Senator Marty recognizes the significant needs for improvement in our transportation infrastructure, to enable people to get where they need to go, quickly, efficiently, affordably, and in a manner that addresses our climate crisis. John has consistently supported funding to address highway and road maintenance, and to build out the transit infrastructure we need across the state. Currently there is inadequate transit service available in the suburbs as well as in the core cities and greater Minnesota. John is pushing for policies that will greatly increase transit services and ridership.
John has authored legislation to enable utilities and others to add electric charging infrastructure to speed up the transition to electric cars and he has supported efforts to assist school districts and transit systems in moving to electric buses. Electric vehicles currently cost more to purchase but are much cheaper and more reliable to operate.
Public Transit has been a limited option in Minnesota that doesn’t meet the needs of most state residents. This has led to increased costs and traffic congestion. In addition, for many people who do not or cannot drive, due to age or disability or because they don’t have access to a reliable car, the lack of public transit significantly restricts their ability to participate in society. Senator Marty is working for policies that will significantly expand transit options and ridership in order to reduce greenhouse gases, decrease congestion, and better meet the transportation needs of the state.
For climate, environmental, and traffic congestion reasons, we need to double transit ridership in the next couple years, and then double it again and again, multiplying ridership many times over, in the next decade. The best way to get more people riding transit is to sharply reduce or eliminate fares. The country of Luxembourg is making all of its public transit free, to address congestion and protect the environment. This is a cost-effective way to address both problems, and it has multiple additional benefits for the public. John has introduced legislation reducing fares for all rides on all the local public transit systems around the state to 25 cents, with a study of eliminating transit fares entirely across the state, with the state paying to make up for the lost revenue. Nominal 25 cent fares will lead to significant increases in ridership, and that will lead to expansion of transit services, which will, in turn, lead to further increases in ridership.
Senator Marty has also been working to improve options for biking and walking, which have been sidelined in recent decades as communities designed infrastructure that focuses only on automobiles.
