From Mark Dayton’s veto letter for the Transportation bill:
I believe that providing comprehensive and reliable transit services, both in the Metro Area and in Greater Minnesota, are essential components of the transportation system in Minnesota. Transit services improve labor market efficiency, freeway performance, and air quality in the metro area, while sustaining economic viability in Greater Minnesota. The draconian cuts to transit in this bill are unacceptable to me.
It’s impossible to know whether Draco would have been on the Governor’s or the Legislature’s side, but the Athenians were generally in favor of public infrastructure, evident in the development of the port of Piraeus and the Long Walls that connected it to Athens (built after Draco’s time).
It appears that Dayton isn’t living up to my fears that he’d compromise on the transit section of the Transportation bill in order to keep more highway funding, but of course the final compromise has not yet waffled out. We can count on Dayton to back transit to some degree, but he may have to give a little to make common ground with the Legislature’s Republican leadership, whose disdain for any environmental expression of public spirit might be described as Spartan.
There's more than one way to compromise
