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Metropolitan Council briefing credits 2023 regional sales tax with averting a transit 'fiscal cliff'

Metropolitan Council · May 11, 2026
AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

At a May 13 briefing, Metropolitan Transportation Services Executive Director Charles Carlson told the Council the 2023 regional sales tax replaced unstable funding sources, supported service restorations and capital needs, and is enabling projects and safety investments while ridership remains below pre‑COVID levels.

Charles Carlson, executive director of Metropolitan Transportation Services, told the Metropolitan Council at its May 13 meeting that the 2023 regional transportation sales tax was essential to avoid what he called a "fiscal cliff" and to stabilize transit operations and capital needs across the Twin Cities region.

In a broad presentation Carlson reviewed more than a century of transit governance, the shift in funding from fares and property taxes to motor vehicle sales tax (MVST), and the effect of…

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