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Transportation <br />the seven county area. Metro Cities encourages the Met Council to work with border <br />counties to help coordinate planning so riders can get to and from destinations <br />beyond the boundaries of the region. <br />5-C Transit Financing <br />The Twin Cities metropolitan area is served by a regional transit system that is expanding <br />to include rail transit and dedicated busways. Any operating subsidies necessary to <br />support this system should come from a regional or statewide funding source. The <br />property taxpayers of individual cities and counties should not be required to fund the <br />operation of specific transit lines or routes of service within this regional system. MVST <br />revenue projections have not been reliable and the Legislature has repeatedly reduced <br />general fund support for Metropolitan Transit. As a result, the regional transit providers <br />continue to operate at a funding deficit. <br />Shifting demographics in the metropolitan region will mean increased demand for transit <br />in areas with and without current transit service. Metro Cities supports stable and <br />growing revenue sources to fund the operating budget for all regional transit <br />providers at a level sufficient to meet the growing operational and capital transit <br />needs of the region and to expand the system to areas that currently have little or no <br />transit options. <br />Metro Cities supports an increase in the regional sales tax to fund the expansion of <br />regular route service, the continuing capital expenses and expanded operational <br />needs of the metropolitan transit system if the increase is accompanied by sufficient <br />local controls over the collection and expenditure of the new revenue and <br />geographic balance is maintained in the expansion of service to allow cities to <br />appropriately plan for growth in population and service needs along new and <br />expanded transit service. Metro Cities opposes diversions of the uses of this tax for <br />any other purposes. <br />5-D Street Improvement Districts <br />Funding sources for local transportation projects are limited to the use of Municipal State <br />Aid (MSA), property taxes and special assessments. In addition, cities under 5,000 in <br />population are not eligible for MSA. With increasing pressures on city budgets and <br />limited tools and resources, cities are finding it increasingly difficult to maintain aging <br />streets. <br />Street improvement districts allow cities in developed and developing areas to fund new <br />construction as well as reconstruction and maintenance efforts. <br />The street improvement district is designed to allow cities, through the use of a fair and <br />objective fee structure, to create a district or districts within the city where fees will be <br />raised on all properties in the district and that must be spent within the boundaries of the <br />2016 Legislative Policies 51 <br />