2008 State of the Region Address

Peter Bell, Chair of the Metropolitan Council
February 4, 2008 – Minneapolis Central Library

Mayor Rybak, members of the Metropolitan Council and honored guests…

I’d like to thank you for joining us this morning to spend some time reflecting on the progress we have made in our region … and to talk about where we plan to go in the future.

We have many distinguished guests with us this morning … more than I can introduce by name. However, I would like my colleagues on the Met Council to stand and be recognized …

And the state legislators who are with us this morning … please stand …

My sincere thanks to each of you, as well as to the many other local officials who are here today. All of you have made enormous contributions to the success of our region and the quality of life we enjoy in this metropolitan area.

We are indeed fortunate to have this wonderful new library as the site for this year’s State of the Region event. As you may know, this distinctive building was designed by the renowned architect Cesar Pelli.

It provides public access to nearly 100 percent of the library’s collection – more than 3 million books, periodicals, DVDs and other materials.
It offers more computers for free Internet access than any other site in the state.
And it boasts the largest collection of children’s books in the Upper Midwest.

With the merger of the Minneapolis and Hennepin County library systems, this new facility also stands as a proud symbol of how vital public services can be provided in an efficient manner through effective inter-governmental collaboration.

I have a special fondness for libraries. My mother was a school teacher and my best friend’s mother was a librarian. As a young boy, I recall them taking me for the first time to the historic St. Paul Central Library. I was awed not only by its classical columns, high ceilings and huge collection of books, but also by how quiet it was. It was never that quiet at school or at home!

Later, I used the Central Library to do a school paper on the Civil War. Little did I know that some 40 years later, I would be dealing with several communities that would like to secede from the region!

A year of introspection, progress

For the Metropolitan Council, 2007 was a year for introspection. It marked the 40th anniversary of the Council’s creation by the Minnesota Legislature. We used the year to reflect on the problems that led to the Council’s creation, the considerable progress that has been made in the last four decades and the lessons that have been learned.

Our efforts included collaborating with Twin Cities Public Television to produce a half-hour documentary on the history of regional governance in the Twin Cities.

We also did something that is rare among both public and private institutions: We joined with the Citizens League, the Humphrey Institute and the McKnight Foundation to conduct a day-long Regional Policy Conference – to engage in a bit of self-examination and look for ways in which the Council could improve.

However, 2007 was far more than a year of introspection. Our Council and region also moved forward aggressively on a number of important fronts:

We secured federal funding to begin construction of the region’s first commuter rail line in the Northstar Corridor, and moved forward with plans for our second light-rail line in the Central Corridor.
We won a $133 million federal grant to improve transit and ease traffic congestion in two busy corridors in the Twin Cities metro area.
We continued to build Metro Transit ridership, providing 77 million rides. That represents an increase of nearly 5 percent over 2006 and the largest total since 1982.
We increased our use of clean, renewable fuels and partnered with the University of Minnesota on research aimed at developing new sources of renewable energy, and
We gained approval of legislation authorizing a new Regional Parks Foundation to help accelerate the acquisition of land for our regional parks system.

I will discuss several of these topics in greater detail in a few minutes.

Regional indicators mostly positive

As we assess the State of the Region, we must acknowledge that our metro area has faced some challenges in the last several years as a result of our sluggish national economy.

New jobs have been hard to come by. Net employment in our region has remained almost flat in the last several years after recovering from a dip in 2002.

Meanwhile, housing production has declined sharply in the last two years. In 2007, about 9,000 building permits were issued for new homes – down from the 18,000 to 21,000 permits issued annually earlier in this decade.
Still, we have averaged slightly more than 17,000 new homes per year between 2000 and 2007. That’s about the number we need to keep pace with our projected population growth.

The Twin Cities metro area remains a growing and prosperous region with many assets. Between 2000 and 2006, our population grew by 180,000 people. That’s the equivalent of two Bloomingtons being added within the boundaries of the seven-county area.

Among the 25 largest metropolitan areas, we rank:

1st in work force participation,
1st in home ownership,
4th in the percentage of adults with a college education, and
7th in per capita income.

A recent national survey even ranked the Twin Cities as the 7th best place to have “fun” among 50 metro areas … because of our wide range of sports, entertainment, shopping and cultural opportunities.

And – this may surprise some of you: According to a recent survey, our region ranks only No. 14 among the top 25 metro areas in the number of rude drivers. Based on my daily commute, I think our ranking should be much higher!

More importantly, our region is blessed to have a good educational system that offers real choice … a leading research university … 18 Fortune 500 companies … abundant natural assets … and a quality of life that is second to none.

Not surprisingly, folks like it here … almost as much as Mary Richards once did! Our annual residents survey – which we are releasing today – showed that 94 percent rate the Twin Cities metro area as a better place to live than other metro areas.

They especially appreciate our natural environment – 35 percent rate our parks, trails and natural areas as our region’s most attractive feature.
Again last year, transportation and traffic congestion ranked as one of the top concerns among metro area residents: 37 percent listed it as the region’s single most important problem, followed by crime at 32 percent and growth issues at 7 percent.

Goal One: Improving transportation

Over the last five years, our Council has focused on four major goals. I’d like to spend a few minutes this morning reporting on our progress in each of these areas and discussing what lies ahead.

One of our highest priorities is to improve our region’s transportation system, build transit ridership and slow the growth in traffic congestion.
Our vision is contained in our 2030 Transportation Policy Plan, which we will be updating by the end of this year after a thorough study and input from local officials and the public.

Our transportation vision calls for:

Expanding our existing bus system, adding new express bus and limited-stop routes,
Providing additional bus-only shoulder lanes, passenger stations and park-and-ride lots, and
Developing a network of rail and bus “transitways” that give transit a travel-time advantage over the single-occupant car.

With the support of Governor Pawlenty, we have made major strides toward achieving our vision.

Late last year, we secured a Full Funding Grant Agreement that commits more than $156 million in federal matching funds for the Northstar commuter rail line between downtown Minneapolis and Big Lake.

Even before that grant was formally in place, the Council and our project partners broke ground for the line’s maintenance facility in Big Lake and a new inter-modal station in downtown Minneapolis. We also began a four-block extension of the Hiawatha LRT line to connect with Northstar near the new Twins ballpark.

The Northstar locomotives and cars will feature colors reminiscent of the Hiawatha LRT vehicles, while retaining the “north star” icon that has long been associated with the project.

We are now on track to complete construction of the 40-mile line and begin passenger service by the end of 2009. It will serve a projected 5,900 riders per weekday by 2030 and provide a predictable, 41-minute commute from Big Lake to downtown Minneapolis in one of our region’s fastest-growing corridors.

As I indicated earlier, our region was one of five metro areas to win funding last year under the U.S. Department of Transportation’s new Urban Partnership program, which is designed to reduce traffic congestion. The competition was intense, with 26 major metro areas competing for funds.
For our region, the $133 million UPA grant will help accelerate the development of Bus Rapid Transit in two of our transitway corridors – I-35W and Cedar Avenue. The project will include:

Dynamically priced lanes on I-35W between downtown Minneapolis and Burnsville,
2,400 new park-and-ride spaces in the two corridors,
26 new buses to help provide express service, and
Dedicated, double bus lanes in downtown Minneapolis on Marquette and Second Avenues. In addition, the project will provide improved passenger waiting shelters, lighting and streetscaping.

The UPA grant was a major vote of confidence in the Council’s plan to build transit ridership, improve mobility and ease traffic congestion.

LRT project moving forward

During the last year, we also moved forward aggressively with our efforts to develop our region’s second light rail transit line in the Central Corridor between downtown Minneapolis and downtown St. Paul.

These efforts included opening a project office in the corridor, hiring key staff and consultants, establishing several committees to provide public input during the project and forging ahead with preliminary engineering. Our goal is to complete PE by this fall and apply for federal approval to enter final design.

As I have indicated before, the Central Corridor LRT project is my No. 1 priority. It offers an exciting opportunity to build upon the success of the Hiawatha line. It will provide improved access to employment, economic and educational opportunities along the corridor and elsewhere in the region.
As originally proposed, the 11-mile line would feature 16 stations, plus five shared stations with the Hiawatha line in downtown Minneapolis. It would terminate at the new inter-modal station near the Twins new ballpark, connecting with the Northstar commuter rail line.

Let me be clear on this point: We are strongly committed to securing the necessary state and federal funds to move forward with this project.
However, some features of the project may have to change as we work to reduce the cost to meet federal cost-effectiveness requirements and qualify for federal funding. The estimated cost of the project, as originally proposed, is $990 million. And that figure doesn’t include all of the ideas on everyone’s wish list. If all of these enhancements were included, the cost of the project would rise to $1.25 billion.

That simply is not realistic. We believe we must reduce that cost to about $840 million if we are to meet the federal CEI. That’s why we have been carefully scrutinizing all of the major elements of the proposed line.

Our challenge is all the more difficult because we will have some costs that were not included in the original plan.

For example, we will have to reinforce the Washington Avenue bridge to accommodate LRT. And we may have to build platforms to serve three-car trains, which ultimately will be needed to serve the heavy ridership we anticipate on this line.

During the next few weeks, the Council and our project partners will face some difficult choices as we make the final project scope decisions. I would caution our project partners and community advocates not to draw lines in the sand. Compromises will need to be made, just as they were made on the Hiawatha and Northstar lines.

You may recall, for example, the Minneapolis business community originally wanted the Hiawatha line to be underground in downtown Minneapolis. And the original plan for Northstar called for going all the way to St. Cloud. But both plans had to be changed because of cost constraints.

The proponents of the Central Corridor line must be equally willing to compromise if we are to meet the CEI and win federal funding. If they demand all of the “bells and whistles,” there may be no train.

Goal Two: Managing our growth

Another of the Council’s major goals is to work collaboratively with local communities to accommodate the region’s growth in an orderly, economical manner.

Our most important tool is the comprehensive planning process. Every 10 years, the Council adopts a Regional Development Framework and system plans to guide the expansion of four regional systems – transportation, aviation, wastewater collection and treatment, and regional parks and open space.

We kicked off this process in 2005 when we completed our system plans and sent customized “system statements” to every community in the region, telling them how our regional plans would affect their community. Under state law, every community must then adopt or update their local comprehensive plan, which must be consistent with our regional plans.

Over the last several years, we have provided new tools to help local officials gear up to complete their plans:

We developed a new online Local Planning Handbook,
We provided every community with a copy of our new Natural Resources Digital Atlas to assist in identifying and protecting significant natural assets,
We conducted a series of planning workshops that was attended by some 500 officials, and
We provided $1 million in planning assistance grants to 46 communities and three counties.

We are now approaching a very critical stage in this process. The deadline for submission of local comprehensive plans to the Council is December 31.
As the deadline draws near, I would encourage local officials to keep us informed of their progress and contact us with any questions or concerns they may have. We have a staff of seven sector representatives who stand ready to assist in any way they can.

Goal Three: Maximizing our investments

A third goal of the Council is to maximize the effectiveness of regional services, infrastructure and investments. There never will be enough resources to meet all of our public needs, so it is critical that we get the biggest bang for every regional buck.

Two years ago, the Council instituted an innovative program that provides incentives for communities to reduce the amount of clear water entering our wastewater treatment system through inflow and infiltration – or I and I.
Clear water typically enters our wastewater system through cracks in local sewer pipes, or through sump pumps and foundation drains that are illegally connected to the sanitary sewer. Excessive I/I robs our system of capacity needed to serve future growth. During major storms, it also can cause sewer backups, resulting in threats to human health and the environment.
All 46 communities that were identified as having excessive I/I have made commitments to reduce the problem, thereby avoiding surcharges that would otherwise have been imposed.

This is good news for the homeowners and businesses that support our regional wastewater system through their connection and user charges. We estimate that the I/I problem can be solved at the local level for about $150 million, compared to the $900 million it would cost to add sewer capacity at the regional level.

Reducing I/I is just one of the ways we have attempted to maximize the value of our regional investments. During my five years as Council chair, we have placed high priority on exercising prudent fiscal management throughout our agency.

We have invested in new technology to improve efficiency and service delivery,
We eliminated nearly 200 FTEs,
We refunded bonds to take advantage of low interest rates,
We launched an energy conservation initiative in our wastewater system, and
We moved into a newly renovated building that will save us $14 million over the life of the building.

I am particularly proud that we have held the Council’s property tax levy flat for five years while maintaining our AAA bond rating.

Goal Four: Protecting our natural assets

The fourth goal of this Council is to protect and enhance our region’s vital natural assets … which contribute so much to our quality of life. This means doing everything we can to protect and improve the quality of our air and water, as well as preserve irreplaceable natural areas.

As chair of the Council, I am particularly proud of our system of regional parks and trails. This 53,000-acre system provides opportunities for walking, biking, swimming, boating and many other forms of active recreation. It attracts more than 33 million visitors a year. By comparison, the state parks system serves about 9 million visitors a year.

But our regional park system does much more. It also protects and preserves natural features such as lakes and wetlands … hardwood forests and native prairies … for future generations.

Our long-range plan calls for expanding the system to meet the needs of the region in 2030 and beyond. Toward that end, we propose:

To establish seven new regional parks,
To acquire and develop seven new regional trails, and
To acquire land within the boundaries of 30 existing parks and four existing trails.

All told, we would like to acquire more than 17,000 acres of park land and 700 miles of regional trails.

Recognizing that regional parks must compete with many other worthy programs for state funding, we went to the Legislature last year and gained approval to establish a Regional Parks Foundation. We hope this foundation will be able to raise money from private sources and supplement the state funding we receive for park land acquisition.

Toward that end, we are exploring a partnership with the Parks and Trails Council to manage the foundation. We also have received valuable assistance from the Trust for Public Land in performing a feasibility study. Would the representatives of those two organizations stand and be recognized…

It is critical that we act now to preserve our region’s last, best natural areas while this land is still available and affordable.

Metro Transit’s “Go Greener” initiative is another of our major environmental efforts. Its aim is to increase our use of clean renewable fuels, improve our air quality and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.

Last year, we took delivery of 19 hybrid electric buses – the first of 169 hybrids that we will be adding to our fleet over the next five years. These hybrid buses deliver 22 percent better fuel mileage and produce 90 percent fewer emissions than the buses they replace.

With the addition of these new buses, more than one-third of all local bus trips on Nicollet Mall are now operated with hybrid buses.

For our conventional diesel buses, Metro Transit made the switch in August from a 5 percent biodiesel fuel to a 10 percent blend and will go to a 20 percent blend in the summer months starting this year.

To further reduce tailpipe emissions, we plan over the next five years to buy 164 buses that use the latest clean-diesel technologies.

Within our wastewater system, we instituted new treatment processes in recent years that cut our total discharge of phosphorus nearly in half. And at our Metro Plant, we installed new, state-of-the-art incinerators that reduced our emissions of many pollutants by more than 95 percent.

We also are partnering with the University of Minnesota to pursue new ideas for renewable fuels and energy conservation. One of the most promising projects involves turning algae into energy. We are testing the economic feasibility of growing high-oil-content algae in our treated wastewater and using it to produce bio-fuels.

This not only could create a new, local source of renewable energy. It also could assist in the removal of phosphorus and nitrogen from our wastewater, and assist in controlling greenhouse gases in the treatment process.

The idea is sufficiently promising that Xcel Energy recently awarded a $150,000 grant to help support the project.

As Governor Pawlenty has said, “America is ready for bold, innovative energy policies that will make us safer, independent and better stewards of the planet.” I dream of the day when Metro Transit buses can pull up at one of our wastewater treatment plants to fill up!

Excellence in public service

During my tenure as Council chair, I continually have been impressed by the commitment and dedication of our staff – and the quality of the services they provide to our region. Let me provide a few examples.

Each day, our Metro Transit drivers are out on the streets providing service to some quarter of a million riders who are traveling to work, school and other vital destinations. Nearly a third of these riders do not have a car or are unable to drive.

Among our nearly 1,500 operators, we have 85 who have gone 25 years or more without causing a single accident. That’s 25 years of driving in heavy traffic, in inclement weather, pulling in and out of bus stops, and hugging highway shoulder lanes.

During a 25-year period, the typical driver logs 750,000 miles. That’s the equivalent of 30 trips around the world!

Another example: Each day, our Environmental Services Division collects and treats some 250 million gallons of wastewater. Our eight plants regularly win awards for near perfect compliance with national and state environmental standards.

Last year, our Hastings plant won recognition for 16 consecutive years of perfect compliance with clean water discharge permits. That placed it among the top four or five plants in the nation (when measured for consecutive years of perfect compliance).

The Hastings plant treats about 580 million gallons of wastewater per year. To put that in perspective, that’s more than twice the amount of water needed to fill the Metrodome!

A final example: Our Metro HRA operates the state’s largest Section 8 housing assistance program. It provides housing vouchers to nearly 6,000 low-income families in 100 suburban communities.

Our staff maintains a waiting list for vouchers as they become available and last year the list was running low. Our HRA managers knew that there would be a huge demand to get on the list, so they established a special call center and put on extra staff to assist in the effort.

On four Tuesdays in May, they fielded a total of 15,000 requests through telephone calls, e-mails and faxes. It was truly a herculean effort!

A heroic response to bridge collapse

The Metropolitan Council is not alone when it comes to having skilled and dedicated staff. This morning, I would like to pay tribute to the many police officers, fire fighters, medical personnel and civilians who responded to the tragic collapse of the I-35W bridge last August.

Within minutes of the collapse, well-trained first responders from Minneapolis, Hennepin County and neighboring jurisdictions were on the scene to begin rescue efforts. Their rapid, coordinated efforts undoubtedly helped to save lives that otherwise would have been lost.

Since then, MnDOT and the Pawlenty administration have moved with great speed and care to replace this critical transportation link. Work is already underway on a 10-lane, LRT-ready bridge that will provide increased transportation capacity while respecting the area’s surroundings, architecture and history.

Government cannot satisfy every want and meet every need. But we clearly have an obligation to provide a transportation system that will allow our residents to travel safely to work, school and other important destinations.
There is nothing we can do to restore the 13 lives that were lost in the bridge collapse. However, I sincerely hope this tragedy will provide added impetus to achieving the passage this legislative session of a balanced transportation funding bill – one that addresses the critical highway, bridge and transit needs of our state and region.

On a personal note, I am now in my fifth year as Council chair. When I first started, I hardly knew what the MUSA line is. Now I’m afraid to cross it!
Let me tell you I still have enormous enthusiasm for this job. I can hardly wait to get to work each morning. During my years as chair, my respect for local elected officials has grown immeasurably. They work terribly long hours for very little pay to make their community a better place to live and work. During my meetings with elected officials from our smaller communities, I rarely can tell what political party they are from. They only care what doing what is best for their community.

In my remaining time as chair, my focus will continue to be ensuring the efficient growth of our region, building our transit system and expanding our system of regional parks to meet the needs of future generations.

Thank you. I now would be happy to respond to your questions.