Hennepin County OK's million for new transit line

Bottineau Boulevard, a lesser-known transit route that would run from downtown Minneapolis to the northwest suburbs, got a big boost Tuesday when the Hennepin County Regional Railroad Authority okayed spending million on an alternatives study -- the kind of research into routes, modes and feasibility done last year on the Southwest Corridor and earlier on the Hiawatha and Central corridors.

That gave Bottineau Boulevard a running start yesterday when metro counties cut a joint-powers deal for funding transit from new county sales taxes. As the Strib's Laurie Blake reports, the agreement -- following the override of the governor's transportation bill veto -- nearly cuts the governor's appointees on the Met Council out of the new decision-making body. Transit-wise, it's a 100-member shadow Met Council with only five actual Met Council votes.
Still, the real Met Council, which runs Metro Transit, has dibs on the first million the counties raise. Letting the Met Council spend county sales tax revenue is "a little bit of a cost of doing business," Hennepin County Commissioner Mike Opat told the Monitor. "But I'm not in support of seeing it repeated."

Hennepin County, the heavyweight in the counties' transit-funding scheme, could act as early as next week on a new sales tax. But Opat said he prefers to wait and see whether the governor vetoes money for the Central Corridor, shifting a burden to the counties: "I'm not taking heat for something the governor should have done -- i.e., fund transit."

[visit website]