The Lakeville City Council has a one-time shot at providing its residents a bus-service bargain
On my way to a town meeting Tuesday night at Lakeville City Hall, I stopped at the Cenex station and filled up my Taurus. It cost me $47.
At the meeting, Lakeville City Administrator Steve Mielke disclosed that for about $36 in property taxes on my Lakeville condo and similar “average-priced homes” in the community, the Metropolitan Council was willing to provide two transit stations and bus service along I-35 and Cedar Avenue to downtown Minneapolis.
I hope the City Council recognizes at its meeting Monday night, when it will vote on the Met Council offer, that the community is looking at an incredible bargain. Thanks to a combination of state, federal and county transit dollars, the city has a golden opportunity to become a more complete, full-service community. It has a chance to join other Dakota County cities that have been offering bus service to its residents for many years.
Yes, we had some folks at Tuesday’s meeting who don’t want bus service, won’t ever use it and have no interest in paying more taxes for anything. When I moved to Lakeville from Edina nine years ago, I encountered folks who measured in months, or even years, the last time they had crossed the Minnesota River. It was a charming aspect of life down here that helped me understand that South of the River is a community apart from the Cities and their inner-ring suburbs. But Lakeville has grown tremendously since 1999, with folks who moved from and still work on the other side, and the Met Council has determined that several hundred Lakeville residents drive to transit stations in Apple Valley and Burnsville for their commutes to Minneapolis or St. Paul. I used to be one of them.
During my years at the Star Tribune, I would frequently drive from Lakeville to the Apple Valley Transit Station for an economical and stress-free trip downtown. But once the parking lot filled to overflowing, and the city of Apple Valley began to talk about a residency requirement, I gave up and joined the bumper-to-bumper gang on I-35 or Cedar. My wife, who works at the U, has endured two-hour commutes when a flake or two of snow falls. I would love to drop her off at the proposed transit station on I-35 near County Road 46 for a comfortable ride north. We would gladly pay a little more in property tax to save a few hundred a month that now goes into the gas tank.
But there are other, less selfish, reasons we want the City Council to take advantage of this one-time offer that is being made available because of a federal grant to Minnesota and passage of a transit sales tax by the Dakota County Board of Commissioners. There are those, such as seniors who don’t feel comfortable tackling congested freeways, who need transit, and there is the issue of a beautiful community that deserves to shed the distinction of being the largest city in the state without transit service. And the Lakeville City Council should consider its obligation to reduce the number of cars on I-35 and Cedar so that we can reduce the demand for fossil fuels and open up our highways for the transport of goods by business.
When Steve Mielke arrived in Lakeville after a distinguished career as city manager in Hopkins, I stopped in to welcome him to my adopted community. We talked about the way he had partnered with the Met Council to bring transit and transit-oriented development to that western suburb. We discussed the transportation gap he would be facing in Lakeville. On Monday, the City Council has a chance to make a tough decision that could fill the gap by joining the Transit Taxing District.
Yes, it’s an additional tax on Lakeville property. But as State Rep. Mary Liz Holberg pointed out at Tuesday’s town meeting, Lakeville residents are already paying for metropolitan transit through the combination of taxes that fund the operation of buses and trains for other communities. For an additional 36 bucks a year, the city can provide long-overdue transit service to its residents.