca County,” 2008. http://www.
unitedwayof1000lakes.org/what_matters.pdf
20
Blandin Foundation news release, Aug. 20, 2009, “Blandin Foundation awards grants for residential transportation study.” http://
blog.lib.umn.edu/hhhevent/insider/Blandin%20Foundation%20Press%20Release.pdf
21
Ibid.
“In 1977 rural residents drove a third more miles to work and double the miles on family business than their
urban counterparts,” Community Transportation editor Scott Bogren wrote in 1997.23 “Between 1960 and
1973, bus service in rural areas declined by 53 percent, while passenger rail service was cut by more than 80
percent. The poor, the elderly and people with disabilities, in particular, were becoming increasingly stranded.”
Then a federal rural transit demonstration program, launched in 1973 under President Richard Nixon, “opened
the door for transportation in rural areas,” said Linda Wilson, who used it to start bus service in Charlottesville,
Va.24
In the next dozen years, the U.S. rural transit network swelled to more than 1,000 agencies, gaining broad
nationwide support. Rural transit operators are “service oriented, penny-pinching, flexible and innovative,
representing all the values that this [Reagan] administration ought to be embracing,” Rep. Newt Gingrich,
R-Ga., said during a U.S. House hearing he led in 1985 along with Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn.25
Minnesota was among the pioneers of modern rural transit. Arrowhead Economic Opportunity Inc., a
nonprofit community action agency, began transporting senior citizens in four northeastern counties under the
federal Older Americans Act in 1974.
Today Arrowhead Transit is one of the nation’s largest rural transit operators, with 85 vans and buses serving
22
Op. Cit. TCRP Report No. 34.
23
“Rural Transit: You Can Get There From Here.” Community Transportation magazine, 1997. http://www.ctaa.org/webmodules/
webarticles/articlefiles/ct/spring98/rural_transit.pdf
24
Ibid.
25
Ibid.
The freeze on funding scuttled plans for express routes to Duluth and up and down Interstate Hwy. 35, plus
dial-a-ride services for Hinckley, Pine City, Sandstone and surrounding areas. Now a slimmed-down proposal
that would “drastically cut” much of that plan is pending with state officials, but “expectations aren’t very
high,” Smith said.
26
Pam Smith, public relations and marketing director Arrowhead Transit, telephone interview, Oct. 2, 2009.
27
Ibid.
28
Ibid.
Meanwhile, there has been no updating of the 2004 funding survey or cost-effectiveness accounting of the
many specialized transportation programs. Greater Minnesota public transit agencies compile and publish that
information on their services annually.
35
Hal Freshley, Minnesota Board on Aging, telephone interview, Oct. 22, 2009.
Rural transit, lacking the population and trip densities of urban services, must continually seek new cost-
effective strategies. This can include trip-scheduling technology, on-staff mobility managers and dial-a-ride
alternatives such as route deviation and volunteer drivers using their own vehicles.
2008 Statistics
Statewide
Urban Systems