Relating to transportation; creating a high speed rail fund and appropriating money in the fund to the commissioner of transportation (DOT) to plan and design the Minnesota portion of a high speed rail corridor between the twin cities and Chicago as part of the midwest regional rail system; modifying the distribution of motor vehicle sales tax revenues to the highway user tax distribution and greater Minnesota and metropolitan area transit funds and requiring the commissioner in certain fiscal years to transfer from the amount to be credited to the trunk highway fund from the highway user tax distribution fund to the
high speed rail fund; defining metropolitan transportation area and imposing a sales tax in the area, providing for collection by the commissioner of revenue; creating the metropolitan transportation sales tax account within the metropolitan area transit fund for deposit of the revenue collected for appropriation to the metropolitan council for capital and operating costs of bus, rail and paratransit service within the metropolitan transportation area, for implementation of the transit portion of the transportation policy plan and for distribution to metropolitan transportation area counties for use by the counties, cities and towns to plan, design, build, maintain, promote and operate public transit, bicycle and pedestrian projects and to provide transportation infrastructure associated with transit oriented development, specifying certain
distribution eligibility requirements; requiring biennial metropolitan council
reports to the legislature on expenditures and improvements; appropriating money to the commissioner of finance for deposit in the metropolitan area and greater Minnesota transit funds
(ra)