Garnering the two-third’s majority needed, the Legislature on Feb. 25 voted to override Gov. Pawlenty’s veto of the transportation funding bill that, among other provisions, raises the state’s gas tax for the first time in 20 years.

“While there is broad consensus that the state needs to build on the record level of transportation funding we have provided over the past five years, this bill is an overreaching, massive tax increase that will further burden Minnesotans during already difficult economic times,” the governor said Feb. 22 in his veto letter.

The $6.6 billion funding measure, which includes a mixture of tax increases and bonding authority, will raise the state’s gas tax from 20 cents per gallon to 28.5 cents by 2014, with the first 5.5-cent increase occurring this year. The law also allows for an increase of a quarter-of-a-cent sales tax in the Twin Cities metro area for transit projects, and increases motor vehicle license fees.

“The Legislature has expressed its will on transportation funding,” Lt. Gov./Commissioner Carol Molnau said in a note sent Monday to all Mn/DOT employees. “Mn/DOT and its professional staff will work hard to implement the Legislature’s investment directives and to invest wisely to improve Minnesota’s transportation system.”

Molnau said it will take time to identify the specific road and bridge projects that will be funded and advanced under the new transportation bill.

However, she said, in building a transportation investment plan, Mn/DOT will:

• Accommodate the investment directives contained in the bill, primarily for investment in bridges
• Consider the recent findings of the Office of Legislative Auditor on the need to invest more resources in maintenance and preservation of the highway system
• Consider input on priorities from Mn/DOT district offices, Area Transportation Partnership committees and other citizens from around the state

Related information:

• Text of transportation funding bill
• Governor’s veto letter
• Weekly legislative summaries

By Craig Wilkins

Racing his own Super Stock Chevy Impala and following NASCAR avidly have taught Denny Thomsen a thing or two about tires.

One is the potential benefit from inflating tires with pure nitrogen instead of atmospheric air.

Racers, including dirt-tracker Thomsen, use nitrogen because the heavy gas allows tires to run cooler at extended high speeds.

Thomsen, a heavy equipment mechanic at Baxter, initiated an experiment to determine how using nitrogen could extend tire life, improve fuel economy and increase safety for District 3’s truck fleet.

Nitrogen doesn’t seep through tire walls as easily as air, Thomsen said, keeping tire pressure even.

He said constant tire pressure is needed because, for example, snowplows are heavily loaded in winter. Even tire pressure prevents “hot spots” inside the tire, reduces the effects from outside temperature extremes and reduces tire wear.

Thomsen said there is another benefit—cutting costs.

After fuel, tires are the second most costly part of vehicle operation.

Other tests have shown, Thomsen said, that tires inflated with nitrogen increase tire life and decrease fuel use by four percent.

Fuel savings result from decreased rolling resistance when tires are properly inflated.

With support from the district and Maintenance Operations Research, the Baxter shop started its field trial in January.

Thomsen said that he and Jim Anderson, shop supervisor at Baxter, plan to have about 75 percent of the vehicles in the Baxter area’s fleet converted to nitrogen-filled tires by 2009.

A Brainerd native, Thomsen has served as a heavy equipment mechanic with District 3 since 1972.

“I like what I do,” he said, “and from my perspective, we can always find better ways to use our resources and our time better.”

So far, he said, the test is going well.

“Feedback has been good from rechecks of tire pressure, but this project is in its infant stage. I hope the results prove the benefits that we think are there,” Thomsen said.

More information on the field test is available in article in the district’s newsletter, District 3 News at: http://ihub.d3/newsletter/index.html.

By Craig Wilkins

Motorists entering Minnesota will soon know there’s a big party going on—the celebration of the state’s admittance to the Union in 1858.

Minnesota was the 32nd state to join the Union.

Signs manufactured by Mn/DOT are being posted on state highways and interstate freeways at Minnesota’s borders as part of the state’s sesquicentennial year.

Sixty-six of the entrance signs will be installed.

Mn/DOT sign crews are also erecting smaller signs at the entrances of the five cities that will serve as “Capitals for a Day” during the year. The cities are Detroit Lakes, Winona, Bemidji, Thief River Falls and New Ulm.

Each city will sponsor activities that highlight the history of its regions as well as the state’s sesquicentennial.

Mike Weiss, state signing engineer, said cost of the signs was paid by the Minnesota Historical Society, a major sponsor of the celebration.

The signs will be removed and recycled at the end of this year, he said.

Steven “Skip” Sherstad, a real estate representative at Willmar, died suddenly Feb. 20. He was 53.

Funeral services were held Feb. 25 in Morris.

Sherstad’s survivors include his mother and three sisters.

Before joining District 8’s Right of Way section in 2000, Sherstad was a real estate agent in the Morris area.

Sherstad held a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and business and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Minnesota.

He was also active in Morris community affairs. Sherstad served several terms on the Morris City Council and was a Stevens County commissioner for 12 years.

During his tenure with Mn/DOT, Sherstad worked on acquiring property for projects including the reconstruction of Hwy 7, Hwy 15 and Hwy 22 in Hutchinson, and Hwy 23 in Marshall.

He also worked with District 6 on the reconstruction of Hwy 52 in Rochester and with the Office of Aeronautics for projects at the Willmar, Marshall and Canby airports.

“Skip will be remembered for his friendly personality, warm smile and devotion to his family. He was a dedicated employee and will be greatly missed by his many friends and co-workers,” District Engineer Dave Trooien wrote in a note to district employees.

“Skip was a fabulous person and a great colleague,” said John Bjornson, a real estate representative at Willmar. “He really knew the business and was a great negotiator. He was very astute about local and state issues and concerned about the communities in which he worked and lived.”

It was a Friday in October 2007. Don Obernolte, Office of Technical Support, was cutting down trees for firewood when a tree snapped about four feet above where he was cutting and fell on him.

Doctors ultimately determined that Obernolte had a collapsed lung, as well as several fractured bones, including 12 ribs, collarbone, shoulder and tibia. In addition, he had bruised his heart.

To stabilize him, the doctors put Obernolte in a coma for 17 days. He was in intensive care for 21 days, followed by a long hospital stay. He now is at home convalescing.

Obernolte has just been designated as a recipient under the state’s vacation donation program, which allows employees to remain on the payroll and maintain insurance coverage after they have exhausted their own vacation and sick leave.

State employees may donate a total of 12 hours of vacation per fiscal year to the program to benefit one or more people.

Related information:

• Caring Bridge site for Don Obernolte
• Employee Self Service Web site—to donate vacation hours, enroll as a recipient or view a list of all state employees eligible for the program. Click “Other Payroll” and then “Leave Donations.”
• Vacation donation: a worthy program for worthy people (Newsline, June 21, 2006)

Editor’s note: The Minnesota History Center in St. Paul currently features three exhibits that tell the story of transportation in Minnesota. Transportation is an integral part of the MN150 exhibit, which traces Minnesota’s 150-year history as a state. The long-standing “Going Places: The Mystique of Mobility” exhibit traces the history of transportation in Minnesota . Another exhibit, “Right on Lake Street,” profiles one of Minneapolis’s major east-west routes. (The Lake Street exhibit closes March 9.)

I live just a few blocks from Lake Street and I’ve been a regular bus rider since I joined Mn/DOT in 1980. Each day my commute takes me along the eastern one-third of Lake Street.

That’s why I was drawn to the History Center’s Lake Street exhibit.

Enter the exhibit and a mock up of the legendary Route 21 bus invites you to sit down and ride.

No fare is required—visitors travel the six-mile route from Lake Calhoun six miles east to the Lake Street Bridge via a DVD projected on the bus’s windshield.

The video tour rolls past landmark stores, historic buildings, a Civil War era cemetery and about 150 restaurants. I visit many of them often.

Lake Street evolved from a footpath once used by the Dakota people to a vibrant avenue of commerce, culture and communication.

The footpath widened into a dusty, often muddy street jammed with pedestrians, horse-drawn vehicles and hordes of bicyclists.

During the 1890s Lake Street was paved with cinders as traffic demands grew. In the early 1900s, electric streetcars provided transit for commuters.

The streetscape changed again in the 1950s when the streetcar system was scrapped and replaced by buses.

Lake Street reinvents itself to stay vital and relevant.

In 1907, immigrants from Germany started Schatzlein’s Saddle Shop at Lake and Grand Avenue. The shop first served farmers who drove their rigs in to get harnesses and other gear repaired. Today the store serves recreational equestrians and people fond of Western style boots, hats and other clothing.

Ingebretsen’s, a Scandinavian food and specialty store, still thrives at its original Lake Street location.

Immigrants keep coming to Lake Street to begin new lives and enterprises. A trip down Lake Street today reveals how immigrants from Africa, Asia and Latin America have revitalized the street from a serious downturn in the 1970s and 1980s.

The once-shuttered Sears store was renovated for offices, a hotel, apartments and the Midtown Global Market.

My bus is, in a sense, a rolling continuation of the street. There is conversation, interests are shared, friendships formed, connections made.

After our son Ethan was born in 1986, our fellow passengers held a baby shower for my spouse and me as we rode down Lake Street on the way to St. Paul.

Ethan is now 21, his favorite Lake Street stop is Manny’s Tortas at 27th Avenue. His mother, Candace, and I like to visit the Town Talk Diner, just across the street.

Lake Street is a constant thread in my life.

Riding the bus helps keep me in touch with neighbors, other government workers and my own sense of place in the world.

On a bright morning a few years ago, I boarded my bus at 36th Avenue and Lake Street. The bus was nearly full. I took the first seat available, one next to a young Somali woman holding a large bouquet of yellow roses.

She moved over a bit, but the long-stemmed flowers still inched into my space. I looked down at the flowers and looked up at her. I hesitated for a moment, then asked, “Oh, are these roses for me?”

She paused, took one rose out of the wrapped bunch and handed it to me.

“Well, not all of them,” she said, “but this one is for you.”

This could have happened most anywhere, but it’s more likely on the bus.