Minnesota, Nice – How Governors Walz and Healey Stack Up On Transportation Issues

Earlier this summer, Vice President Kamala Harris took the reins of the Democratic Party and chose  Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate.

Vice President hopeful Governor Tim Walz leaves Minnesota with an ambitious legacy – including expanding free lunch to all students, signing an omnibus bill that invested $1 billion dollars (or an 850% increase) in the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency’s budget, and efforts to expand public transportation options to all Minnesotans, ensuring they live and move with dignity and safety – though Minnesota has ways to go to ensure that these policies are equitable and robust in practice.

With one week until election day on November 5th, here are some ways Gov. Walz has worked to improve transportation in Minnesota, and how that compares to another governor of another deep-blue state looking to move the needle on transportation policy – Massachusetts. 

Safer Streets

In May, Walz signed HF5247 into law, upgrading Minnesota’s safety laws and creating a statewide complete streets policy. 

The legislation updates driver education standards to include information about rights and responsibilities of vulnerable road users, best practices for safe interactions, and the duties of drivers when encountering them. 

The legislation also established a statewide Complete Streets policy that  ensures that road planning, scoping, and maintenance address the safety and accessibility needs of all users, particularly those who walk, bike, or roll.

Similar programs have been in effect in Massachusetts for a while – Governor Healey’s Republican predecessor also established complete streets policies and funding programs at MassDOT.  

But the Minnesota bill also established a pilot program, limited to the Minneapolis area, for camera-based automated enforcement of speed limits and red lights. 

Though camera-based enforcement is considerably fairer and less violent than traffic stops by armed police, similar legislation has repeatedly failed to get any traction in the Massachusetts state house.

E-bikes

The HF5247 law also gives Minnesota a formal legal definition for an “electric-assisted bicycle” that excludes certain devices that exceed certain speed or power limits, like bikes that can exceed 20 miles per hour when the throttle is engaged. 

Massachusetts adopted similar legislation in 2022, but Minnesota’s law defines a broader range of e-bikes. In Massachusetts, so-called “Class 3” bikes, which provide electric pedal assist at speeds up to 28 mph, still operate in a legal gray area.

Minnesota also has a popular statewide e-bike rebate program that has proven positive impacts on encouraging more people to adopt electric bicycles, which helps reduce traffic congestion and emissions.

In Massachusetts, plans to roll out a statewide e-bike rebate program have been on hold for two years now. 

Trains and transit

In terms of local rail, Walz has not had too much of a hand in the rocky development of the region’s Green and Blue Line light rail expansion, but he did decriminalize fare evasion on the Metro Transit in Minneapolis and St. Paul, moving it from a full-blown misdemeanor to an administrative citation to the effect of a parking ticket.

Massachusetts lawmakers took similar steps to decriminalize fare evasion on the T in 2020.

The Walz administration secured state and federal funding to increase Amtrak service between St. Paul and Chicago via Milwaukee, which added a second daily train trip on this corridor for the first time in more than 40 years and just hit 100,000 riders last week, only 22 weeks since service started up on May 21st of this year. This milestone shattered original projections of 125,000-135,000 riders on the Borealis annually. 

Walz’s government also secured funding for new passenger rail between Duluth and the Twin Cities. These pushes to increase Amtrak accessibility for Minnesotans are unparalleled, and will lower carbon emissions while increasing movement and access across the midwestern United States.

Massachusetts, which already has robust Amtrak routes with the Acela, Downeaster, Northeast Regional, Vermonter, and more, is similarly moving forward with plans to expand Amtrak’s offerings across the state. 

Governor Healey’s administration has thrown its support behind upgraded Amtrak services between Boston, Springfield, and Albany and between Greenfield, Springfield, and Hartford – a concept it calls “compass rail” because it would connect the state in all four cardinal directions with a new hub in Springfield. 

Last fall, the administration brought home a $108 million federal grant that will start implementing that plan with infrastructure improvements on the tracks between Springfield and Worcester. 

Getting real about the climate emergency

Some of the most striking differences between the Walz administration and the Healey administration are in how they’ve approached climate policy in the transportation sector.

Just like in Massachusetts, cars and trucks are the biggest source of climate pollution in Minnesota. Both states have set goals to put more electric vehicles on the roads; however, unlike Massachusetts, Minnesota has also embraced ambitious goals to cut tailpipe pollution by reducing traffic.

Gov. Walz’s administration established a goal to reduce per-capita vehicle miles traveled (VMT) by 20 percent by 2050 with improvements to transit service and walking and biking infrastructure. 

In May of this year, Gov. Walz signed a new law that will require the state’s highway agencies to align infrastructure investments with those goals. Now, the state’s Department of Transportation  needs to prove that new highway widening projects will include enough mitigation measures, like new pathways and transit lines, to ensure that they’ll result in less traffic and better options for non-drivers. 

Overall, both governors demonstrate a clear commitment to enhancing transportation infrastructure and protecting vulnerable road users, while their approaches and the scale of their initiatives do differ. 

More on Gov. Walz’s transportation record can be found here.

The road to the White House

So what might this mean in the White House? The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen has put together a comparison of the Biden and Trump administrations and where they stand on transportation and labor issues, which point to both where Harris and Walz may continue to build upon transportation progress, or where the Republican nominee may revert back to.

Transit enthusiasts across the country have already seen the potential of the Harris/Walz ticket, and have been one of the voter blocs that have come out in strong support of the Democratic nominees. 

Toni Sorenson says, “To move is to live.” When a candidate understands how a person’s ability to move affects their quality of life, they will pursue progressive, inclusive, and equitable policies surrounding that need. If elected, Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz will invest in and deliver on progressive transportation policies that sit at the intersection of economic growth, environmental justice, social mobility, and overall health and wellbeing.

Now, vote

Now, with all that said, make your plan to vote. Vote early, vote by mail, take time next Tuesday to vote in person. Whatever you do, make your vote and voice count. And the work continues beyond your few minutes at the ballot box. Share about your plans to vote. Help your friends, family, and broader community make plans to get informed and to weigh in in one of the most critical elections of our lifetimes. 

As we stand at a rather scary fork in the road – one of which paths is currently up in flames of hate, white supremacy, and regression stoked by fear, misinformation, and othering – do your civic duty and engage in some long-lasting community care by casting your vote for the next leader of our complicated-yet-hopeful nation.

Here are some voter resources for Massachusetts residents, courtesy of the Boston Public Library.