[Senate Hearing 117-591]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                        S. Hrg. 117-591


                EXAMINING MINNESOTA'S TRANSIT PRIORITIES

=======================================================================

                             FIELD HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                            SUBCOMMITTEE ON
           HOUSING, TRANSPORTATION, AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

                                 OF THE

                              COMMITTEE ON
                   BANKING,HOUSING,AND URBAN AFFAIRS
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                                   ON

  EXAMINING MINNESOTA'S NEED FOR RELIABLE, EFFICIENT, AND AFFORDABLE 
                            TRANSIT OPTIONS
                               __________

                            AUGUST 24, 2021
                               __________

  Printed for the use of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban 
                                Affairs
                                
                                
                  [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]                                
                                

                Available at: https: //www.govinfo.gov/
                
                              __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
                    
51-119 PDF                 WASHINGTON : 2023                




            COMMITTEE ON BANKING, HOUSING, AND URBAN AFFAIRS

                     SHERROD BROWN, Ohio, Chairman

JACK REED, Rhode Island              PATRICK J. TOOMEY, Pennsylvania
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey          RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama
JON TESTER, Montana                  MIKE CRAPO, Idaho
MARK R. WARNER, Virginia             TIM SCOTT, South Carolina
ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts      MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland           THOM TILLIS, North Carolina
CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, Nevada       JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana
TINA SMITH, Minnesota                BILL HAGERTY, Tennessee
KYRSTEN SINEMA, Arizona              CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming
JON OSSOFF, Georgia                  JERRY MORAN, Kansas
RAPHAEL WARNOCK, Georgia             KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota
                                     STEVE DAINES, Montana

                     Laura Swanson, Staff Director

                 Brad Grantz, Republican Staff Director

                      Cameron Ricker, Chief Clerk

                      Shelvin Simmons, IT Director

                    Charles J. Moffat, Hearing Clerk

                      Jason T. Parker, GPO Detail

                                 ______

   Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation, and Community Development

                      TINA SMITH, Minnesota, Chair

          MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota, Ranking Republican Member

JACK REED, Rhode Island              RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey          MIKE CRAPO, Idaho
JON TESTER, Montana                  BILL HAGERTY, Tennessee
CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, Nevada       CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland           JERRY MORAN, Kansas
JON OSSOFF, Georgia                  KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota
RAPHAEL WARNOCK, Georgia             STEVE DAINES, Montana

                Tim Everett, Subcommittee Staff Director

                 Anna McCloskey, Legislative Assistant

         Jackie Bossman, Republican Subcommittee Staff Director

                                  (ii)


                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                        TUESDAY, AUGUST 24, 2021

                                                                   Page

Opening statement of Chair Smith.................................     1

                               WITNESSES

Margaret Anderson Kelliher, Commissioner, Minnesota Department of
  Transportation.................................................     4
    Prepared statement...........................................    33
Charlie Zelle, Chair of Metropolitan Council.....................     6
    Prepared statement...........................................    34
Irene Fernando, Commissioner, Hennepin County Board of 
  Commissioners..................................................     8
    Prepared statement...........................................    36
Alison Zelms, City Administrator, City of Rochester, Minnesota...     9
    Prepared statement...........................................    38
Grace Waltz, Vice President of Public Policy, Minneapolis 
  Regional Chamber of Commerce...................................    11
    Prepared statement...........................................    40
Cassandra Belyeu Johnson, Transit Rider, Brooklyn Park, Minnesota    13
    Prepared statement...........................................    41
Nuria Fernandez, Administrator, Federal Transit Administration...    21
    Prepared statement...........................................    42
    Responses to written questions of:
        Chair Smith..............................................    44

              Additional Material Supplied for the Record

METRO Blue Line Extension........................................    47
Advancing Equity Along the Blue Line Extension...................    49
Statement of New Flyer of America................................    57
Statement of Rafael Ortega, Chair of the Ramsey County Regional 
  Rail
  Authority and Ramsey County Commissioner--District 5...........    58
METRO diagram....................................................    59

                                 (iii)

 
                EXAMINING MINNESOTA'S TRANSIT PRIORITIES

                              ----------                              


                        TUESDAY, AUGUST 24, 2021

                               U.S. Senate,
  Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs,
    Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation, and Community 
                                               Development,
                                                   Minneapolis, MN.
    The Subcommittee met at 10:00 a.m., at the Fred T. Heywood 
Office Building and Garage, 560 North Sixth Avenue, Mineapolis, 
MN, Hon. Tina Smith, Chair of the Subcommittee, presiding.

             OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIR TINA SMITH

    Chair Smith. Good morning. The Subcommittee on Housing, 
Transportation, and Community Development will come to order.
    I am delighted to convene this Subcommittee in my hometown 
of Minneapolis and in the great State of Minnesota. This will 
be the first field hearing of this Subcommittee in more than 7 
years, and I believe it is the first time that Minnesota has 
hosted a Field Committee ever of this Subcommittee, or any 
Committee of the Banking Housing Committee. So I cannot imagine 
a better place to have that than here in Minnesota.
    And I also would like to thank the Metropolitan Council for 
the gavel because it turns out this is supposed to be an 
official Banking Housing Committee gavel. However, the gavel 
was confiscated by TSA on the way to Minnesota, so I'm glad to 
have this. Thank you so much, Chair Zelle, for use of your 
gavel, and I promise to return it when--I know, you need this 
gavel.
    When I joined the Senate 3 years ago, I pledged to 
Minnesotans that I would work for you and give you a voice in 
Washington and put Washington to work for all of us. And in 
that spirit, it is terrific to welcome FTA Administrator Nuria 
Fernandez to this hearing to discuss the transit priorities of 
our region.
    Administrator Fernandez and I had an opportunity to meet 
virtually at first and then in person this year before her 
confirmation hearing before our Committee, and during our 
meeting I was deeply impressed by her command of transit policy 
issues as well as her deep operating experience.
    She gets the policy, but she also understands what it's 
like to do implementation at the local level, and that is why 
she is such a strong nomination for the Biden administration 
for this crucially important role.
    I immediately asked her to join me in Minnesota for a field 
hearing, and she agreed, pending her confirmation, which I'm 
delighted to say has occurred. And now that she is confirmed by 
the Senate, I'm just so happy that she is here with us today.
    Minnesotans, like all Americans, need reliable, efficient, 
affordable options for getting around. This is true whether you 
live in big cities, the suburbs, whether you live in regional 
centers like Rochester or Duluth or Moorhead, or whether you 
live in small towns and rural places. From Dial-a-Ride services 
in small towns to intercity bus service connecting rural and 
urban areas to light rail, bus rapid transit and bus service, 
folks rely on these modes of transportation every single day, 
and transit makes life work for countless Minnesotans.
    Transit options are essential for people to get to work or 
school or to the doctor and to buy groceries or to fill a 
prescription. Transit connects people to jobs and opportunity. 
Transit is the engine that drives regional economies.
    As Chair of this Subcommittee, I have three priorities when 
it comes to transit, priorities I've learned from all of you 
here in Minnesota.
    The first is that transit needs to reach all Minnesota. It 
needs to work in big cities like Minneapolis and in small towns 
and rural places like the Arrowhead. This means we need to be 
flexible about mode, from light rail and bus rapid transit to 
fixed-route bus lines, and in some cases, Dial-a-Ride services.
    Rural transit has been an area of strong bipartisan 
cooperation in our Subcommittee since I became a chair of the 
Subcommittee at the beginning of this year. And I'm grateful to 
my Ranking Member, Senator Mike Rounds, from South Dakota, who 
has been a terrific colleague.
    Two months ago Senator Rounds and I partnered on a 
Subcommittee hearing focused specifically on transit needs of 
rural communities and in tribal regions, and with Brandon Nurmi 
from the Arrowhead Transit Organization in northeastern 
Minnesota, he was one of our witnesses, which I was grateful 
for. Senator Rounds and I are working together right now on 
investments in the Rural Transit Act to support transit systems 
in small towns and rural areas.
    Second, I am a strong advocate for Minnesota transit 
projects and Minnesota transit needs. I push to make sure that 
the bipartisan infrastructure bill includes more money for 
capital investment grants, the source of Federal funding to 
build out new light rail and new bus rapid transit funding in 
Minnesota. The bipartisan infrastructure bill increases annual 
funding for capital investment grants by $700 million, bringing 
the total to $3 billion a year, and this new money will help 
projects like the Orange Line Extension get off the ground.
    I've also been pushing for the Public Transit Capital 
Investment Relief Act to become law, which would provide relief 
for grant recipients who have experienced construction delays 
as a result of COVID-19, which has been a challenge, for 
example, for Southwest LRT.
    Third, we must see and understand the connection between 
transit and equity and reflect this understanding in our 
actions. Minnesotans of color are over two times more likely to 
rely on transit than other Minnesotans, and because they also 
live with deep inequity, inequality, transit is especially 
important for connecting Black and Brown and indigenous 
communities and all communities of color to home, to work, to 
health care, to child care, to groceries, to parks and to 
recreation. We have an opportunity and an obligation to use 
transit as a tool for addressing the systemic inequities in our 
society, inequities that are especially pronounced in this 
State that I love so dearly.
    So we started planning for this hearing several months ago, 
but as it happens, the timing couldn't be better. Just 2 weeks 
ago the United States Senate passed an historic bipartisan 
infrastructure investment bill. This bipartisan bill which 
passed the Senate with 69 votes, something that does not happen 
a lot in the United States Senate, includes the largest 
investment in transit programs that we have seen in a 
generation. For Minnesota, this will mean at least 856 million 
in funding for transit as well as urgently needed resources to 
repair roads and bridges, ports and airports, and inland 
waterways. And it also includes support for high-speed and 
affordable broadband internet access, which is so important.
    The bipartisan infrastructure bill includes important 
updates to transit policies also, which I fought for, including 
measures to reduce violence against bus drivers, to expand 
electric transit vehicles, and to support transit-oriented 
development practices.
    This new funding could make a huge difference for projects 
like the Metro B Line, the Metro E Line, and the Orange Line 
Extension, help those projects get off the ground. And I'm very 
hopeful and optimistic that the House will soon pass this key 
measure and that it will be signed by the President into law.
    Before I introduce our witnesses, I would like to extend 
again a thank you to Ranking Member Rounds, who was unable to 
be with us here but has been, as I said, a great partner in 
leading this Subcommittee, and I appreciate his willingness to 
let this Subcommittee hearing happen here in Minneapolis even 
though he can't be with us.
    I'd also like to enter into the record several statements 
that I received from local stakeholders, including the 
Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1005 and New Flyer.
    And I also understand that Minnesota Senator Scott Dibble 
and Minnesota Representative Frank Hornstein, who have joined 
us this morning, will be submitting statements for the record 
also, and I'm glad they'll be joining us for lunch later today. 
Without objection, so ordered.
    With that, I am now very excited to introduce our 
witnesses. I will introduce all of you at once and then 
recognize you in turn for your opening statements.
    When you're recognized, you will have 5 minutes or so for 
your opening statement. I'm advised that it is fitting with the 
Metro Transit rule that you can remove your mask if you're 
comfortable for the speaking part of your testimony.
    Your entire written statement will be made part of the 
record. Please monitor your time, which will be shown on a 
clock in front of you. When you are recognized, the light in 
front of you will turn green. I will turn--and it will turn 
yellow when you have 1 minute remaining and then turn red when 
your time is up. When the first panel is finished, we will take 
a very brief break while we set up for Administrator Fernandez. 
Thank you.
    So our first panel will include Margaret Anderson Keller--
we've only known each other for 40 years; I'm so excited--
Margaret Anderson Kelliher, who is the Commissioner of the 
Minnesota Department of Transportation, a role she has held 
since 2019; Charlie Zelle, who is chair of the Met Council and 
who previously served as Governor Dayton's Transportation 
commissioner; Irene Fernando, who is Hennepin County 
Commissioner, also is chair of the Hennepin County Regional 
Rail Authority; Ms. Alison Zelms, who is the city administrator 
of Rochester, and in that role she leads Rochester Public 
Transit; Grace Waltz, who is the vice president of public 
policy at the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce; and Cassandra 
Johnson, who is a regular transit rider and is a resident of 
Brooklyn Park and has been riding transit in the metro area for 
many years.
    Thank you to all of you for agreeing to testify, and I look 
forward to hearing from each of you. And the testimony can 
begin with Commissioner Kelliher.

    STATEMENT OF MARGARET ANDERSON KELLIHER, COMMISSIONER, 
             MINNESOTA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

    Ms. Anderson Kelliher. Good morning, Chair Smith, and 
Members of the Subcommittee. Thank you, and thank you for the 
FTA administrator also being present today and all the other 
honorable presenters today. It's an honor to share this with 
you.
    I am grateful for the opportunity to testify about mass 
transit and particularly policies in Minnesota affecting rural 
Minnesotans, although I will make some other comments as well.
    Again, I'm Margaret Anderson Kelliher. I am the 
Commissioner of Transportation for the State of Minnesota.
    MnDOT's Office of Transit and Active Transportation works 
with more than 40 Greater Minnesota transit systems and five 
tribal governments. Our program for transit alone is $150 
million.
    Our mission is to provide our partners and communities with 
leadership, tools, and resources that support access to high-
quality transit options. We do this to enable people to live 
independently and to be engaged and connected to their 
communities.
    We know that transit plays an important part in helping 
provide an equitable and sustainable transportation system 
across the State. While Minnesota consistently ranks as a top 
place to live and work, this is not true for everyone. And 
these inequalities threaten our long-term competitiveness as a 
State.
    Our Government needs to focus on preparing for the next 
generation of Minnesotans to work and to lead in a rapidly 
changing world. This means we need a Government centered around 
our children, their families, and that Minnesota can be the 
best place for every child to grow up.
    I want to talk a little bit about the benefits of transit 
and the impact of the Infrastructure Investment Jobs Act.
    In its current form, and hopefully its final form, this 
bill will represent a 63 percent increase in funding for 
transportation. For the Federal formula programs that we depend 
on for Greater Minnesota, we estimate up to a 30 percent 
increase in funding levels within the first year. It will allow 
us, with our partners, to expand transportation access, more 
rapidly modernize the fleets and the facilities, and expand 
transit's role in advancing transportation equity objectives 
and addressing climate change. The cost-benefit ratio for 
investment in transit is estimated to be, in dollars, 2.1 to $1 
for rural transit and 2.6 to $1 for small urban transit, a good 
return on investment. This is based on a study compiled by 
NDSU's Upper Greater Plains Transit Institute in 2018.
    There's also benefits to the climate. The transportation 
sector, as you know, is the leading contributor to greenhouse 
gas emissions today in our country. Public transportation is 
critical to be able to have a strategy to reduce those 
emissions. Public transportation produces significantly lower 
greenhouse gas emissions per mile traveled than private 
vehicles. And you will hear this Commissioner of Transportation 
often say, we need our partners at the local level to be doing 
more on transit. We need a better transit system.
    We're beginning to see the greening of the transit fleet 
with battery electric buses operated in Duluth and the Twin 
Cities and across the metro, also coming soon in Rochester as 
well.
    Rural transit agencies will begin to see deployment of 
battery electric buses soon.
    The City of Morris and Arrowhead Transit in northeastern 
Minnesota have been awarded clean transportation grants by the 
State of Minnesota to be able to purchase electric vehicles and 
support infrastructure in the next year. We're working with our 
partners at the Met Council and other transit providers to 
reduce the vehicle miles traveled.
    Rural transit cost share is one of the biggest barriers 
that local communities face, so I want to thank you for this 
Rounds-Smith Act, and that it would really benefit those 
communities who tell us that the biggest barrier to 
implementing a better transit system is the cost share. 
Impoverished communities, communities with low tax base, the 
local match requirement can be a significant barrier.
    Finally, I just want to speak briefly about COVID-19 and 
the effect on transit.
    We know that transit ridership fell incredibly across the 
State, not only in the metro area, but also in local 
communities. Those local communities and their transit 
operators stepped up. They were able to provide local food 
shelf delivery, local door-to-door food delivery for people. 
They were able to give critical rides to people who needed 
health care. It is so important that we were able to work with 
them in a flexible way in this pandemic to be able to deliver 
those services.
    We prioritized with our transit providers being able to 
keep transit operations working as those farebox revenues fell. 
We do see that with the help of the CARES Act, as well as the 
CRRSAA funds and the American Rescue Plan, that the local share 
of operating budgets were really bolstered by those funds. So I 
want to thank you for that, Senator Smith. That was critical to 
being able to continue to deliver transit services in rural 
Minnesota.
    We are interested in continuing to work with tribal 
governments, and we are actually working on some innovative 
ideas to be able to deliver those Federal funds to tribal 
governments in new ways.
    Finally, we are striving to bring the digital age to 
transit in rural Minnesota as well using a Mobility-as-a-
Service platform and being able to work with our partners to 
deploy that.
    Madam Chair, Members of the Committee, and Honored Guests, 
thank you for allowing me to speak today, and I'd be happy to 
answer your questions.
    Chair Smith. Thank you. Chair Zelle.

   STATEMENT OF CHARLIE ZELLE, CHAIR OF METROPOLITAN COUNCIL

    Mr. Zelle. Thank you, Chair Smith. And on behalf of Met 
Transit, welcome to our building, and I also want to welcome 
Administrator Fernandez and other distinguished guests to have 
this hearing here.
    The Metropolitan Council is the policymaking body, planning 
agency, and provider of essential services for the entire 
seven-county area. We also act as the Metropolitan Planning 
Organization for the region, and we plan for and operate 
transit and paratransit. Metro Transit is a division of 
Metropolitan Council, and it's the largest transit provider in 
the State.
    You know, like transit across the country, Metro Transit's 
ridership was significantly affected during the pandemic. You 
know, we had a deep drop in ridership, but that doesn't tell 
the whole story. Even just recently, we're operating and 
carrying as many as 100,000 rides on a weekday. It shows how 
essential this service is to our economy and to our metro area.
    I want to really thank Senator Smith and our Federal 
delegation for the appropriating of Federal COVID relief 
dollars which accounted for, with the three different acts, as 
much as $725 million for this region.
    I also want to thank the FTA for helping administer and 
delivering those funds. Without it we would not be able to have 
our transit on the streets, and providing 3,000 Metro Transit 
jobs currently employed. So we passed out a map, and this shows 
our vision. This map represents a 2030 network of light rail 
and bus rapid transit. It is really a tremendous growth, which 
has been planned for 4 years and is really going to be 
implemented in the next, you know, 9 years. With the help of 
the Federal partners, we have made significant progress.
    The Senator mentioned the Orange Line, the bus rapid 
transit corridor, is completing construction, and we anticipate 
having a ribbon-cutting later this year. The line runs along 
35W. It received $74 million in Small Starts grant in 2019.
    Continuing clockwise, the Green Line Extension, or as we 
know it, the Southwest Light Rail, is under construction and 50 
percent complete. I could go on and on. It is the largest 
infrastructure project ever in the State of Minnesota and it 
will have significant impact.
    Just a note, we have had, through June of this year, over 
$155 million for Disadvantaged Business Enterprises and 
professional services. So our commitment to equity is 
throughout in every one of our lines.
    The Blue Line Extension light rail project is undergoing 
alignment review. We are exploring new ways to connect with the 
north side of Minneapolis, near where we are now, and the 
northern communities, so we are able to appropriately connect 
with those communities and neighborhoods that have been for so 
long marginalized and forgotten. I know my compatriot, 
Commissioner Fernando, will discuss this in greater length, but 
we are doing a new kind of deep engagement with the community 
to ensure we get it right.
    Moving to the right side of the map, the Purple Line is a 
dedicated guideway BRT project. We anticipate an environmental 
decision from FTA in the next 2 months, and the Council will 
seek entry into the New Starts Project Development this fall.
    The Gold Line project is a dedicated guideway BRT corridor 
running east from St. Paul, and we are so pleased that the 
President's 2022 budget recommendation included $100 million 
for this project. Design work is completed, and the FTA will 
conduct a review of the project's readiness for a Full Funding 
Grant as early as next week. So we're eager to move toward a 
Full Funding Grant Agreement in the next year and start 
construction as soon as next summer.
    The Riverview project is beginning environmental analysis 
as a rail corridor and that will advance, connecting St. Paul 
with the airport and the Mall of America.
    So connecting all of these lines, and you'll see them with 
the letters, is our arterial bus rapid transit. Over half of 
our bus system rides are in corridors which we plan to 
transition toward this enhanced bus system. We have two 
operating arterial BRT lines in place, the A Line and the C 
Line. The D Line is under construction, and the B and the E 
Lines are fully funded and moving toward construction. So this 
map is not a dream. It is real, it's funded, and it's 
happening.
    When our full 2040 network is constructed, LRT and BRT 
services will connect 28 percent of the region's residents, 44 
percent of all jobs in the region. This network will connect 46 
percent of the region's BIPOC residents and 60 percent of the 
region's renter households.
    Transit makes a difference for helping solve the issues of 
disparities we suffer from in this metro area.
    So we expand on that work, we're taking intentional steps 
to increase the diversity of contractors and working with both 
of our partners and our own programs to foster entrepreneurship 
for people of color and women. We support on-the-job training. 
We are working through a Mentoring Protege program and to help 
develop better BIPOC business as well.
    So looking ahead with that wonderful infrastructure bill, I 
have to mention that we have made significant investments in 
battery electric bus infrastructure with the help of FTA's Low 
and No Emissions Program grants, we've had some experience, and 
we are committed to a zero emissions future. We think this will 
make a difference.
    So in closing, I want to take the opportunity to thank you, 
Senator Smith, and our entire Federal delegation for the 
partnership you've given and shown us. Without it, our success 
today and, more importantly, this future, would not be 
possible. Thank you so much.
    Chair Smith. Thank you so much, Chair Zelle.
    Now I'm excited to hear from Commissioner Fernando.

  STATEMENT OF IRENE FERNANDO, COMMISSIONER, HENNEPIN COUNTY 
                     BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

    Ms. Fernando. Thank you, Chair Smith, Ranking Member 
Rounds, Members of the Committee, and Administrator Fernandez.
    I extend my sincere gratitude for the opportunity to speak 
and for all the work you do.
    My name is Irene Fernando, Hennepin County Commissioner and 
Chair of our Regional Railroad Authority. And as a 
commissioner, I am dedicated to advancing equity by advocating 
for those who are marginalized or structurally disenfranchised.
    I am proud to represent District 2, which includes Golden 
Valley, Medicine Lake, Minneapolis, Plymouth, and St. Anthony 
Village. I am in my first term in office, I am the youngest 
woman to serve on Hennepin's board, and alongside Commissioner 
Angela Conley, we are the first and only commissioners of color 
in Hennepin's 169-year history.
    Today I'm excited to talk about a project that will make an 
incredible difference locally, with potential benefits across 
the country.
    The Blue Line Extension, which has been in the works for 
over 30 years, is a 13-mile light rail project that will 
further our region's transit vision and will affordably connect 
students to education, workers to jobs, patients to health 
care, and families to resources.
    We're deeply committed to the Blue Line Extension because 
it's more than a project to advance. It's a commitment to the 
residents and communities along the corridor, for ongoing 
engagement and economic investment for years and decades to 
come.
    To visualize this need, I have two maps here and several 
more in your materials. The first map to my right looks at 
concentrations of People of Color & Transit Commuters. As you 
can see, the proposed Blue Line Extension serves communities 
who are relying on transit as well as the most racially diverse 
communities in Hennepin. The second map to my left looks at 
Home Value and Adult High School Degrees. This corridor shows 
lower home values and lower degree attainment for adults 25 
plus. We know that property valuation connects to 
disinvestment, and of course we know there's a strong 
relationship between education and income.
    The Blue Line Extension will change the trajectory of 
what's possible for so many of my neighbors today and for 
generations to come. It will ignite much needed and long 
overdue economic development for small businesses, while 
building wealth for working families.
    For example, I live in North Minneapolis, which is 16 
percent of the city's population and about 70,000 residents, 
and if I wanted to host you all tonight for a sit-down dinner, 
I couldn't. There aren't places for people to celebrate life 
milestones, nor spots for my neighborhood kids to get their 
first jobs. It seems inconceivable to have this many people in 
an area without restaurant choices, access to jobs, or spaces 
to celebrate.
    After a century of disinvestment, racial covenants, and 
redlining, we have a duty to ensure that current residents, 
small businesses, and cultural institutions are both engaged in 
and able to benefit from the increased development in their 
neighborhoods.
    The communities of this corridor have suffered 
disproportionally over the past year due to the pandemic, the 
resulting job and housing disruptions, and historic harms that 
must be repaired.
    This is why Hennepin and Met Council are proud to establish 
an Anti-Displacement Workgroup that centers community voices 
and convenes diverse partners and stakeholders, to develop 
robust anti-displacement measures that can counter the 
unintended harm from large-scale infrastructure projects, with 
specific goals to reduce racial disparities and to create more 
equitable economic strategies.
    Our teams work deliberately every day to ensure the Blue 
Line Extension benefits corridor residents and minimizes 
physical, economic, and cultural displacement.
    Our anti-displacement goals closely align with the Biden-
Harris administration's Justice40 Initiative, which commits 40 
percent of Federal climate investment to benefit disadvantaged 
communities. Transit is a climate investment, and to benefit 
disadvantaged communities, intentional focus on anti-
displacement is required.
    We hope the Committee's goals align and look forward to the 
possibility of partnering. We can achieve transformational 
benefits for our communities with Federal support, and I am 
confident that this work has the opportunity to be scaled to 
other jurisdictions due to Hennepin's size, experiences, 
assets, and shortcomings.
    In partnership, we can ask questions and create replicable 
frameworks to center residents who have been historically 
marginalized, to meaningfully incorporate climate change, and 
to address quantifiable patterns of disinvestment through 
affordable housing, growing local businesses, and access to 
jobs.
    Thank you again for the time today, and I look forward to 
hearing your questions or reactions to these ideas. And thank 
you, Chair Smith.
    Chair Smith. Thank you so much, Commissioner Fernando.
    Welcome to Alison Zelms, who is the City Administrator from 
the City of Rochester.

    STATEMENT OF ALISON ZELMS, CITY ADMINISTRATOR, CITY OF 
                      ROCHESTER, MINNESOTA

    Ms. Zelms. Thank you. Madam Chair, Members of the 
Subcommittee, and those other fellow people testifying here 
today, thank you for everything you've shared. I share many of 
your sentiments.
    I'm Alison Zelms, City Administrator for the City of 
Rochester, Minnesota. And for the record, we are located just 
about an hour south of the metro area. We represent 
approximately 119,000 residents and typically over 3 million 
visitors each year receiving world-renowned medical care at the 
Mayo Clinic.
    We operate 32 fixed routes and complimentary paratransit 
service for persons with disabilities 365 days a year over a 
28-square mile coverage area in Rochester.
    Like many others, I'd like to begin by expressing gratitude 
for recent congressional actions that really helped us keep 
moving. Namely, the CARES Act and the American Rescue Plan Act 
have been critically important sources of emergency transit 
funding for us.
    Ridership on Rochester public transit regular routes fell 
90 percent in the early days of the pandemic and is still 65 
percent below the 2019 levels. Federal emergency funding 
allowed us to keep our current bus routes running and to 
implement extensive safety measures to keep our operators and 
patrons safe.
    Federal CARES capital funding allowed us to purchase 10 
replacement buses without depleting local reserves further than 
they already were. And without the CARES and American Rescue 
Plan Act, we would not have been able to safely operate 
essential transit for the many essential workers that we serve 
and who rely on us in Rochester. In fact, our bus system 
actually--on the hottest days of the year actually serves as a 
cool place to be for many of our most vulnerable residents who 
don't have shelter, and we've seen that this summer.
    So we do appreciate the consideration as well of the 
Congress and the President for U.S. Department of 
Transportation 2022 budget funding that currently includes 
$56.1 million for Rochester's Bus Rapid Transit project.
    Rochester's bus rapid transit project is locally now known 
as The Link, and it's a transformational public transportation 
project currently in the design phase and has applied for FTA 
Capital Investment Grants Small Starts program funds.
    The Link is a critical 2.6 mile transit project that will 
connect downtown Rochester, the Mayo Civic Center, Mayo Clinic 
campuses, and the Rochester Olmsted County Government Center. 
This corridor is one of our most heavily traveled, carrying 
more than 21,800 vehicles and 13,000 transit riders every day.
    It will provide service every 5 minutes during peak times 
and every 10 minutes other times of day, and the travel time 
will consistently be less than 15 minutes from end to end.
    This project will significantly reduce congestion, connect 
people to jobs, health care, education, recreation, and support 
economic development in the region. Which the Honorable Chair 
knows well, it pairs with the Destination Medical Center 
initiative, which is the largest public-private economic 
initiative in Minnesota's history.
    The Link is a once-in-a-generation project and it will have 
a broad impact in our community. It advances the environmental 
sustainability, economic health, and social equity.
    For example, the electric powered fleet will reduce our 
city's environmental footprint and help the city transition 
away from fossil fuels.
    It will encourage investment and better land use in high-
density, affordable, mixed-use development along our transit 
corridors, and it will be a signature amenity that residents 
and visitors can use, providing a superior transit experience.
    On social equity, it will have a long-term halo effect, 
strengthening the overall Rochester Public Transit system and 
providing the opportunity to improve access to transit-
dependent people.
    I was also asked to speak specifically about challenges and 
opportunities of a transit system outside the metro area.
    Obviously the pandemic continues to have a significant 
adverse impact on transit ridership. And while the principles 
that shape our mobility strategy remain in place, a high degree 
of uncertainty exists. When will people feel more comfortable? 
When will this health crisis subside and we return to more 
normal routes? And how will remote work impact our system and 
our ridership?
    We are confident, though, that demand will return and grow. 
We anticipate the rate of growth may need to be reevaluated, 
however.
    So the pandemic has also sped up the rate of change and 
encouraged innovation, leading to an opportunity to reconsider 
and improve many aspects of transit service delivery, including 
bus rapid transit.
    For example, the disinfection onboard on filtration 
technologies are needed to improve customer comfort long term. 
Touchless mobile fare payment technology has accelerated. It's 
always been important to us, but that's coming much more 
quickly than we anticipated. And vehicle technology continues 
to advance with battery electric vehicles and on-street 
piloting of autonomous transit vehicles in Rochester.
    So I'd ask the Members of this Subcommittee to support 
continued Federal resources for local transit agencies to help 
us in metro and in more rural communities emerge healthy and 
build our infrastructure for the future.
    Federal capital programs like the CARES Act and the 
American Rescue Plan, as well as the ongoing transportation-
specific programs are essential to implement sustainable and 
equitable mobility that solves for congestion management, 
social equity, affordable housing, economic development, and 
climate action.
    Thank you for the opportunity and for your time.
    Chair Smith. Thank you so much. Ms. Waltz.

  STATEMENT OF GRACE WALTZ, VICE PRESIDENT OF PUBLIC POLICY, 
            MINNEAPOLIS REGIONAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

    Ms. Waltz. Chair Smith and Administrator Fernandez, thank 
you for the invitation to speak this morning about the 
importance of investing in a strong transit network.
    The Minneapolis Regional Chamber is the largest local 
chamber in Minnesota with nearly 2,300 members in the 11-county 
metro region. Over the past 10 years the Minneapolis Regional 
Chamber and our partners have commissioned two studies from 
national experts to assess the expected return on investment 
from building out our region's transit system. These reports 
have confirmed that in addition to providing more and better 
ways to get around, investments in transit pay off, both for 
those who use transit and those who use our roads and highways.
    Building a comprehensive transit system in our metro area 
will provide a major return on investment, more than 9 billion 
in positive direct impacts.
    Improved public transit is a key component to eliminating 
access barriers to equitable employment and economic 
disparities. Employers and employees have been seeking better 
transit, and this report shows that it's also the smart thing 
to do from a monetary perspective.
    It's important to note that our most recent study found 
that 81 percent of the benefits of a better transit system 
would be enjoyed by people and businesses using the region's 
street and highway system due to reduced traffic, thus avoiding 
inconveniences like shipping delays and long daily commutes.
    Beyond the clear economic benefits, public support for 
improved transit access is incredibly high. A 2018 poll 
commissioned by the Minneapolis Regional Chamber shows that 74 
percent of all respondents said that they would support the 
State of Minnesota making additional investments in transit, 
including buses, trains, and light rail.
    There is also strong support for making transit easier to 
use. Fifty-eight percent said they would like to use public 
transit such as rail or buses more often, but it is not 
convenient to or available from their home or work.
    Nearly two-thirds believe that transit is necessary to 
compete with other metro areas for jobs. Sixty-four percent 
said that Minneapolis-St. Paul needs a better regional transit 
system in order to compete for jobs with peer cities, such as 
Denver, Salt Lake City, Dallas, and Portland that have more 
complete transit systems.
    These results make it clear that Minnesotans recognize that 
transit is good for our economy and their day-to-day lives, 
making our State stronger and more competitive.
    It also must be noted that the way we think about our 
transit system looks different than it did just 17 months ago. 
The COVID-19 pandemic and shift to remote work decimated demand 
for public transit in the Twin Cities and across the country. 
Even while some companies have begun the process of bringing 
their workers back to the office, continued uncertainty has 
delayed the return for many companies, and there continue to be 
some who may never bring their workers back to prepandemic 
levels.
    As we think about the transit system of the future, we need 
to think about building systems that are more than getting 
people to and from work. We need transit systems that allow 
people to use transit to go to a doctor's appointment, the 
grocery store, out to dinner, or to a sporting event. To put it 
plainly, it is no longer enough to build a system that only 
gets people from point A to point B. We need a system that gets 
people from point A, to C, D, E, F, back to A again.
    Federal, State, and local leaders recognize that we are at 
a unique moment in time when it comes to making innovative 
investments. We know that businesses prefer to locate near 
transit, where employees and customers will have more travel 
options. There is momentum for transit investments here in 
Minnesota that strengthen our economy and make our State an 
even better place for business and employees.
    Investing in transit now will generate a positive impact 
for our economy for decades, including additional State and 
local tax revenues of nearly the same magnitude as the 
investment costs.
    Economic benefits aside, the recent United Nations climate 
report painted a terrifying picture of what is to come if we do 
not change the way we treat the planet, and transit plays a 
major role in a cleaner future. Over this past summer 
Minnesotans have witnessed the devastating impacts of climate 
change in our own backyards, which is to say nothing of the 
impacts in other parts of the country and around the world.
    The Minneapolis Regional Chamber has been advocating 
strongly for transit investments, and this ROI information only 
strengthens our resolve and desire to make this happen. We are 
hopeful that policymakers will recognize the significant 
benefits that come with transit and will make smart choices in 
support of investments that benefit our economy, employees, and 
everyone in the region.
    Thank you, Chair Smith and Committee Members, for focusing 
on this very important issue. I am happy to answer any 
questions.
    Chair Smith. Thank you so much.
    And now we turn to Ms. Johnson. Thank you for being with 
us.

STATEMENT OF CASSANDRA BELYEU JOHNSON, TRANSIT RIDER, BROOKLYN 
                        PARK, MINNESOTA

    Ms. Belyeu Johnson. You're welcome. Hello. Hello, and thank 
you for your time today as I talk about what public 
transportation means to me and the community of Brooklyn Center 
and Brooklyn Park.
    My name is Cassandra Belyeu, and I am a resident of 
Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, on the borderline of Brooklyn Center, 
where I have resided for the past 4 years. I am a passionate 
advocate for transportation access. I am here today to share my 
perspective with Senator Tina Smith and the panel.
    Transportation is lacking in my area. I feel the need to be 
addressed. My research as--as on Metro's website has revealed 
that only four buses that I am aware of service the city of 
Brooklyn Center and Brooklyn Park. Anyone who misses or--one of 
these buses will be forced to wait an hour for the next arrival 
or walk a long distance of potentially over a mile. During the 
Minnesota winter, such a long wait or walk can be an extremely 
difficult challenge.
    Without access to reliable transportation, simple tasks 
like shopping and receiving a haircut can be--occupy signature 
[sic] portion of someone's day.
    While I have personal access to a car today, I didn't 
always. I can still recall spending half of my day planning a 
haircut due to lack of access to transportation, arriving a 
full hour early just to secure my spot with my barber.
    I would also rely on family members to pick me up and to 
take me home afterwards if my haircut appointment was in the 
evening when the buses were less available. During the weekend, 
I also had to get a ride because buses were even more 
unavailable than during the week.
    My story is so far more only--the only one, and the time it 
occupied in my day shows necessary [sic] of reliable 
transportation in Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn Center area. We 
currently--where currently it is lacking. My story raises the 
question of what happens to other Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn 
Center residents like me who either temporarily or permanently 
rely on public transportation.
    I also spoke with some friends in order to hear their 
perspective on what the public transportation means to them. I 
have a friend who would love to move to the northwestern 
suburbs, particularly Brooklyn Park, but finds it's such--more 
difficult due to the lack of transportation.
    My friend's story shows the public transportation is not 
only a means of offering access to numerous locations and 
current residents, but also a means of bringing people into the 
community.
    In addition to knowing people who are unsure about moving 
to the area, I also know people who live in Brooklyn Park and 
Brooklyn Center who have been stranded and needed me for a ride 
home because they couldn't get home from the Brooklyn Center 
transit. Instead, I had to pick them up where they were. No 
buses ran close to their home, meaning they would have had to 
walk miles if I hadn't picked them up and if it had been bad 
weather.
    Access to public transportation is extremely important to 
children and during holidays. During Halloween and other public 
activities, children often have trouble arriving because the 
events are so far spread out.
    I am here to say that the transportation situation right 
now is not working for many people in Brooklyn Park and 
Brooklyn Center area. I would also like to demand that the 
buses in Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn Center run longer hours, 
including hours that go beyond the rush hours into the evening 
and the weekends, specifically Sundays, where they often do not 
run at all. That bus often has more--buses that have more stops 
also, particularly in the underprivileged communities.
    Even though I have a car, I would still like to use public 
transportation from time to time. During trips to the mall, I 
still use public transportation. My example that--shows that 
even people with access to personal transportation can still 
benefit from stronger public transportation.
    My story and the stories of the countless Brooklyn Park and 
Brooklyn Center residents raise questions of what access to 
public transportation means for the residents and tremendously 
affect in the community--in the community.
    And thank you for having me and listening to my testimony 
today.
    Chair Smith. Thank you so much. Thank you.
    So I'm going to take about 15 minutes or so to ask 
questions--I'm making sure I've got the right instructions 
here--and then we will just take a brief break to bring 
Administrator Fernandez up here. And I'd like to start--thank 
you so much for your testimony. I think you did a compelling 
job of helping to understand how people's lives don't work if 
there isn't that infrastructure of transportation, including 
transit there. And it makes me want to come back to, first, 
some of the issues that Chair Zelle and Commissioner Kelliher 
raised.
    What would have happened to our capacity to provide transit 
during the pandemic had not our transit systems in Minnesota 
gotten the infusion of support that we provided through the 
CARES Act and the American Rescue Plan? What would have 
happened to our ability to provide transit even though we need 
to be doing more?
    Just briefly, Commissioner Zelle, and--I'm sorry, Chair 
Zelle, and Commissioner Kelliher.
    Ms. Anderson Kelliher. Well, Senator Smith, I'll begin. 
This is Commissioner Kelliher. And understandably, Chair Zelle 
was commissioner of DOT under the Dayton Administration, so--
yes, we will go--we will answer to whatever.
    I want to say that I think for those rural transit systems, 
particularly the smallest, most vulnerable, they would have had 
to shutter. They would have had to just shut down, and there 
would have been no service available in those communities. And 
then the restart of those services would have been very, very 
difficult because we understand that this is a--this is a 
necessary life service that when it shuts down, then people 
start to question whether you need it again. And of course you 
need it.
    I think that Ms. Johnson's testimony today about what the 
experience has been in Brooklyn Center and Brooklyn Park could 
be extrapolated out to the rest of the State in terms of----
    Chair Smith. I think that's right.
    Ms. Anderson Kelliher. ----what would happen.
    Chair Smith. I think we would have heard similar stories. 
And could I--I'm going to come to you in a second, Charlie. 
Could you explain to us how your needs for transportation 
changed during the pandemic, if they changed? Maybe they didn't 
change.
    Ms. Belyeu Johnson. Well, I would say during the pandemic--
actually, during the pandemic, I had to have car repairs, so 
then therefore it was--and my car was down for maybe like four 
days, so--and I needed to like really go somewhere and I 
couldn't, so I had to have somebody take me because bus 
transportation out there is very limited.
    And then like I'm--so like in the evening time--you have to 
get up early in the morning in order to make sure that--in 
order for me to make it back to my apartment, I would have had 
to have been up like early in the morning and then go out early 
during the daytime while my car was down, so--but if I had to 
do it in the evening, I would always have to have somebody to 
come pick me up.
    So it is--and then a lot of--and then when--and a couple of 
the tenants that live in my building, they didn't have 
transportation, so when my transportation was up, I also took 
them out to get a ride also----
    Chair Smith. You were helpful and kind of filling in for--
--
    Ms. Belyeu Johnson. Yeah, because there's such a problem.
    Chair Smith. There was, I think, a perception in some 
corridors that the demand--and certainly the demand for public 
transportation did go down during the pandemic with people 
doing more remote working, but your stories are really 
demonstrating how, for a lot of people, just the logistics of 
figuring out how to get to where you need to get to didn't 
really change at all. In fact, in some circumstances, I think 
it was harder because of--because of the pandemic.
    Chair Zelle, the testimony that we've just heard I think 
really illustrates the importance of baseline bus service, and 
we pay a lot of attention, as well we should, to building out 
this system. It's extremely important. But could you talk 
briefly about how the infrastructure package that we are 
supporting is going to help address some of the problems that 
Cassandra has just described where there's--and the service 
that we have is just not enough of what we need?
    Mr. Zelle. Well, no question. And I appreciate the 
questions.
    You know, during the pandemic, the COVID emergency funding 
were a lifeline to keep the system operating, and really I'm 
talking about the regular route bus system, because even during 
a period of time when it kills a career bus person like me, 
that were advertising not to take the bus, essential workers 
only, and yet still 80 to 90,000 trips a day.
    We're not just about getting to jobs. It's getting to 
grocery stores, it's getting to medical care, getting to 
school. And these were folks who have no other options. And 
having a car, Ms. Johnson, you have some options, but honestly, 
many don't.
    And we realized how important it was to maintain service. 
We actually increased service in order to maintain social 
distancing.
    We put in 60-foot buses on routes that normally were only 
40-foot buses. So it wasn't just scaling down. We actually 
scaled up in some corridors. We realized this was where the 
essential bus service was so critical.
    A large drop in our ridership was the express buses. These 
are the folks who could telecommute, and were. And so although 
express buses, and Northstar down as much as 90, 95 percent, 
our regular buses were down quite a bit less. In fact, the A 
Line and C Line were down the least because people really 
counted on them.
    So when you think about the future interconnected system, 
the question about this infrastructure package, it is not about 
just a point here to a point there. It is how it all fits 
together, that it provides access to more than just jobs, to 
living people's lives. And whether it's going to the mall, as 
you pointed out, or where you actually need to get to food. I 
mean, there's so many areas of the metro, even under our 
currently fully running system, which are left in either food 
deserts or in life deserts because we think about transit as a 
way to live your life as opposed to just, you know, the morning 
commute.
    And really this map kind of shows how it all fits together; 
that the light rail are the spines, the arterial bus rapid 
transit becomes kind of the lifeline to every neighborhood.
    Chair Smith. Thank you. Commissioner Fernando, in my 
opening comments, I talked about how investments in public 
transportation can be a tool for addressing systemic 
inequities, lack of opportunity to--lack of access to 
opportunity and how this is a challenge that we have here in 
our community, and disproportionately large.
    I'm really interested in your comments about your efforts 
to present displacement as a result of the very investments 
that we're making in transit that could--and how to make sure 
that those investments are benefiting the community that they 
go through. Could you tell us a little bit more about kind of 
what are some lessons learned from this work that you're doing 
and how we might apply that to other situations?
    Just parenthetically, we were talking earlier about the 
impact of massive infrastructure projects on communities, 
especially communities of color, I think talking about the 
Rondo neighborhood, and so this is something that I've spoken 
with Secretary Buttigieg about as well, but I'd love to hear a 
little bit more about what you're working on.
    Ms. Fernando. Yeah, thank you, Chair Smith. And I also 
noted that your third priority is connection between transit 
inequity, and really appreciated how you stated that this 
priority needs to be reflected in our actions. I certainly 
think that's true programmatically and then from a policy 
standpoint, so thanks for that--for including that as among 
your transit priorities.
    The work that we're embarking upon, Metropolitan Council 
and Hennepin jointly through the Blue Line Extension project 
office, is first to be able to sit back and ask the question, 
what happens here when we--when we center community voices and 
the feedback that they've been providing for decades?
    What we're embarking upon is unfortunately not new. Large-
scale infrastructure projects produce displacement. Residential 
displacement is a big factor because of property valuation. And 
so there ends up being this kind of interagency question 
because if transit, which is meant to bring communities 
together and bring livelihood to households, actually 
inadvertently produces housing instability, you know, so 
therein lies a very important question about how do we sit back 
and ask these questions with enough breath and enough 
specificity to take it to an actionable space?
    And so lessons that we've learned already and in hope--you 
know, my hope is that in partnership we can learn--we can learn 
lessons together and then create replicable frameworks that 
impact other areas.
    Lessons that we've learned already is the impact of 
cultural displacement specifically. It isn't--it doesn't take 
very many interviews truly in a community to realize how 
decimating our redlining, the broader kind of redlining and 
housing policy.
    Lack of income policy. There's a lot of households that are 
decreasing their income, increasing their housing cost, and 
then being pushed further and further away from transit.
    So the lessons that we have are to listen as deeply as 
possible to the feedback we've already received. We've received 
a lot of feedback--the Government has received a lot of 
feedback, especially over the last year and a half, about what 
works and what doesn't work. And so how can we incorporate into 
the project itself actions to kind of counter that?
    So investments in economic development, investments in 
strengthening cultural institutions, and investments in 
ensuring that people who already live in a place should be able 
to enjoy the amenities that are coming through and not be 
pushed out as time moves on.
    And so the last thing I'll say about the replicable 
frameworks part is Hennepin is the 33rd most populus county out 
of 3,100 in the country, and so I believe we're a really strong 
size to be able to test some innovations and to really consider 
how innovations and ideas that can occur here might be able to 
be more readily applied to other metros across the country, and 
from that standpoint, really make a difference for some of our 
most vulnerable Americans.
    Chair Smith. Let me follow up on that by asking a question 
about how these projects can benefit communities that have 
been--you know, experience systemic inequity and what 
opportunities we have, especially around contracting.
    I know that this has been a priority--I suspect that this 
has been a priority in all of the communities that are 
represented here today, Hennepin through Metro Transit, MnDOT, 
and also through the work that you are doing in Rochester.
    So if I could just ask each of you to say briefly a little 
bit about your work around increasing access to contracting 
opportunities for communities of color; small, minority owned 
businesses; women-owned businesses and what benefit that is 
providing to the community.
    And maybe, Ms. Zelms, I'll start with you.
    Ms. Zelms. Chair Smith, thank you for that question. We've 
been doing a lot of work in Rochester, especially with our 
partners at Destination Medical Center, Mayo Clinic, and 
elsewhere to really advance opportunities and access to 
construction positions, and that's a really wide array of 
positions. The construction industry isn't just building 
buildings. It comes everywhere from the planning to the design 
to the outfitting of a building to the street infrastructure, 
water and wastewater, all of those things. And so we have a 
really strong commitment. In fact, today is our 2-year 
anniversary of bringing all those different industries 
together, with a focus on BIPOC and other minority-opened small 
businesses.
    And so I see this as only, you know, the tip of the iceberg 
of the opportunity as people are building the actual future of 
the community. We've seen that be successful even on the very 
front end of community codesign for a bus rapid transit system. 
And our community aptly named our next investments in the 
actual transit infrastructure to get downtown and around 
downtown The Link for a reason. And I think, aptly stated, it's 
a connection point. It's not just getting from point A to point 
B. And people who are relying on or choose to rely on public 
transit really deserve to have that rapidity and constant 
comfort that they're going to be able to get their ride.
    So I think that's a key component that as we're building in 
these opportunities and the flexibility of our system in a more 
rural part of Minnesota, we're giving people not only the 
confidence that they're getting to a point where they can 
actually elevate and have economic mobility based on the 
systems that they provide, but they can be a huge part of 
building that by having access to additional economic 
opportunity through construction-centered jobs, connection 
points, and being connected to people who can help elevate them 
and networks that can assure that they are successful, not just 
in the beginning of their new career but on into the future.
    Chair Smith. Thank you. Would anyone else like to comment 
on that, the question of contracting?
    Ms. Anderson Kelliher. Thank you, Senator Smith, for the 
question. The soon-to-be complete 35W/94 Crosstown to downtown 
project, we are on track to meet many of our goals on 
contracting, and that has come because MnDOT has taken a new 
approach, specifically on breaking contracts into smaller 
increments. And that is one of the things that we have found 
successful to do is really gaining that foothold for the 
minority or woman-owned contractor to be able to have success.
    But I will say highway-heavy contracting is challenging 
still today, and so we need help. We need the help of the 
Federal Government. We need the help of others in being able to 
invest more in those certificate programs, in technical 
training, particularly our State college and university system, 
and union apprenticeship. That is going to be key. I hear this 
from each of my CEO friends of DOTs around the country. It's 
one of our biggest concerns, is that the workforce of the 
future needs to be more diverse and people need to be able to 
share in the economic benefits and opportunity of the 
construction and maintenance industry. And so that is a goal of 
ours as well.
    Thank you.
    Chair Smith. Thank you.
    Mr. Zelle. And just to add on to what Commissioner Kelliher 
has described and MNDOT, which I know well, which is rethinking 
how 25 we develop those business enterprises by reducing the 
size of the contract, but also looking at what other 
assistance, everything from working capital to training, these 
are huge challenges, and the workforce challenge is even more 
challenging. And I know for Met Council it becomes an overall 
agency philosophy; that we have to go beyond just compliance. 
They can't just expect our DBE program, which is excellent--I 
mentioned the Southwest number, over 100 contracts with 86 
separate DBEs. But what else can we do in terms of procurement? 
What can we do by partnering with other agencies and other, 
frankly, nonprofit groups who are very interested in this area?
    And I think it's something that the region--and I think in 
the past year after George Floyd's murder, there is a 
resounding interest in the private, nonprofit foundation and 
nonpublic partners coming together and on the conclusion with 
the Chamber, with Better MSP. I mean, at least kind of aligning 
around we have an issue; how do we work together and not just 
follow the programs, but--and we need resources. We may need 
some of those rurals, which would create in public sector 
barriers.
    We can't do what Target Corporation does. We've had 
contractors come and testify before Met Council saying, I'll 
work for Target because they don't require bonding, but you 
guys need it because you're a public sector entity.
    So we have to kind of look at where are those barriers, and 
we may actually need to kind of start thinking about--those 
barriers need to be really looked at because are they really 
providing a public purpose or are they actually standing in the 
way?
    Chair Smith. That would be a great thing for us to follow 
up on and continue to talk about as we go forward.
    Mr. Zelle. Absolutely.
    Chair Smith. Yeah. Commissioner Fernando, would you like to 
comment on this briefly?
    Ms. Fernando. Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. And so I just 
want to echo that from on our construction side, we certainly 
need to be much more aggressive with our contractors and 
subcontractors. We need to be realistic about what living wage 
means in different areas around the State and locally and also 
need to position the organizations for those expectations. So 
what I mean by that is if we were to think more broadly about 
procurement as a whole, if for some reason we're seeing a 
certain population not being represented, then we need to 
interrogate that and then create programming to support all 
people and communities and organizations to be able to succeed 
in the way that Government works.
    We've been able to see some success in this in our anti-
displacement work group. We've been breaking up contracts much 
smaller than typical with our community engagement cohort and 
have seen a lot of success by--instead of saying one big 
contract, how are we breaking it into smaller pieces not only 
to get more voices around the table, but then to learn what 
types of support might be needed.
    The last comment I'll make about this, because construction 
on the workers' side also means at times implications for 
business owners and organizations during construction. And so 
we talked about with the Blue Line Extension what would it look 
like to create--to apply existing Hennepin programs towards the 
corridor. We run a CEO Next program. What would it look like 
for a corridor to receive kind of entrepreneurial support in 
alignment with a project, or what would it look like if we 
invited--invited a way that--for all businesses along a 
corridor before construction to have online services, and if we 
support that in a way to really think more wholistically, not 
just the particular point in time that the challenge is being 
presented.
    Chair Smith. Thank you very much. So I'm going to just ask 
one last question and then we're going to move to our second 
panel, which I'm also very excited about. Earlier this morning 
we were talking about how--it seems to me, in the real world, 
transit is not a republican or a democratic issue. People are 
trying to figure out how to get around. They don't care. You 
know, it's not a party thing. But sometimes in the political 
world it becomes partisan.
    And I'm going to just ask this question of Ms. Waltz, who's 
probably wondering how could she ask me this question right 
now. But the reason I want to turn to you is just for this last 
question is that it is my perception amongst many, many 
businesses--I bet it would be the same in Rochester, in other 
communities in Hennepin County, in other communities around the 
country, that they see transit as a--as part of their 
competitive advantage and not as a political or partisan issue.
    And I'm just wondering if you could comment on this--you 
got at it some in your testimony--about how Minneapolis Chamber 
members see transit not as a political issue but as a 
competitive issue.
    Ms. Waltz. Yeah. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the 
question. And I don't have the precise percentages in front of 
me, but in the 2018 poll that I referenced, we did test for 
kind of that exact question, and you are exactly right. People 
do not think of this as a partisan view and has equal support 
for both Democrats and Republicans if we want to think about it 
that way.
    But also, again, you're absolutely right that it is a 
competitive advantage question. And in the 2019 report that we 
commissioned, part of that report was evaluating the relocation 
choices of over 500 companies, and 11 of those companies 
specifically located to downtown Minneapolis or downtown St. 
Paul in part because they had expanded transit options.
    I think particularly as we're moving in--slowly inching 
forward in a post-pandemic world, or at least hopefully inching 
in that direction, we're seeing a big shift to employers really 
listening closely to what their employees are asking for. And 
we know that there's a massive demand for options, 
particularly, and as everyone has noted, the workday looks 
different, so that kind of traditional 9:00 to 5:00 service is 
not enough for most people. And as Chair Zelle noted, we're 
seeing really high ridership numbers that more resemble weekend 
hours as opposed to the traditional day.
    So I think if we're thinking about continuing to bring more 
businesses to the Twin Cities area and around the State, a very 
comprehensive system that doesn't just work for that--again, 
that traditional 9:00 to 5:00 sector but can really serve 
everyone's needs is highly, highly important.
    Chair Smith. You're making a great point that it's not just 
transit needs and for core cities are not just around 
commuting. They're around all the other businesses, the 
entertainment venues, for example, that are downtown. I know 
this is an issue in Rochester because of my experience with the 
Destination Medical Center.
    And similarly, I'm sure there are businesses in Brooklyn 
Park and Brooklyn Center that wish that they had better access 
to--that their employees and customers had better access to 
transit because that's going to be a competitive advantage for 
them. And I know that this is the case in cities all over the 
State, so it's made the point very well.
    I want to just thank all of our panelists in our first 
panel for being here today and providing such excellent 
testimony.
    I am going to just dismiss this panel. We will take a brief 
break while the panel changes and the staff has an opportunity 
to reorganize the table here, and then I will be very excited 
to welcome Administrator Fernandez to testify.
    Thank you so much.
    [A break was taken from 11:11 a.m. until 11:17 a.m.]
    Chair Smith. Welcome, Administrator Fernandez.
    Nuria Fernandez is the 15th administrator of the Federal 
Transit Administration. She was confirmed for this position on 
June 10th of this year.
    Before joining the FTA, she led the Santa Clara Valley 
Transportation Authority. She has previously held senior roles 
at the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the 
Chicago Transit Authority, and the Washington Metropolitan Area 
Transit Authority, and served as acting administrator of the 
FTA during the Clinton administration.
    As I said in my opening statement, when we met earlier this 
year, I was so struck by the wonderful combination of operating 
experience and policy know-how, and I immediately asked her to 
come visit Minnesota for this opportunity that we have for our 
first Subcommittee field hearing in this Committee in over 7 
years.
    So it is just fantastic to have you join us here for this 
Subcommittee hearing. I'm very happy that you're here. And you 
may start your opening statement.

 STATEMENT OF NURIA FERNANDEZ, ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL TRANSIT 
                         ADMINISTRATION

    Ms. Fernandez. Thank you very much, Senator Smith, and good 
morning to you. And also I would like to recognize Ranking 
Member Rounds, who's not with us today, and all the Members of 
the Subcommittee of the Senate Banking, Housing, 
Transportation, and Community Development. Thanks so much for 
inviting me to appear before you today in the Twin Cities.
    This is truly a pivotal time for our Nation's public 
transportation systems. I want to thank you for your diligence 
and that of your colleagues for all the hard work. The Senate 
recently passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. 
This legislation includes 550 billion in new Federal investment 
in America's roads, bridges, rail, water infrastructure, 
resilience, internet, and more. The transit industry will 
receive almost 90 billion in guaranteed funding, the most 
significant Federal support for transit in our Nation's 
history. That proposed funding is not just an abstract number. 
It will improve people's lives throughout the Nation.
    Here in Minnesota, 11 percent of trains and buses in the 
State are past their useful life. So it's clear that the State 
of Minnesota is going to benefit greatly from more than 818 
million designated under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs 
Act to improve public transportation.
    I want to take a moment to also thank Chairman Sherrod 
Brown of the Senate Banking Committee and Members of that 
Committee for all that was done to shepherd this vital 
infrastructure bill through the Senate these last few months. I 
know it was not easy.
    With the passage of the infrastructure bill through the 
Senate, I am more optimistic than I have ever been. This level 
of Federal investment will touch lives in every corner of the 
country, including here in Minnesota and throughout the 
Midwest. At long last, transit systems will have the resources 
to expand, modernize, and offer the type of 21st century 
technology solutions and services that Americans deserve and 
should expect to help get them to jobs, school, and vital 
services.
    From right here in the Twin Cities region to smaller urban 
and rural communities throughout Minnesota, we want to ensure 
safe and efficient transportation for everyone.
    The legislation also includes funding dedicated to zero 
emission vehicles and funding to train transit workers who 
maintain and operate those vehicles, advancing the 
Administration's climate and job creation goals.
    So as we continue to switch from fossil fuels to electric 
power, we're going to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that 
play such a big role in our planet's rising temperatures.
    This work is more important than ever, as was mentioned 
earlier by Ms. Waltz, given the recent alarming report from the 
U.N. panel on climate change, which declared our last decade 
the hottest in history and confirmed carbon dioxide as the 
leading contributor to climate change. In fact, according to 
the report, unless we sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions, 
a lot of bad things are going to happen and the consequences 
are going to be dire.
    The people of Minnesota know all about this. This summer 
has been drier than any since 1980, and we are grateful for 
today's rain. So you have all walked outside to the haze of a 
sun blotted out by the smoke of wildfires, and the evidence is 
crystal clear: We have no more time to waste.
    The Federal Transit Administration's Region 5 
Administrator, Kelley Brookins, who leads our work in 
Minnesota, is here with me today. And Kelley and her team 
partner with the Minnesota Department of Transportation and 51 
transit agencies throughout the State to fund public 
transportation serving all 87 Minnesota counties.
    As part of her work, she administers close to 394 million 
in funds from the American Rescue Plan, which was signed by 
President Biden earlier this year. These funds are helping 
transit agencies across Minnesota to continue to operate, 
despite significant losses in ridership and revenue due to 
COVID. We're supporting the travel needs of workers in St. 
Cloud, helping college students in Mankato get to class, 
enabling members of the White Earth Band of Chippewa Indians to 
get to doctor's appointments, and so much more.
    Here in the Twin Cities, the Met Council has made a 
commitment to expand transit, and six new high-capacity lines 
are on the way, which will truly transform communities in the 
region by closing gaps in service and offering mobility options 
to more people in those communities. Through our Capital 
Investment Grants Program, FTA has helped support the amazing 
successes seen by the bus rapid transit program here in the 
Twin Cities, and Met Council is creating a BRT system that can 
help--can be held up as a standard to other cities.
    These opportunities truly open up for everyone who calls 
the Twin Cities and the suburbs home. Equity is a critical 
issue to FTA and to the Biden-Harris administration, and that 
is why I am so proud to be working in transit. As I've often 
said, transit is the greatest equalizer. It opens doors and you 
step onboard and everyone has the same opportunity to go to 
where they need to go and get to places they want to get to.
    So with that, I think I've run out of time, and I would 
like to thank----
    Chair Smith. You can take as much time as you need, 
Administrator Fernandez.
    Ms. Fernandez. I want to be mindful of the clock.
    But I just wanted to say that transit wouldn't just be 
changing lives here in the Twin Cities. To the southeast, we 
look forward to seeing the City of Rochester launch its first 
bus rapid transit line. And we are also proud of the great work 
by Charlie Zelle at the helm of Met Council and Wes Kooistra 
for their vision and leadership in setting Minnesota and the 
Minneapolis cities area on the right path.
    So with that, I would like to thank the Subcommittee once 
again for this opportunity, and I'm happy to take your 
questions.
    Chair Smith. Thank you very much.
    I have to--I have to tell everyone that, you know, in the 
United States Senate, everything tends to work by seniority, 
and typically at a Committee hearing, I ask my questions 
towards the end of the Committee hearing as a result, so it's 
really quite delightful to be up here and able to ask the 
questions first, middle, and last also.
    Administrator Fernandez, I have often been struck by 
something that a Minnesotan said to me at the beginning of the 
pandemic, where he said: With COVID, we're all in the same 
storm, but we're not all in the same boat. And it really drew 
out for me how everybody has been impacted by this pandemic but 
not everybody is impacted in the same way.
    There has been, I think, a focus on kind of what has 
happened with ridership during the pandemic, but maybe not 
enough focus on how essential transit has been to so many 
people during the pandemic. And I'm wondering if you could 
comment a little bit more on that and draw in the impact on 
transit systems around the country, and in Minnesota, the 
impact of the Rescue Plan dollars and CARES Act dollars, and 
then where we go from here.
    Ms. Fernandez. Yes, and that's such an important question 
because we're still in the midst of the pandemic. The pandemic 
has not only affected people's lives, it's also disrupted our 
economy and it has disrupted public transportation.
    But one of the things that I have been saying time and time 
again is that as the country came to a standstill, public 
transportation continued moving. Why? Because the pandemic has 
taught us that not everyone has an office job or could work 
from home. And people who are providing essential services, 
whether it was emergency response, in health care, or stocking 
grocery stores or getting goods to their destination, have to 
get to their place of work, and the majority of them were 
relying on public transportation.
    Public transportation agencies across the country didn't 
know where they lived, so they have to continue providing 
service. So clearly, the relief fund starting with the CARES 
Act followed by CRRSAA and then the American Rescue Plan was a 
lifeline to ensuring that public transportation services could 
continue. But it also highlighted, to your point, that COVID 
affected people differently. And as we heard today from Ms. 
Johnson speaking about her community, when you think about the 
availability of services, it also highlighted areas that we 
label transit deserts, where there is a need to start thinking 
about how we can connect and close gaps. So there is an 
opportunity and a lesson that we should really heed to and 
implement as we are rolling out our strategies.
    Chair Smith. As we think about the opportunities for new 
investment that the bipartisan infrastructure package provides, 
I can't help but remember that in 1999, I worked with 
Representative Hornstein at the Metropolitan Council as we were 
starting to envision a transit network--a true transit network 
in the metro area. That was a long time ago. It takes a long 
time to build out these projects, and sometimes I think one of 
the big challenges many often--big challenges is shortage of 
funds and the lack of a really--you know, the need that we have 
for a strong Federal partner.
    So could you address how the infrastructure package that I 
trust the President will be signing into law before too much 
longer, how that will help us to address this sort of transit 
system network that we are intent on building here in the metro 
area?
    Ms. Fernandez. Yes. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs 
Act is going to be transformative in a significant way because, 
for the first time public transportation is going to get more 
funding and be able to not only focus on fixing the investment 
and ensuring that there's a state of good repair, but also 
planning for those very same parts of our network that need to 
be closed, the opportunities for expanding that network. So 
those additional dollars are going to open up an opportunity 
for transit agencies to plan--not just react, but to plan so 
that they can, in fact, at the end of the day, 5, 10 years from 
now, look back at many of those projects and programs that were 
viewed as a dream and have now become a reality.
    Chair Smith. As Lieutenant Governor and now as Senator, I 
have heard the--heard about how important it is to build these 
transportation systems, not only in the metro area, but in 
rural small towns in Minnesota. You and I have spoken about 
this. The infrastructure package includes support for building 
out rural networks and also supporting tribal transportation 
options.
    Could you just talk about this a bit more? I think a lot of 
times people just don't link--don't think about the necessity 
of public transportation outside of big cities and suburbs.
    Ms. Fernandez. Yes. And, you know, that's a very important 
point because rural communities just don't have the same 
options as you would find in urban and in some suburban areas, 
so it's very limited. It's either you drive your car, get your 
neighbor to get you to where you need to go, or rely on rural 
transportation services.
    And it's important also because people are aging in place, 
and we have a large senior population that lives in rural 
communities. We also have individuals that are disabled and 
need access to medical services and access to grocery stores 
and to just be connected with family and friends. So that is 
why it's so critical.
    And in our tribal regions and tribal nations it's much more 
highlighted because you have the opportunity, through these 
transportation services, to be able to go out of your community 
and have access to jobs, education, and other possibilities 
that would not have been possible in your own community.
    So clearly when we think about transportation, it's a full 
approach to how everything comes together and moves. It's not 
just looking at a city or a county or a locality. It's how the 
entire network ties together for the betterment of the State.
    Chair Smith. And, similarly, often when people talk about 
transit, it's almost as if there's like the roads and bridges 
system over here and then the public transportation system over 
there and never the twain shall meet. And I'm wondering if you 
could talk a bit about how you at the FTA think about making 
that connection so that the entire transportation system is 
working together.
    Ms. Fernandez. Yes. Transportation, in fact, is a network, 
and it is our responsibility--my responsibility at the Federal 
Transit Administration, working together with my colleagues at 
USDOT, is to ensure that we can connect the network so that the 
possibilities are just limitless. Working with the Federal 
Highway Administration on complete streets, working with the 
Federal Railroad Administration on closing gaps between where 
public transportation is and where commuter rail is, I think 
that is what starts to speak to an investment that, even within 
transit, closing gaps and building a network of rail and buses 
that feed into that rail and that go into neighborhoods and 
communities that are not served by either, but coming together, 
in the end is a richer product because it provides so many 
options. And when you have options, then the opportunity to 
grow and to better your own personal situation is expanded.
    Chair Smith. Right, right. I was really quite interested in 
the testimony from Commissioner Fernando about the work that 
Hennepin County is doing as we contemplate the Blue Line 
around--focusing on anti-displacement and creating strategies 
for making sure that projects that are, you know, going through 
communities are actually contributing to communities and not 
just dividing them.
    Could you talk a little bit about how the FTA is 
prioritizing anti-displacement efforts and how we in Congress 
can support--can support this work?
    Ms. Fernandez. Yes. One of the things that the Biden 
administration has made very clear from the very beginning is 
the emphasis on equity and ensuring that the investment in 
Federal dollars benefits all. And as we look at projects like 
working on the Blue Line and focusing on what are some of these 
things that are going to be necessary to minimize displacement 
to ensure that businesses are not impacted and that people's 
lives are not disrupted is where we would sit down with the 
project sponsor, and in this case, with Met Council and others, 
to talk about the type of strategies that need to be developed. 
This is not something that is unique to this community and this 
project. It's been experienced by many projects around the 
country. So there are some lessons and best practices that can 
be brought to bear.
    But working from the U.S. Department of Transportation 
perspective together with the President on Justice40, it's 
significant because as we invest in communities through these 
mega projects, we want to make sure that as Justice40 is 
defined, that the benefit also comes to the communities that 
have been underserved and overburdened.
    Chair Smith. The history in our country of major 
infrastructure projects having the impact of dividing 
communities, especially communities of color, Black and Brown 
communities, poor communities, is so clear, and we see it every 
day as we drive between Minneapolis and St. Paul, and we see, 
you know, the old Rondo neighborhood, which was, you know, 
sliced through by the I-94 freeway. And this is not a transit 
issue so much, but it is an issue that I've spoken with 
Secretary Buttigieg about, and I'm grateful to see the emphasis 
that the Biden administration is putting on this as we go 
forward, figuring out ways of not doing that again and then, of 
course, repairing the damage that has been done by those 
communities that were ripped apart.
    Ms. Fernandez. Yes. And if I may just say something to that 
point. It is really distressing that these things happened 
decades ago, but we have an opportunity today to fix it. And 
with the funding that will become available through the 
infrastructure bill, there is such an opportunity, working with 
colleagues at the Federal Highway Administration, to not only 
identify but also work with those States to find solutions to 
remove those infrastructures that have separated.
    Transportation is supposed to connect. That is what it's 
supposed to do. It's a tie that binds. And when it starts to 
divide and disadvantage segments of our communities, then 
that's just not the right transportation policy and certainly 
not the right plan.
    Chair Smith. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And, in fact, 
I've taken the opportunity to lobby Secretary Buttigieg about 
this in the elevator of the apartment building that we both 
live in.
    We also heard from our first panel about the necessity of 
finding ways for the FTA and local transit authorities to do 
business with diverse contractors and subcontractors. And as 
Commissioner Kelliher said, this is often challenging for these 
big projects that are heavily capital-intensive projects, and 
it's also really important that these diversity and inclusion 
efforts around contracting are truly benefiting diverse 
businesses and not creating kind of the illusion of benefit.
    Could you talk a bit about what you have learned about this 
challenge, the opportunities they are--in your role at the FTA 
as well as your role as a former--you know, in the operating 
side, and what advice you would give to Congress for how we 
could make sure that the rules that we have in place are, as 
Chair Zelle said, really necessary, and not unnecessary 
barriers to creating opportunities for Black and Brown 
businesses?
    Ms. Fernandez. Yes. As we look at the billions of dollars 
that are going to become available for investment in 
transportation, those dollars equate to contracts and projects 
in communities that should be benefiting the people in those 
communities, the businesses in those communities.
    We're very fortunate at the U.S. Department of 
Transportation that we've just hired Shelby Scales. She is the 
director of the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business 
Utilization that's going to help us and all of the modes of 
transportation to refocus on our disadvantaged business 
programs. What I heard this morning was there's a need for 
assistance with certification. Not every community has the 
resources and the capacity to do certification and bring more 
small businesses. We need more forums where large companies and 
large businesses are in the same room so that the small 
contractors will have an opportunity to get to know and develop 
relationships with the small businesses as well so they can be 
part of the progress.
    But all of the other things that were mentioned this 
morning are true. And that is a lot of the small businesses 
have great ideas and they have experience, but they also need 
back office support with Administration and performance bonds 
and other things that become a burden and, in some cases, 
discourages them from moving forward with these opportunities 
that they should be part of.
    Chair Smith. Yeah, yeah. Let me ask you a question. I 
appreciate--I appreciate your answer to that, and I think that 
this is something that we have to really continue to focus on.
    I have to also say, it's not only an issue in transit 
projects but in other large Federal projects. I'm thinking 
particularly on the Banking Housing Committee, I ask this 
question all the time when it comes to creating opportunities 
for folks that are living in public housing projects and how 
can they have some opportunity to benefit from the employment 
opportunities that are generated from those--you know, from 
those places where they live that are in their community.
    Let me ask you a question about buses, a matter that is 
very important here in Minnesota, and this is a question around 
the Transit Infrastructure Vehicle Security Act. In the last 
few years, Chinese bus manufacturers have been opening 
facilities in the United States and are seeking to, I believe, 
undercut U.S. bus producers. We certainly need a competitive 
market for buses, but the concern is that these Chinese firms 
are often benefiting from Government backing from their 
country, and they end up having an unfair competitive 
advantage. And because of the way--you know, we have to be so 
careful of the way we--we're getting opportunities. This is, of 
course, an important issue in Minnesota because we have an 
excellent bus manufacturer in Minnesota that does manufacturing 
electric buses.
    So 2 years ago I worked with a bipartisan group of senators 
to enact the Transit Infrastructure Vehicle Security Act to 
prevent Chinese bus companies from unfairly taking advantage in 
the U.S. transit bus market.
    Could you talk a little bit about what steps the FTA will 
be taking to implement this law and what do you think we need 
to be doing to make sure that we are creating opportunities for 
American-made buses, especially electric buses, as we move 
forward?
    Ms. Fernandez. Yes. And, Senator, thank you. I am aware 
that you have championed that act. And I just want to say that 
the Federal Transit Administration and the U.S. Department of 
Transportation is committed to implementing the law, to 
protecting our national security, and also to ensure and 
preserve our domestic manufacturing. So having said that, when 
Congress provided the National Defense Authorization Act 
prohibition for Federal funding in procurements that involve 
companies that have ties to countries that the U.S. trade 
representative identified, in this case, China, we have 
complied with that.
    And one of the things that I have done since coming back to 
the Federal Transit Administration is I had the opportunity to 
meet separately with the bus manufacturers, the domestic bus 
manufacturers, to talk about their plans for scaling up, given 
the major emphasis on the transition from fossil fuel to 
electric or low-no emissions and to make sure--because we're 
talking about tens of thousands of buses over the next 9 years. 
In 2030 we want it cut by 50 percent, and then by 2050 to have 
a net-zero. And public transit is in the best position to make 
that possible on the public transportation side because we 
still have a large amount of vehicles that are diesel powered.
    Chair Smith. Right, right. I was really struck, as I 
suspect that you were as well, from the testimony from our 
first panel and how every single person that I think I can 
remember raised the power of transit as a tool for not only 
fighting the battle for more equity but also fighting the 
battle for addressing climate change. And the President and 
Vice President have made it clear that they want to see us 
reach a goal of 80 percent clean in the power sector by 2030. 
I'm working very hard on that in another sphere. But the power 
of transit to address our climate change needs is just so 
evident, with transportation being the largest emitter of 
carbon.
    I believe that when it comes to climate change, and climate 
change is happening, it's caused by human activity, and we need 
to take bold action to address it, and if we do so, we can lead 
on this issue rather than following. And there's great power in 
leading because it means that we have more innovation, more 
competitive advantage. All good things flow from that.
    Could you talk just a bit more about how you see this from 
the perspective of leading the FTA and what you'd like to see 
as we think about the impacts of climate?
    Ms. Fernandez. Thank you. You know, as we were dealing with 
climate change that's affecting also communities--I mean, think 
about the flood, the lack of resiliency in the infrastructure, 
the lack of resiliency in the placement of the bus and 
maintenance facilities. They're always looking for land that is 
available. We also have to realize that it's very difficult to 
build new transit. Everyone wants transportation, but they 
don't want transportation in their backyard. They don't want to 
see that construction happening.
    So when you start looking at the areas where you can put in 
these critical systems, they're always in low-lying areas or 
areas that are vulnerable to natural disasters. And that's why 
I see our role today as it relates to climate is to reinforce 
and harden our public transportation infrastructure and to 
provide the funding so that those facilities that are low-lying 
areas can be relocated and the investment protected. I think it 
is just critical, that we need to start there if we want to see 
our system continue to thrive.
    Chair Smith. How do you think about this question of 
transit as we emerge, God willing, from--ultimately as we 
emerge from the COVID pandemic? And I'm asking you to link up 
what has happened with ridership on transit and what we need to 
do to be moving towards, you know, increasing ridership again. 
And I think you have a good perspective on this. We talked a 
little bit about this earlier.
    Ms. Fernandez. Yes. It's unfortunate what has happened to 
public transportation. The ridership fell dramatically last 
spring. We saw systems that lost almost 90 percent of thier 
riders overnight.
    Now, the positive thing is that there's an uptick in 
ridership. And as communities are opening up, as schools are 
starting back, ridership now is becoming more of a focus on 
making sure that people feel safe on public transportation. And 
every single transit agency is taking the necessary steps to 
ensure just that: To provide a safe environment both from a 
cleaning perspective and sanitizing, to also for protecting the 
security of their riders.
    But what is going to be necessary is for us to move quickly 
because what we're seeing is that people have become so 
dependent on their automobiles during the pandemic that as the 
economy opens and the congestion starts back up, people are 
going to try to figure out how do I keep driving through this 
congestion?
    And one point I just want to make is that public 
transportation helps all. When people ride public 
transportation, others can get to where they want to go in 
their cars goods can get to market through trucking. I mean, so 
it's this wholistic approach to transportation in general that 
is going to keep our cities, our communities moving.
    The Federal Transit Administration is hosting a series of 
transit renewal webinars where we're bringing together transit 
agency CEOs, we're bringing law enforcement, we're bringing 
labor union and stakeholders, to talk about what steps are 
necessary for us to welcome back all of our riders and then 
pull together some best practices and lessons that other 
transit agencies across the country can use as they're putting 
together their welcome-back toolkits. There are a lot of great 
things that are happening today, and we want to make sure 
everyone has access to it.
    Chair Smith. That's fantastic. For my last question, I know 
that President Biden and Vice President Harris feel very 
strongly about issues around Buy American, as do I. I think 
it's critical that we keep a strong U.S. iron and steel 
industry and that when taxpayer dollars are used for transit 
projects, that those dollars are going to create American jobs 
and supporting American industry.
    So could you talk to us a little bit about what about your 
agency is doing to strengthen Buy America rules to make sure 
that that's happening, and can you also maybe touch on how the 
bipartisan infrastructure bill that the Senate just passed will 
strengthen Buy American rules?
    Ms. Fernandez. This is also very important, of course, 
because when there's an influx of that large amount of money 
and there's such an imperative to put the money to work and 
create jobs and opportunities for many, there may be those 
tendencies to hurry up and get things done, and one of the 
things that we will continue to monitor and enforce is the Buy 
American rules.
    As you may know, Senator, the Federal Transit 
Administration has very clear rules around its procurement of 
rolling stock and the percentage of domestic products that need 
to be part of that rolling stock. That will continue.
    One of the things that I have been doing is working with my 
colleagues not only at the U.S. Department of Transportation, 
but also with Energy and Commerce to talk about what is 
manufacturing? What does the supply chain look like? What needs 
to happen so that we can, in fact, create these transitions 
that we have committed to the American people through not only 
the executive orders that President Biden has issued around 
workforce, but also in the delivery of those services. And the 
infrastructure bill gives us a tremendous opportunity to get 
there.
    And one of the things I want to highlight as part of Buy 
America is using that American labor force. The Federal Transit 
Administration has awarded a contract to the International 
Transportation Learning Center for their Transportation 
Workforce Center to hire, train, and retain the union labor as 
we are transitioning to a different type of climate-friendly 
energy in our buses and our trains. And what that does is once 
we get the labor force trained and fully equipped and reskilled 
and upskilled, we can also take that opportunity to build a 
labor force that is building things in America for America.
    Chair Smith. Thank you so much. I'm going to wrap this up. 
I first want to just turn to you, Administrator Fernandez, and 
ask if you have any parting comments or anything else that 
you'd like to--you'd like to share.
    Ms. Fernandez. I want to take this opportunity to say thank 
you so much, Chair Smith, for inviting me to be here. It's my 
first field hearing since I've been confirmed.
    Chair Smith. Mine too.
    Ms. Fernandez. And I am just really excited about all the 
great things that are happening, not only in the Twin Cities 
area but throughout the State of Minnesota.
    I want to thank Commissioner Kelliher, the Met Council 
Chair and all the other witnesses for sharing their strategies 
and their plans.
    I am familiar with half a dozen projects that already 
landed at the FTA in some form along our pipeline for funding, 
and so I know that there is going to be a lot of mobility 
connections happening and that Minnesota is really at the 
forefront right now in setting the stage.
    And I want to work with you. I want to work with you and 
your colleagues as we think about how we solve the problems 
that were brought up by Ms. Johnson and others. And how do we 
make sure that this great wealth of opportunities and contracts 
and results through services are enjoyed by all.
    Chair Smith. Thank you. Thank you so much. I am so grateful 
for your coming to Minnesota and to the Twin Cities to hear 
about how we think about transit, how central transit is to the 
work that we're doing.
    I think we heard today certainly that--how important it is 
that transit reaches all Minnesotans, whether you live in big 
cities, suburbs, small communities, and rural places, and how 
important it is that we see transit as a tool for addressing 
the deep inequities in our community and also as a tool for 
addressing our need to take strong action on climate. It is 
powerful in that regard also.
    I appreciated the comments from all of my Minnesota 
colleagues about the really important transit projects that we 
have in the pipeline, and I'm grateful for the support that FTA 
has been providing and look forward to that continued support 
as we work hard to build out a transportation network that 
links up bus rapid transit and rail and buses with biking and 
walking and roads and cars and the people at the center of our 
strategy and not cement.
    So this has been a great hearing.
    I'm so grateful. I want to just close with a few concluding 
statements for the record.
    I want to first thank all of our witnesses for being with 
us today and for providing your testimony.
    For senators who are not here but will have opportunity to 
know what happened at this Committee, I want to make sure that 
they understand that they can submit questions for the record 
and that these questions are due to us 14 days from today, on 
September 7th.
    For all of our witnesses, if you have questions that are 
submitted to you, you will have 45 days to respond to any 
questions for the record, and that time will start as soon as 
the question submission period has closed.
    So thank you again.
    I also just want to take a moment to thank the Committee 
staff and my personal staff that worked hard to make this all 
work, including Cameron Ricker, who came from Washington, DC, 
from the Committee.
    My gratitude goes out to also Senator Sherrod Brown, who 
has been such a terrific partner on all issues related to 
transit.
    And to Tim Everett and Emma Kloskey and Jake Schweitzer, 
who are here in the room, and my State director, Sara 
Silvernail, who was also here, and to Mark Kimball as well. It 
takes a whole village to put together something like this.
    Many thanks to the Metropolitan Council and Metro Transit 
for hosting us.
    And with that, this hearing is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 11:55 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
    [Prepared statements, responses to written questions, and 
additional material supplied for the record follow:]
            PREPARED STATEMENT OF MARGARET ANDERSON KELLIHER
          Commissioner, Minnesota Department of Transportation
                            August 24, 2021
    Chair Smith, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the 
opportunity to testify regarding mass transit systems, projects and 
policy in Minnesota.
    My name is Margaret Anderson Kelliher and I am honored to serve as 
Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Transportation.
    MnDOT Office of Transit and Active Transportation (OTAT) works with 
more than 40 greater Minnesota transit systems and 5 tribal 
governments. Our program has an annual budget of approximately $150M.
    Our mission is to provide our partners and communities with 
leadership, tools and resources that support access to high-quality 
transit options. We do this to enable people to live independently, and 
to be engaged and connected to their communities.
    We know that transit plays an important role in helping provide an 
equitable and sustainable transportation system.
    While Minnesota consistently ranks as a top State to live and work, 
this is not true for everyone, and these inequities threaten our long-
term competitiveness as a State.
    Our Government needs to focus on preparing the next generation of 
Minnesotans to work and lead in a rapidly changing world. This means we 
need a Government centered around our children and their families, so 
that Minnesota is the best place for each and every child to grow up.
Transit Impacts and Benefits
    Impact of Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act--In its 
        current form, this bill represents a 63 percent increase in 
        funding for public transportation. For the Federal formula 
        programs that we depend on in Greater Minnesota, we estimate up 
        to a 30 percent increase in funding levels within the first 
        year. It will allow us to expand transportation access, more 
        rapidly modernize our fleets and facilities, and expand 
        transit's role in advancing transportation equity objectives 
        and addressing climate change.

    Economic impact of transit--The benefit to cost ratio for 
        investment in transit is estimated to be $2.21 to $1 for rural 
        transit and $2.86 to $1 for small urban transit (pop. 50,000-
        200,000) This is based on a study completed by NDSU's Upper 
        Great Plains Transportation Institute (2018).

    Climate benefits of transit--The transportation sector is 
        now the leading contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Public 
        transportation is a key element in our strategy to reduce 
        emission. Public transportation produces significantly lower 
        greenhouse gas emissions per passenger mile than private 
        vehicles. We are beginning to see the greening of the transit 
        fleet with battery electric buses in operations in Duluth and 
        the Twin Cities metro area and coming soon to Rochester. Rural 
        transit agencies will begin to see deployment of battery 
        electric buses. The City of Morris and Arrowhead Transit in 
        northeastern Minnesota have been awarded Clean Transportation 
        grants to purchase the electric buses and supporting 
        infrastructure in the next year.
     We're working with our partners at the Met Council and other 
        transit providers to reduce vehicle miles traveled by offering 
        transit options people want.
     This effort supports the work of the Sustainable Transportation 
        Advisory Committee, which was formed to reduce carbon pollution 
        from the transportation sector.

    Rural transit cost share (the Rounds-Smith Investments in 
        Rural Transit Act)--The Rounds-Smith Act would benefit 
        impoverished rural communities. In rural areas, transit can be 
        a lifeline for carless households or people that cannot drive, 
        connecting individuals to jobs, health care, education, 
        essentially to their communities. In impoverished rural areas, 
        local match requirements can be a significant barrier to 
        meeting needs. The Rounds-Smith Act would go a long way toward 
        removing that barrier.
Current Program Updates
    Responding to COVID: At the height of the pandemic, transit 
        ridership fell significantly. Transit systems throughout the 
        State turned their attention to assisting their communities in 
        other ways. This included providing food delivery service in 
        support of local food shelves while maintaining essential 
        service for trips to and from doctor appointments.
      As vaccination levels increase and the economy reopens, transit 
        systems are seeing ridership levels rebound but not yet to Pre-
        COVID levels. MnDOT and its transit partners understand that 
        this will not happen quickly. We are committed to maintaining 
        access to jobs, education, health care, and shopping, while 
        collectively working to regain the confidence of the public. 
        Transit is and will continue to be a safe and healthy 
        transportation option.

      During COVID, MnDOT prioritized maintaining transit 
        operations throughout the State. Farebox revenues fell to near 
        zero and local governments were challenged to meet their local 
        share requirements. MnDOT used Federal Emergency Relief funds 
        (CARES Act, CRRSAA, American Rescue Plan Act) to cover local 
        share of operating budgets (typically 15 percent or 20 percent) 
        in 2020 and 2021. After consultation with local partners, MnDOT 
        has agreed to extend coverage of local share through Calendar 
        Year 2022. We are committed to maintaining access to jobs, 
        education, health care, and shopping, while collectively 
        working to regain the confidence of the public.

      MnDOT is also interested in using Federal funds to 
        provide additional support to Tribal transit agencies, perhaps 
        through the creation of a transit vehicle replacement program. 
        This is a conversation we will be having with Tribal 
        authorities in the near future.

    MnDOT is striving to bring rural transit into the digital 
        age. The Office of Transit and Active Transportation received 
        an FTA innovation grant to build a regional Mobility-as-a-
        Service platform with seven public transit agencies in and 
        around Rochester and Mankato. The open source trip planning, 
        booking, and tracking platform will test the impact on travel 
        choices while developing new data standards for the transit 
        industry.

    Madam Chair and Members, thank you for the opportunity to speak 
with you today.
    I would be happy to answer any questions.
                                 ______
                                 
                  PREPARED STATEMENT OF CHARLIE ZELLE
                     Chair of Metropolitan Council
                            August 24, 2021
    Chair Smith, Good morning. I'm Charlie Zelle, the Chair of the 
Metropolitan Council. Thank you for inviting me to testify today.
    I want to welcome you, FTA Administrator Fernandez, and other 
distinguished guests to Metro Transit.
    The Metropolitan Council is the policymaking body, planning agency, 
and provider of essential services for the seven-county Twin Cities 
region. The Metropolitan Council is the Metropolitan Planning 
Organization for our region, and we plan for and operate transit and 
paratransit. Metro Transit is a division of the Metropolitan Council 
and is the largest public transit provider in Minnesota.
    Transit is essential to our region. Investing in transit builds 
community prosperity, improves our quality of life, connects people to 
opportunity, and plays a critical role in advancing equity and 
addressing climate change. Embedded in our practices is the belief that 
inclusive contracting creates opportunity by growing small businesses 
and jobs.
    Like transit agencies across the country, Metro Transit's ridership 
is significantly down due to the pandemic. But the drop in ridership 
doesn't tell the full story. Even now, Metro Transit provides nearly 
100,000 rides each weekday. The pandemic highlighted how indispensable 
transit service is to essential workers and to others who rely on 
transit to meet their daily needs.
    I want to thank Senator Smith and our Federal delegation for 
appropriating Federal COVID relief funding for transit through the 
Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, the Coronavirus 
Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act, and the American 
Rescue Plan Act. And thank you to the Federal Transit Administration 
for their tremendous work in distributing these funds.
    In total, our region has received over $725 million to support 
transit operations during the pandemic. These funds are keeping 
essential transit services on the street and over 3,000 Metro Transit 
workers employed.
    We believe successfully emerging from the pandemic requires us to 
continue investing in our region's transit network. Our experience 
shows that investing in fast, frequent, reliable, and safe service 
increases ridership and strengthens the role transit plays in our 
communities.
    The map on the screen illustrates this vision. This map represents 
our planned 2030 network of light rail and bus rapid transit lines.
    With the help of our Federal partners, we are making significant 
progress on each of these corridors. I'll provide a quick update on 
them.
    Beginning with the Orange Line bus rapid transit corridor, we are 
completing construction, and we anticipate opening for service later 
this year. This line runs along I-35W. The project received a $74 
million Small Starts grant in 2019 and an additional $11 million ARPA 
grant in June.
    Continuing clockwise, the Green Line Extension, or Southwest LRT is 
under construction. This is the largest infrastructure project in State 
history, and work continues throughout the corridor. Just through June 
2021, our Southwest contracting efforts have resulted in spend to 
Disadvantaged Business Enterprises (DBE) of $155,277,877 in 
construction services and professional services with 100 DBE contracts 
and 86 unique DBEs.
    The Blue Line Extension light rail project is undergoing an 
alignment review. We are exploring new ways to better connect the north 
side of Minneapolis and northern communities to the line and are 
conducting an extensive public engagement process on a modified 
alignment. When completed, the Blue Line extension will serve 
chronically underserved communities and help ensure the benefits of 
transit are available to neighborhoods that have been passed by for too 
long.
    Moving to the right side of the map, the Purple Line dedicated 
guideway BRT project anticipates an environmental decision from FTA in 
the next 2 months, and the Council will seek entry to New Starts 
Project Development this fall.
    The Gold Line project is a dedicated guideway BRT corridor running 
east from Saint Paul. We are so pleased the President's 2022 budget 
recommendation included $100 million for this project. Design work is 
completed, and the FTA will conduct a review of the project's readiness 
for a Full Funding Grant next week. We're eager to move toward the Full 
Funding Grant Agreement in the next year and start construction next 
summer.
    The Riverview project is beginning environmental analysis as a rail 
corridor that will advance in the future, connecting downtown Saint 
Paul with the airport and Mall of America.
    Connecting all these lines are our arterial bus rapid transit 
corridors represented in letters. These have been successful upgrades 
to local bus services that have seen significant ridership growth. Half 
of our bus system rides are on corridors planned for arterial BRT. We 
have two operating arterial BRT lines, A Line and C Line. The D Line is 
under construction and the B and E Lines are fully funded and moving 
toward construction.
    When our full 2040 network is constructed, LRT and BRT services 
will connect 28 percent of the region's residents and 44 percent of all 
jobs in the region. This network will serve 46 percent of the region's 
BIPOC residents and 60 percent of the region's renter households.
    This kind of access to opportunity with high quality and affordable 
transit service is a central focus of our plan to reduce regional 
racial disparities. We understand the benefits these transformational 
investments provide. We're also fully aware it takes a concentrated 
effort with our local, regional, statewide, and Federal partners to 
keep our residents and businesses thriving during project development 
and construction. The Council is committed to producing tangible 
results in the area of anti-displacement and seeking opportunities to 
heal our communities from past injustices. The Council and Hennepin 
County are partnering with community members and agency stakeholders to 
convene a diverse Anti-Displacement Working Group to bring attention to 
these very issues as part of our Blue Line LRT Extension work. The 
Anti-Displacement Working Group will develop implementable 
recommendations to prevent multiple forms of displacement and promote 
equitable development, during the construction phase of the project and 
beyond.
    As we expand our network, we are taking intentional steps to 
increase the diversity of contractors building our transit projects. 
This includes depositing funds with financial institutions committed to 
fostering entrepreneurship for people of color and women business 
owners, supporting on-the-job training that exposes more people to 
careers in construction, and connecting firms through our Mentoring 
Protege program, which increases opportunities for subcontracting and 
prime awards.
    Looking ahead, we are watching the infrastructure bill that passed 
the Senate. If the bill becomes law, it will be a historic investment 
in transportation for our region and for the Nation. For one example, 
the bill's focus on transitioning to zero emissions transit fleets 
aligns with our commitment to expand our electric bus program. Metro 
Transit has made significant investments in battery electric buses and 
infrastructure, in large part thanks to the FTA's Low or No Emissions 
Program grants. The Senate-passed infrastructure bill would further 
support our transition to a zero-emissions future.
    In closing, thank you for this opportunity to share our progress 
and our vision towards building a strong transit network--a system that 
provides people across our region with more high-quality options to get 
where they need to go. We appreciate all the support we receive from 
our Federal partners. You truly are essential to our current and future 
success.
                                 ______
                                 
                  PREPARED STATEMENT OF IRENE FERNANDO
          Commissioner, Hennepin County Board of Commissioners
                            August 24, 2021
    Thank you Chair Smith, Ranking Member Rounds, and Members of the 
Committee: I extend my sincere gratitude for the opportunity to speak 
and for all the work you do.
    My name is Irene Fernando, Hennepin County Commissioner and Chair 
of our Regional Railroad Authority. And as a commissioner, I am 
dedicated to advancing equity by advocating for those who are 
marginalized or structurally disenfranchised.
    I am proud to represent District 2, which includes Golden Valley, 
Medicine Lake, Minneapolis, Plymouth, and St. Anthony Village. I am in 
my first term in office; I am the youngest woman to serve on Hennepin's 
board; and alongside Commissioner Angela Conley, we are the first and 
only commissioners of color in Hennepin's 169-year history.
History
    Since the 1970s, the Twin Cities 7-county region has envisioned and 
pursued a regional light rail transit system. Over the years, light 
rail meaningfully complemented buses to create high-quality transit 
connections for residents and visitors. This work occurs in partnership 
with community and all levels of Government, with the Metropolitan 
Council as our regional planning organization leading to implement 
these important projects.
    During the 1990s, Hennepin County steadily increased our commitment 
to affordable housing and economic development. This work enhanced 
light rail projects through Hennepin's Community Works program, which 
tailored housing and economic development investments to directly 
partner with local municipalities during major transportation and 
transit projects.
    And through today, Hennepin continues to deepen and broaden our 
commitment to these areas by approving record investments to increase 
affordable housing and access to home ownership, to promote more 
transit oriented development, as well as to support entrepreneurs and 
grow small businesses.
    In partnership with the Metropolitan Council, other counties, and 
the State, the Twin Cities 7-county region has achieved a multimodal 
transit system to address the various needs of our residents. From 
light rail transit and arterial bus rapid transit to ensure fast and 
frequent connections, to local service for denser communities, to bus 
rapid transit that connects across urban and suburban areas, to Metro 
Mobility which offers public transit for riders with needs due to a 
disability or health conditions--we are proud of this multiagency 
commitment to delivering high-quality transportation system that 
connects residents and visitors to our entire region.
    Still with all of this progress, it is clear that there is much 
more to do to advance a regional and multimodal transit system that 
meets the needs of our diverse communities, by incorporating equity and 
environmental justice into the design, construction, and operating of 
transit projects.

    Design can occur more equitably when we center additional 
        transit users. Historically, our system too heavily prioritized 
        suburban commuters coming in and out of downtown, as well as 
        riders who are able to choose transit. Given the shifts in work 
        locations and patterns, as well as a growing chasm in household 
        income levels, equitable design requires deeper commitment to 
        workers and families--so that night-shift health care workers 
        can travel safely, elderly can ride confidently, and a mother 
        with grocery bags and a toddler can efficiently get home.

    Construction can occur more equitably when we establish 
        even more aggressive diversity and inclusion benchmarks for 
        contractors and subcontractors, as well as position 
        organizations and workers for success with these expectations. 
        We need to be data-informed and diligent in ensuring true 
        living wages, and we must partner with existing organizations 
        who have already been training local residents to learn these 
        important trades.

    And operating can occur more equitably when we meet 
        residents' needs with a restorative response. We know that many 
        transit riders may also benefit from human services offered by 
        counties, so intentional partnership between transit operators 
        and counties can work to improve conditions for everyone.

    We are hopeful for how transit can transform lives through projects 
like Southwest Light Rail Extension, Gold Line Bus Rapid Transit, and 
Arterial Bus Rapid Transit improvements like the B, E, and F lines. And 
we are grateful and energized for the opportunity to partner to rise to 
meet the challenges in our communities.
    Specifically, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act can serve 
Minnesotans by expanding transit service to underserved communities 
across the metro, making system upgrades and repairs to aging 
infrastructure, as well as improving air quality by expediting the 
transition to electric buses. It will also bring numerous construction 
jobs into the region, which we will benefit the stability of their 
households and communities.
Blue Line Extension
    Today, I am excited to talk about a project that will make an 
incredible difference locally, with potential benefits across the 
country. The Blue Line Extension, which has been in the works for over 
30 years, is a 13-mile light rail project that will further our 
region's transit vision, and will affordably connect students to 
education, workers to jobs, patients to health care, and families to 
resources. It will bring transformational benefits to residents of the 
corridor, connecting Brooklyn Park, through Crystal, Robbinsdale, North 
Minneapolis to downtown Minneapolis.
    We are deeply committed to the Blue Line Extension because it is 
more than a project to advance--it is a commitment to the residents and 
communities along the corridor for ongoing engagement and economic 
investment for years and decades to come.
    The project was in a holding pattern for a number of years due to 
the original alignment's colocation with the freight rail. After 
numerous strategies to resolve this, it became clear that delivering 
high-quality transit connections to our residents, in a timely manner, 
must be the priority.
    So about one year ago, in August of 2020, Hennepin County and 
Metropolitan Council jointly began the community process needed to 
revise the alignment, in order to move away from the colocation with 
the freight rail. This need to revise the alignment afforded us a 
unique opportunity to engage communities, during a pandemic, which 
resulted in insightful and alarming feedback around equity, 
gentrification, access to resources, disinvestment, and climate.
The Corridor
    This project is positioned to serve among the most racially and 
economically diverse communities in Minnesota, while also connecting 
transit-reliant residents to the broader regional transit system.
    The Blue Line Extension will serve communities with long-standing 
disinvestment and disparities. This corridor has high concentrations of 
Cost Burdened Households, have felt the lasting impacts of Historical 
Redlining, experience more COPD Hospitalizations due to air quality, 
and feel the devastations of premature death as measured by Years of 
Potential Life Loss (see our ``Advancing Equity Along the Blue Line 
Extension'' PDF).
    To visualize this need, I have two maps here and several more in 
your materials. The first map to my right looks at concentrations of 
People of Color & Transit Commuters. As you can see, the proposed Blue 
Line Extension serves communities who are reliant on transit, as well 
as the most racially diverse communities in Hennepin.
    The second map to my left looks at Home Value & Adult High School 
Degrees. This corridor shows lower home values and lower degree 
attainment for adults 25+. We know that property valuation connects to 
disinvestment, and of course, we know there is a strong relationship 
between education and income.
    It seems regardless of the measurement, along lines of 
environmental justice, health outcomes, education attainment, housing 
stability, or economic success, these maps and data tell a consistent 
and compelling story:
    The Blue Line Extension will change the trajectory of what's 
possible for so many of my neighbors today and for generations to come. 
It will ignite much needed and long overdue economic development for 
small businesses, while building wealth for working families.
    For example, I live in North Minneapolis, which is 16 percent of 
the City's population at about 70,000 residents. And if I wanted to 
host you all tonight for a sit-down dinner--I couldn't. There aren't 
places for people to celebrate life milestones, nor spots for my 
neighborhood's kids to get their first jobs. It seems inconceivable to 
have this many people in an area without restaurant choices, access to 
jobs, or spaces to celebrate.
    Extending to suburban communities in this corridor, they 
demonstrated greater population growth in the 2020 Census than 
anticipated. The largest suburb is Brooklyn Park, where the Blue Line 
Extension will terminate, which grew nearly 14 percent between 2010 and 
2020. And in the same period, Brooklyn Center grew by over 12 percent. 
With ever-increasing population densities, the suburban communities in 
this corridor are more ready for transit investment today than ever 
before.
Anti-Displacement
    After a century of disinvestment, racial covenants, and redlining, 
we have a duty to ensure current residents, small businesses, and 
cultural institutions are both engaged in and able to benefit from the 
increased development in their neighborhoods.
    The communities in this corridor have suffered disproportionately 
over the past year--due to the pandemic, the resulting job and housing 
disruptions, and historic harms that must be repaired.
    This is why Hennepin and Met Council are proud to have established 
an Anti-Displacement Workgroup that centers community voices and 
convenes diverse partners and stakeholders, to develop robust anti-
displacement measures that counter the unintended harm from large scale 
infrastructure projects, with specific goals to reduce racial 
disparities and to create more equitable economic strategies.
    The Anti-Displacement Workgroup is comprised of community leaders, 
business owners, residents, and experts. Together, Hennepin and Met 
Council issued a Request for Proposals to identify a community 
organization who will lead this bold effort to build in creative ways 
to incorporate community in the design, construction, and operation of 
this large scale infrastructure project.
    Our teams work deliberately every day to ensure the Blue Line 
Extension benefits corridor residents; and minimizes physical, 
economic, and cultural displacement.
    Our anti-displacement goals closely align with the Biden-Harris 
administration's Justice40 Initiative, which commits 40 percent of 
Federal climate investment to benefit disadvantaged communities. 
Transit is a climate investment, and in order to benefit disadvantaged 
communities, intentional focus on anti-displacement is required.
Partnership and Thank You
    We hope the Committee's goals align and look forward to the 
possibility of partnering. We can achieve transformational benefits for 
our communities with Federal support, and I am confident that this work 
has the opportunity to be scaled to other jurisdictions due to 
Hennepin's size, experiences, assets, and shortcomings.
    We are a mix of urban, suburban, and exurban communities, and we 
are adjacent to rural communities--all of whom need comprehensive 
transit options to access vital resources such as level 1 trauma 
centers, social services, veterans affairs, educational institutions, 
job training, and airports. Innovations that work in Hennepin can apply 
to counties larger and smaller, which makes this region a productive 
space to consider new ideas.
    In partnership, we could ask questions and create replicable 
frameworks to center residents who have been historically marginalized, 
to meaningfully incorporate climate change, and to address quantifiable 
patterns of disinvestment through affordable housing, growing local 
businesses, and access to jobs.
    Thank you again for the time today, and I look forward to hearing 
your questions or reactions. And thank you, Chair Smith.
                                 ______
                                 
                   PREPARED STATEMENT OF ALISON ZELMS
            City Administrator, City of Rochester, Minnesota
                            August 24, 2021
    Madam Chair, My name is Alison Zelms (Z-E-L-M-S), City 
Administrator for the City of Rochester. We are located a little over 
an hour south of the twin cities metro area and our community has 
approximately 119,000 residents and over 3 million visitors each year 
for our world renowned medical care from the Mayo Clinic.
    I'd like to begin by expressing our gratitude for several recent 
Congressional actions.
    The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES) and 
American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) have been critically important sources 
of emergency transit funding. Ridership on Rochester Public Transit 
regular routes fell 90 percent in the early days of the pandemic; today 
we are still 65 percent below 2019 levels.
    The emergency operations funding allowed us keep our current bus 
routes throughout the city running and to implement extensive cleaning 
and other safety measures to keep operators and passengers safe. CARES 
capital funding (with no local match required) allowed us to purchase 
10 replacement buses without tapping depleted reserves to come up with 
the local dollars. Without CARES and ARPA we would not have been able 
to safely operate our essential service for the many essential workers 
we have in Rochester.
    We appreciate the consideration by Congress for President Biden's 
and U.S. Department of Transportation 2022 budget. Investment in 
infrastructure supports resiliency when it is needed most in our 
communities. This investment allows for transit programs that create 
and increase equitable access to opportunity. It includes $56.1 million 
for Rochester's Bus Rapid Transit project which was included in the 
U.S. Department of Transportation FY22 Budget.
    Rochester's bus rapid transit project, known as The Link, is a 
transformational public transit project currently in the design phase, 
and has applied for funding from the Federal Transit Administration's 
Capital Investment Grant's Small Starts program.
    This high-amenity, high-frequency downtown transit service is part 
of a comprehensive mobility strategy. Local funding through our 
Destination Medical Center, the largest public-private economic 
initiative in Minnesota and the catalyst for growth in Rochester, will 
further the goal of creating a global destination for health and 
wellness.
    This once-in-a-generation project will have a broad impact in our 
community, advancing important foundational principles and strategic 
priorities, which include the following areas:

    Environmental Sustainability. The Link will move people more 
efficiently and reduce vehicle miles traveled in our community; Reduce 
future environmental and livability problems associated with traffic 
congestion; and the electric powered fleet will reduce our city's 
environmental footprint and help the city transition away from fossil 
fuels.

    Economic Health. The Link will help reduce downtown parking demand, 
allowing for higher and better land-use in the downtown core; will 
encourage investment in high-density, affordable, mixed-use development 
along transit corridors; and will be a signature amenity in Rochester 
for residents and visitor by providing a superior customer transit 
experience.

    Social Equity. The Link provides access to employment and other 
opportunities for populations who need it most--we know that economic 
and social mobility is strongly correlated with physical mobility; and 
will have a long-term halo effect, strengthening the overall Rochester 
Public Transit system providing the opportunity to improve service to 
transit-dependent populations.

    In addition to this major effort, the City of Rochester sees 
additional challenges and opportunities perhaps more unique to a 
transit system outside of the metro area that we wanted to share:
    The COVID-19 pandemic continues to have a significant adverse 
effect on transit ridership. While the principles that shape our 
mobility strategy remain in place, a high degree of uncertainty exists, 
such as the following questions:
    When will the public health crisis subside and the associated 
operational restrictions and guidance from Federal, State, and local 
authorities be eased?
    When will people feel comfortable returning to public transit, from 
a personal risk perspective? How will the recent proliferation of 
remote work affect the rate of growth in transit demand?
    We are confident that demand will return and grow. However, we 
anticipate the rate of growth may need to be reevaluated.
    The COVID-19 pandemic has sped the rate of change and encouraged 
innovation, leading to an opportunity to reconsider and improve many 
aspects of transit service delivery. For example, the need to disinfect 
the onboard environment means new cleaning protocols and filtration 
technologies that will lead to improved customer comfort.
    Touchless mobile fare payment technology is being implemented in 
Rochester--long-planned, but of increased importance now. Vehicle 
technology continues to advance, such as improvements in range and 
performance of battery electric vehicles and on-street pilot testing of 
autonomous transit vehicles. In fact, the Minnesota Department of 
Transportation and First Transit, Rochester Public Transit's contracted 
operator, have a year-long autonomous shuttle pilot operating on the 
streets in Rochester--expected to carry passengers starting this fall.
    I ask the Members of this Committee to support continued Federal 
resources for local transit agencies that will help us emerge healthy 
and build our infrastructure for the future. With no clear end to the 
impacts of COVID-19 in sight, operation support will continue to be 
needed to guarantee we are able to provide essential services to the 
most vulnerable populations.
    Federal capital programs like those in Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and 
Economic Security Act (CARES) and American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) as 
well as ongoing transportation-specific programs such as the Rebuilding 
American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) program 
are essential to implement sustainable equitable mobility available to 
everyone that encompasses congestion management, social equity, 
affordable housing, economic development, and climate action.
    Thank you again for this opportunity and your time.
                                 ______
                                 
                   PREPARED STATEMENT OF GRACE WALTZ
   Vice President of Public Policy, Minneapolis Regional Chamber of 
                                Commerce
                            August 24, 2021
    Chair Smith and Administrator Fernandez, thank you for the 
opportunity to address the importance of investing in a strong transit 
network. My name is Grace Waltz, and I am the Vice President of Public 
Policy at the Minneapolis Regional Chamber of Commerce. The Minneapolis 
Regional Chamber is the largest local chamber in Minnesota with nearly 
2,300 members in the 11-county metro region. Over the past 10 years, 
the Minneapolis Regional Chamber and our partners have commissioned two 
studies from national experts to assess the expected return on 
investment from building out our region's transit system. These reports 
have confirmed that in addition to providing more and better ways to 
get around, investments in transit pay off, both for those who use 
transit, and those who use our roads and highways. Building a 
comprehensive transit system in our metro area will provide a major 
return on investment--more than $9 billion in positive direct impacts. 
Improved public transit is a key component to eliminating access 
barriers to equitable employment and economic disparities. Employers 
and employees have been seeking better transit, and this report shows 
that it is the smart thing to do from a monetary perspective. It is 
also important to note that our most recent study found that 81 percent 
of the benefits of a better transit system would be enjoyed by people 
and businesses using the region's street and highway system due to 
reduced traffic, thus avoiding inconveniences like shipping delays and 
long daily commutes.
    Beyond the clear economic benefits, public support for improved 
transit access is incredibly high. A 2018 poll commissioned by the 
Minneapolis Regional Chamber showed that 74 percent of all respondents 
said they would support the State of Minnesota making additional 
investments in transit, including buses, trains and light rail. There 
is also strong support for making transit easier to use. 58 percent 
said that they would like to use public transit such as rail or buses 
more often, but it is not convenient to or available from their home or 
work. Nearly two-thirds believe that transit is necessary to compete 
with other metro areas for jobs. 64 percent said that Minneapolis-Saint 
Paul needs a better regional transit system in order to compete for 
jobs with peer cities such as Denver, Salt Lake City, Dallas, and 
Portland that have more complete transit systems. These results make it 
clear that Minnesotans recognize that transit is good for our economy 
and their day to day lives, making our State stronger and more 
competitive.
    It also must be noted that the way we think about our transit 
systems looks different than it did just 17 months ago. The COVID-19 
pandemic and shift to remote work decimated demand for public transit 
in the Twin Cities and across the country. While some companies have 
begun the process of bringing their workers back to the office, 
continued uncertainty has delayed the return to office for many 
companies, and there continue to be some who may never bring their 
workers back to prepandemic levels.
    As we think about the transit system of the future, we need to 
think about building systems that are more than about getting people to 
and from work--we need systems that allow people to use transit to go 
to a doctor's appointment, the grocery store, out to dinner, or to a 
sporting event. To put it plainly, it's no longer enough to build a 
system that only gets people from Point A to Point B. We need a system 
that gets people from Point A, to C, to D, E, and F, back to A again.
    Federal, State, and local leaders recognize that we are at a unique 
moment in time when it comes to making innovative investments. There is 
momentum for transit investments here in Minnesota that strengthen our 
economy and make our State an even better place for businesses and 
employees. Investment in transit is a true win-win that helps more 
people live their lives, get to their jobs, providing benefits to 
everyone in the region. We know that businesses prefer to locate near 
transit where employees and customers will have more travel options. 
Investing in transit now will generate positive impacts for our economy 
for decades, including additional State and local tax revenues of 
nearly the same magnitude as the investment costs--$143 million a year 
or $2.86 billion over 20 years.
    Economic benefits aside, the recent United Nations climate report 
painted a terrifying picture of what is to come if we do not change the 
way we treat the planet, and transit plays a major rule in a cleaner 
future. Over this past summer Minnesotans have witnessed the 
devastating impacts of climate change in our own backyards, which is to 
say nothing of the impacts in other parts of the country and around the 
world.
    The Minneapolis Regional Chamber has been advocating strongly for 
transit investments--and this ROI information only strengthens our 
resolve and desire to make this happen. We are hopeful that 
policymakers will recognize the significant benefits that comes with 
transit and will make smart choices in support of investments that 
benefit our economy, employees, and everyone in the region. Thank you 
for focusing on this very important issue.
                                 ______
                                 
             PREPARED STATEMENT OF CASSANDRA BELYEU JOHNSON
                Transit Rider, Brooklyn Park, Minnesota
                            August 24, 2021
    Hello and thank you for your time today as I talk about what public 
transportation means to me and the community of Brooklyn Park and 
Brooklyn Center. My name is Cassandra Belyeu and I am a resident of 
Brooklyn Park, Minnesota on the borderline of Brooklyn Center, where I 
have resided for the past 4 years. I am a passionate advocate for 
transportation access. I am here today to share my perspectives with 
Senator Tina Smith and the panel.
    Transportation is lacking in my area, an issue I feel needs to be 
addressed. My research on the Metro website has revealed only four 
buses that I am aware of that service the cities of Brooklyn Center and 
Brooklyn Park. Anyone who misses one of these buses will be forced to 
wait an hour for the next arrival or walk long distances of potentially 
over a mile. During the Minnesota winters, such a long wait or walk can 
be an extremely difficult challenge.
    Without access to reliable transportation, simple tasks like 
shopping and receiving a haircut can occupy significant portions of 
someone's day. While I have personal access to a car today, I didn't 
always. I can still recall spending half my day planning a haircut due 
to lack of access to timely transportation, arriving a full hour early 
just to secure my spot with my barber. I would also rely on family to 
pick me up and take me home afterwards, if my haircut appointment ended 
in the evening when buses were less available. During the weekends, I 
always had to get a ride, because buses were even more unavailable than 
during the week.
    My story is far from the only one, and the time it occupied in my 
day shows the necessity of reliable transportation in the Brooklyn Park 
and Brooklyn Center area, where currently it is lacking. My story 
raises the question of what would happen to other Brooklyn Park and 
Brooklyn Center residents like me who either temporarily or permanently 
rely on public transportation.
    I have also spoken with friends in order to hear their perspective 
on what public transportation means to them. I have a friend who would 
love to move to the northwest suburbs, particularly Brooklyn Park, but 
finds such a move difficult due to lack of public transportation. My 
friend's story shows that public transportation is not only a means of 
offering access to numerous locations for current residents, but also a 
means of bringing people into our communities.
    In addition to knowing people who are unsure about moving to the 
area, I also know people who live in the Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn 
Center area who have been stranded and needed me for a ride home 
because they couldn't get home using Brooklyn Center transit. Instead, 
I had to pick them up where they were. No bus ran close to their home, 
meaning they would've had to have walked miles if I hadn't picked them 
up, and in very bad weather.
    Access to public transportation is also extremely important for 
children and during holidays. During Halloween and other public 
activities, children often have trouble arriving because the events can 
be so far spread out.
    I am here to say that the transportation situation right now is not 
working for many people in the Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn Center area. 
I would like to demand that the buses in Brooklyn Center and Brooklyn 
Park run longer hours, including hours that go beyond rush hour into 
the evening and weekend times, specifically Sundays where they often do 
not run at all, and that the buses offer more stops, particularly in 
underprivileged communities.
    Even though I have a car, I would still like to use public 
transportation from time to time. During trips to the Mall of America, 
I still use public transportation. My example shows that even people 
with access to personal transportation can still benefit from stronger 
public transportation.
    My story and the stories of countless Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn 
Center residents raises the question of what access to public 
transportation means for residents, and shows the tremendous effect it 
can have on the community.
                                 ______
                                 
                 PREPARED STATEMENT OF NURIA FERNANDEZ
             Administrator, Federal Transit Administration
                            August 24, 2021
    Good morning. Chair Smith and Members of the Subcommittee, thank 
you for inviting me to appear before you today here in the Twin Cities.
    This is a truly pivotal time for our Nation's public transportation 
systems. Thanks to your diligence and hard work, the Senate recently 
passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The legislation 
includes $550 billion in new Federal investment in America's roads and 
bridges, water infrastructure, resilience, internet, and more. The 
transit industry will receive almost $90 billion in guaranteed 
funding--the most significant Federal support for transit in our 
Nation's history.
    That proposed funding is not just an abstract number. It will 
improve people's lives throughout the Nation. Here in Minnesota, 11 
percent of trains and buses in the State are past their useful life. 
It's clear the State of Minnesota would benefit greatly from the more 
than $818 million designated under the Infrastructure Investment and 
Jobs Act to improve public transportation.
    I can confidently say that this State has been a great partner in 
advancing public transportation. The Biden-Harris administration is 
laser-focused on supporting good work in transit, like what we are 
seeing in Minnesota.
    I want to take a moment to thank Chairman Brown and Members of this 
Subcommittee for all you did to shepherd this vital infrastructure bill 
through the Senate these last few months. I know it was not easy!
    With the passage of the infrastructure bill through the Senate, I 
am more optimistic than I have ever been. This level of Federal funding 
will touch lives in every corner of the country, including here in 
Minnesota. At long last, transit systems will have the resources to 
expand, modernize and offer 21st-century technology solutions and 
services that Americans deserve, and should expect, to help get them to 
jobs, school, and vital services.
    From right here in the Twin Cities region to smaller urban and 
rural communities throughout Minnesota. We will ensure safe and 
efficient transportation for everyone.
    The legislation also includes funding dedicated to zero-emission 
vehicles--and funding to train transit workers who maintain and operate 
those vehicles--advancing the Administration's climate and job creation 
goals. As we continue to switch from fossil fuels to electric or 
hydrogen, we will reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that play such a 
big role in our planet's rising temperatures. We will also build the 
manufacturing, power production, and maintenance jobs of the future, 
like the ones here in Minnesota where they're producing the transit 
fleet of the future right now. In doing all this, the Biden-Harris 
administration will commit to the men and women who build transit and 
keep it running--we will not leave working Americans behind while 
transit moves forward.
    This work is more important than ever, given the recent alarming 
report from the U.N. Panel on Climate Change, which declared our last 
decade the hottest in history and confirmed carbon dioxide is the 
leading contributor to climate change. In fact, according to the 
report, unless we sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions--and soon--
global warming will exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius, after which climate 
consequences will be even more severe.
    The folks here in Minnesota know all about this. This summer has 
been drier than any since the 1980s. You have all walked outside to the 
haze of a sun blotted out by the smoke of wildfires. From coast to 
coast, while the skies might be smoky, the evidence is crystal clear--
we have no more time to waste.
    The Federal Transit Administration's Region 5 Administrator Kelley 
Brookins, who leads our work in Minnesota, is here with me today. 
Kelley and her team partner with the Minnesota Department of 
Transportation and 51 transit agencies throughout the State to fund 
public transportation serving all 87 Minnesota counties. As part of her 
work, she administers approximately $394 million in funds from the 
American Rescue Plan, which was signed by President Biden earlier this 
year. These funds are helping transit agencies across Minnesota 
continue to operate, despite significant losses in ridership and 
revenue due to COVID. Among the ARP funds apportioned to the State:

    $23 million is going to Minnesota's smaller cities,

    $15.3 million is designated for rural transit, including 
        tribal transit, and

    More than $700,000 dollars will support service for seniors 
        and people with disabilities.

    We are supporting the travel needs of workers in Saint Cloud, 
helping college students at Mankato get to class, enabling members of 
the White Earth Band of Chippewa Indians to get to doctor's 
appointments, and much more.
    Here in the Twin Cities, the Metropolitan Council has made a 
commitment to expand transit--with six new high-capacity lines on the 
way--which will truly transform communities in the region by closing 
gaps in service and offering mobility options to more people in the 
community. Through our Capital Investment Grants Program, FTA has 
helped support the amazing successes seen by the Bus Rapid Transit 
program here in the Twin Cities. The Met Council is creating a BRT 
system that can be held up as a standard for other cities. As we move 
forward, FTA also looks forward to supporting the expansion of that 
program and the light rail. Currently in our pipeline, we are working 
with Met Council to develop:

    Two bus rapid transit lines: the Orange Line and the Gold 
        Line, and

    Two light rail projects: the Green Line Southwest Extension 
        and the Blue Line Bottineau Extension.

    When built, these projects will add 55 miles to the transit network 
and extend through a dozen communities, creating better connections to 
opportunities. Those opportunities will truly be open to everyone who 
calls the Twin Cities, and the suburbs, home. Equity is a critical 
issue to FTA, and to the Biden-Harris administration, and it is why I 
am so proud to be working in transit. I've often said it is the great 
equalizer. Once those doors open and you step on board, everyone has 
the same opportunity to go where they need to go, to be who they want 
to be. These Bus Rapid Transit and light rail routes will serve 
otherwise underserved communities, where not everyone can afford a car. 
They will make sure that, regardless of how you travel, everyone has an 
equal shot at getting where they're going.
    This truly bold transit expansion will support a region so 
important to the successful economic recovery of Minnesota. It will 
also give us a unique opportunity. Transit can be a tool that is so 
often lacking. It gives us the chance to address the inequities of our 
past. Sometimes, these mistakes, these inequities, were caused by blind 
neglect. Other times, it was a conscious choice to leave some people in 
the shadows. One of my goals at FTA is to ensure that transit brings a 
light of opportunity for those who have been denied it by our system 
for far too long.
    Transit won't just be changing lives here in the Twin Cities 
either. To the southeast, we look forward to seeing the City of 
Rochester launch its first bus rapid transit line, connecting downtown 
residents and visitors with the Mayo Clinic, the University of 
Minnesota-Rochester campus, and other important destinations. There is 
also a major transit-oriented development site planned along the route.
    FTA is proud to be a partner supporting critical transit projects 
in Minnesota. Thank you, Met Council CEO David Greenfield, Chair 
Charlie Zelle, and Metro Transit General Manager Wes Kooistra for your 
vision and leadership. We look forward to getting a first-hand look at 
the Orange Line, which is set to open later this year.
    With that, I would again like to thank the Subcommittee for the 
opportunity to appear before you today, and I welcome your questions.
         RESPONSES TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS OF CHAIR SMITH
                      FROM NURIA FERNANDEZ

Q.1. In response to a question on efforts to prevent 
displacement, you noted that displacement is a problem that has 
occurred nationwide, and that there are some best practices to 
combat displacement as a result of new transit projects. What 
steps has FTA taken, and what additional steps will FTA be 
taking, to compile best practices to prevent displacement? Will 
you be holding a roundtable for grantees or publishing guidance 
for transit agencies or others with that information?

A.1. FTA is committed to ensuring that persons displaced as a 
direct result of Federal or federally assisted projects are 
treated fairly, consistently, and equitably in accordance with 
the Uniform Relocation Assistance and Real Property Acquisition 
Policies Act so that displaced persons do not suffer 
disproportionate injuries as a result of projects designed for 
the benefit of the public as a whole. The President's Justice40 
Initiative is an important part of that commitment, with the 
goal of delivering 40 percent of the overall benefits of 
relevant Federal investments to disadvantaged communities. 
Transit development often spurs other types of development in 
an area, which can lead to displacement of existing residents 
contributing to patterns of residential segregation and 
disparities in access to opportunity, and therefore FTA is 
committed to ensuring its Justice40 Initiative does not lead to 
displacement. FTA is also committed to civil rights statutes 
related to transportation, such as Title VI of the Civil Rights 
Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 2000d et seq. (Title VI), which 
prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or 
national origin in any program or activity that receives 
Federal funds or other Federal financial assistance. The FTA 
Equity Analysis completed by a grantee during the planning 
stage with regard to where a project is located or sited is one 
Title VI compliance tool that utilizes demographic data in 
order to better understand how DOT programs impact various 
groups, including communities that are minority, low-income, 
and limited English proficient. FTA is committed to working 
with our stakeholders and Federal partners to identify 
solutions to remove infrastructure that has displaced or 
separated communities. We are examining how we can advance 
equity and further embed fairness in our policies and programs, 
and I look forward to continuing to work with you on this 
issue.

Q.2. In evaluating grant proposals, how does FTA consider anti-
displacement efforts? Do you think FTA's current evaluation 
process puts enough weight on anti-displacement provisions in 
awarding grants? How might FTA plan to update grant evaluation 
criteria to address anti-displacement?

A.2. The Secretary has made clear that he is dedicated to 
proactively addressing the needs of communities that have been 
historically overburdened and underserved by our Nation's 
transportation systems, and I am too. In FTA's Notices of 
Funding Opportunities (NOFO), we provide priority consideration 
for projects that advance and support the goal of the 
President's Justice40 Initiative, which is to deliver 40 
percent of the overall benefits of relevant Federal investments 
to disadvantaged communities. However, many of FTA's 
discretionary programs do not cause displacement since they 
fund projects such as bus procurements. The FTA Capital 
Investment Grants (CIG) program, which funds new transit 
projects and expansions to existing systems, specifically takes 
into consideration in the evaluation and rating process the 
plans and policies in place at the local level to maintain and 
increase affordable housing to avoid displacements and 
gentrification effects that can sometimes occur. FTA's Pilot 
Program for Transit Oriented Development (TOD) Planning grants 
fund comprehensive or site-specific planning studies for 
projects seeking funding through the CIG program. We are 
currently developing the FY22 TOD Planning grant NOFO and 
looking at ways to further incorporate Justice40 and 
homelessness considerations.

Q.3. Displacement is an issue with ramifications across many 
Federal agency jurisdictions. How is the FTA working with other 
agencies to address the impacts of displacement and work to 
mitigate displacement as a result of federally supported 
projects? More specifically, is DOT/FTA working with HUD, EPA, 
or any other Federal agencies to prevent physical, cultural, or 
economic displacement?

A.3. FTA works with our Federal partners, including EPA and 
HUD, to provide important protections and assistance for 
individuals and communities affected by federally funded 
projects. FTA is currently meeting on a regular basis with HUD 
to discuss how the agencies can work together to administer 
grant programs with other agencies' programs in mind. The focus 
thus far has been on FTA's Areas of Persistent Poverty and 
Transit Oriented Development Planning discretionary grant 
programs.

Q.4. Several witnesses discussed procurement strategies to 
allow more small contractors and contractors of color to win 
contracts. How do these efforts vary from transit agency to 
transit agency? How is FTA communicating best practices to 
transit agencies with respect to contracting opportunities, and 
is that communication sufficient? Does FTA's current system of 
contracting goals adequately incentivize transit agencies to 
meaningfully improve access to procurement opportunities for 
contractors of color?

A.4. FTA plays a key role in connecting small businesses, 
minority-owned businesses, and women-owned businesses with 
economic opportunities as we build transportation systems. Our 
primary tool for ensuring women- and minority-owned businesses 
have access to DOT-funded contracts is the Disadvantaged 
Business Enterprise (DBE) program, applicable to most FTA 
recipients with federally funded capital, operating, and 
planning contracts. Since 2012, the DOT program has required 
FTA recipients with a DBE program to reach out to DBEs and 
potential DBEs, and to have a Small Business Element (SBE) to 
foster small business participation, which expands the impact 
of the program beyond certified DBEs to include small 
businesses.
    Procurement efforts at the local level naturally vary. Each 
transit agency develops its own plan to foster small business 
participation that includes strategies tailored for the size of 
the agency, the types of contracts they let, and other local 
conditions. FTA approved these programs in 2012 and continues 
to review them as submitted.
    The DBE program is a DOT program. The contract goals and 
incentives in the program are determined by the regulations. 
That said, flexibility is a hallmark of the DBE program and FTA 
coordinates extensively with the Secretary's Office, the Office 
of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization, FHWA, and FAA 
to identify challenges and opportunities in the program for 
recipients, certifiers, and small businesses. FTA offers an 
extensive library of training materials on our DBE webpage, 
including best practices in the SBE program. We also partner 
with the National Transit Institute to offer regular training 
in the DBE program, one of NTI's most in-demand courses. FTA's 
efforts to improve access to procurement opportunities for 
contractors of color have been successful: nationwide, FTA 
recipients regularly meet their local goals, which are based on 
DBE availability.

Q.5. Have you identified any weakness or loopholes in FTA's Buy 
America statutes, regulations, or practices? If so, what steps 
are you taking to address them?

A.5. It is vitally important for FTA to ensure that taxpayer 
dollars support American jobs and manufacturing. FTA's Buy 
America statutes, regulations, and practices protect American 
jobs by requiring that all steel, iron, and manufactured goods 
used in transit projects must be produced in the United States. 
They also require audits of revenue rolling stock purchases to 
ensure that these procurements are compliant with Buy America. 
To further strengthen FTA's Buy America program, FTA is working 
to implement President Biden's Executive Order 14005, 
``Ensuring the Future Is Made in All of America by All of 
America's Workers'', as well as the Build America, Buy America 
title of the bipartisan infrastructure law. Accordingly, FTA is 
committed to working closely with the Office of Management and 
Budget's Made in America Office to evaluate Buy America 
policies and practices, including the waiver review process. In 
addition, FTA is working to update the Buy America regulations 
at 49 CFR Part 661 to incorporate statutory changes and to make 
other amendments.
              Additional Material Supplied for the Record
                       METRO BLUE LINE EXTENSION

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             ADVANCING EQUITY ALONG THE BLUE LINE EXTENSION

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                   STATEMENT OF NEW FLYER OF AMERICA

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 STATEMENT OF RAFAEL ORTEGA, CHAIR OF THE RAMSEY COUNTY REGIONAL RAIL 
          AUTHORITY AND RAMSEY COUNTY COMMISSIONER--DISTRICT 5

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                             METRO DIAGRAM

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