Transportation

Rep. Erik Paulsen is backing a bill that would make highways safer for truck drivers. On Tuesday, Paulsen announced his support of “Jason’s Law,” which would create more and safer rest areas for truckers. The bill has pulled in the support of four Republicans and 32 Democrats.

Leslie Davis is the only candidate for governor who doesn’t own a car. It’s too dangerous for John Marty to bike 12 miles to work. Urban sprawl sickens and saddens Tom Rukavina. That’s what attendees heard Monday at the first gubernatorial forum on transportation, land use and the environment.
Elsewhere in Minnesota news this morning …

Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson has added Minnesota’s support to a lawsuit by the state of Michigan against the state of Illinois to force the closure of a canal connecting the Mississippi River to Lake Michigan. Unless the canal is closed, Asian carp will make their way into the Great Lakes and eventually Minnesota inland [...]

What is it about riding a bike under a baseball stadium that Tom Coburn and John McCain don’t understand? The senators decried federal stimulus spending to extend the Cedar Lake Bike Trail into downtown Minneapolis, prompting a blog retort by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who wrote that Coburn “doesn’t get bikes.” The bike route would hug [...]

Blame deregulation? The Northwest Airlines pilots who overshot Minneapolis-St. Paul last week told federal investigators they were immersed in discussion about the airline’s merger with Delta.

U.S. Rep. John Kline knows his buttons. As a Marine, he stayed at the side of Presidents Reagan and Carter, carrying the satchel known as the “nuclear football” that holds the how-to kit for pressing the most fearsome button of all. Now he’s once again the go-to guy, carrying the ball for Republicans who want [...]

More trouble with Texans for Norm Coleman. Politics in Minnesota recounts some tales about Fred Malek, the leader among a group of Texans who recently hired the former senator to head a new organization called America’s Action Network. Malek helped Al Checchi buy Northwest Airlines with mountains of debt in 1989, tallied Jews at the [...]

Nearly two weeks after a Continental Airlines flight left 47 people stranded on a Rochester tarmac for six hours, a plane filled with Minnesotans spent the same amount of time awaiting takeoff in New York on Friday. The Sun Country flight opened boarding for its 100 passengers an hour late and took off six hours [...]

Do not be alarmed, you residents near the Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant. The state, federal and local officials you see acting as if there’s been a terrible nuclear accident are doing just that: acting. They do this every other year, at the insistence of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. This year, Tuesday and Wednesday [...]

A light rail service from downtown Minneapolis to Eden Prairie passed an important test on Monday: cost and ridership estimates show that parts of the project falls within the parameters to receive federal assistance. Only one proposed route of the Southwest Transitway would qualify for federal funding — between Cedar Lake and Lake of the [...]