• The parking for Northstar passengers shall be made available by the City at the parking ramp adjacent to the station and shall not be limited. (The number of stalls that are available for transit will be limited to 350 stalls.) This condition is acceptable to the Metropolitan Council.
• The City Council made it clear in two meetings that they wanted to expand transit service to the area by expanding the service that currently goes to the Anoka Technical college to the Ramsey rail station. After Mr. Byers had conversations with Pat Born and Brian Lamb from the Metropolitan Council, it was determined that this  condition could not be accepted as part of the Transit Taxing District Agreement, however options for additional future transit bus service are being explored.
• The City Council also wanted the rate for the ride from Ramsey to be the same as the rate from Anoka. This is also a condition that the Metropolitan Council will not accept as the Northstar train is a distance based fare and therefore would not be fair to the other communities. Whereas, it is true that the fare is the same between Anoka and Coon Rapids ($4.00), the distance separating these stations is only 2 miles. The distance between Anoka, Elk River (fare at $5 .50)and Ramsey stations is approximately 5 miles. They feel that the fare will be somewhere close to $4.50 per ride but do not want to lock themselves into any fare structure in the future. Keep in mind that while Ramsey is entering into the Transit Taxing District, Elk River is outside of the Metropolitan area and will not be part of the District.
• The last comment that was received by the City Council revolves around the requirement to stop the bus service that is currently operating when the rail service is operational. Since the stoppage of the bus has led to a comment from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) about the possibility of repayment of Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality funds, members of the City Council were concerned that the City of Ramsey would be stuck in the middle of two larger agencies telling us completely opposite things. The Metropolitan Council has been extremely helpful in this concern. Last Wednesday, Staff received an email from MnDOT (the CMAQ grant administrator) requesting additional information and providing us an opportunity to give a historic background to this issue. Attached to the case is a letter in draft form that explains the City's position. The intent is to send this letter tomorrow morning after receiving comments from the City Council and getting resolution to this matter before approving the proposed agreement.

Provide consensus direction on approval of the attached transit taxing district agreement contingent upon resolution of the issue of repayment of federal funds with a transit mode shift from bus to rail.