Changing the Metropolitan Council / Managing Driver’s License Backlogs

The 2023 legislative session provoked the formation a task force to study and evaluate options to reform and reconstitute the Metropolitan Council, a regional taxing authority, planning agency and provider of services like sewage, parks, and transportation in the Twin Cities. Senator Scott Dibble, DFL-Minneapolis, chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, joins Capitol Report moderator Shannon Loehrke to talk about the task force, the latest with the Southwest Light Rail Transit project, driver’s license testing backlogs and to preview issues likely to come up in the 2024 legislative session.

Minnesota Public Radio and Fox9 News recently reported that parents and teenagers are again frustrated by difficulties in navigating the system for scheduling a road test as part of getting a driver's license. Senator Karin Housley, R-Stillwater, authored a bill in 2020 that would allow third parties to offer road tests. She plans to reintroduce the proposal in the coming legislative session and joins Shannon to outline the details.

Also in the program, highlights from an informational Senate hearing regarding the unfinished Dinkytown apartment complex that left a number of students at University of Minnesota without a place to live. Plus, the second meeting of the Legislative Task Force on Aging yields public testimony from advocates for older Minnesotans.