Transitioning to a new approach means starting where we are today – in a terrible financial mess – and applying a new set of shared principles to get us where we want to be. I can’t pretend to speak for all Minnesotans, but if I were the transportation commissioner or were advising the governor/legislature on these issues, here are seven new operating principles that I would apply to help us deal with this crisis. These operating principles address the core financial problems of our current system and present a new way of looking at transportation funding that, I believe, could be understood and accepted by most Minnesotans.

I’ve received some questions on the charts from today’s post and realized (again) that not everyone intuitively reads these things the way that I do. My apologies. Two different approaches. Two different relationships with risk.

The Move MN proposal to expand the transportation slush fund with the least painful, and most indirect, revenue source their coalition can agree on is missing any acknowledgement of why we are so critically short of transportation funding in the first place. That lack of acknowledgement likely stems from a lack of understanding, especially poignant since expansion of the transportation slush fund will only undermine the long term viability of Minnesota’s transportation system. In short, more slush fund revenue is the problem, not the solution.

Times have changed. We have to stop fighting the last war. When it comes to transportation, Minnesotans need to stand up and question, not only their leadership, but themselves. We don’t need a broad coalition finding new ways to storm the same trench. We need an entirely new way of thinking.