Vice President Kamala Harris's choice of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate on the Democratic presidential ticket sparked excitement among much of the party's progressive flank — but what's his stance on progressive transportation issues and the movement to defeat car dependency in the United States?
Before you go back to mainlining memes of Walz carving school buses out of butter at the state fair — though we'll pop few into this article just to keep you reading amidst all the wonky transportation talk — here are five facts his Walz's record on policies that impact the people who use actual buses, trains, bikes, sidewalks and more. (And if you need a refresher on candidate Harris's pre-White House transportation track record, we've got you on that, too.)
1. Walz signed one of most progressive transportation bills in U.S. history
U.S. DOT may dole out a lot of money for transportation, but the states are where the rubber really meets the road on how the money gets spent. In Minnesota, the omnibus bill that governs many of those critical policy decisions has been lauded by many sustainable transportation advocates — thanks in part to the governor who signed it, Tim Walz.
The $9 billion law, known only as HF2887, was more or less a grab bag of progressive transportation priorities, prompting Planetizen editor James Brasuell to comment that "seldom, if ever, does a bill adopted in the United States accomplish so many policy goals sought by transit and active transportation advocates in one legislative package."
That package required MnDOT to mitigate or outright cancel highway expansion projects that increase emissions (or hamper the state's goal of reducing driving miles 20 percent by 2050), indexed the state gas tax to inflation to more appropriately reflect the cost of driving, provided hundreds of millions of dedicated dollars for specific transit, biking and walking improvements, established a new statewide e-bike credit, and so much more.
Streetsblog wrote a longer rundown of the bill's highlights and interviewed the transportation committee chairs behind it when it first passed — and some local advocates, to be fair, argue that progressive leaders in the legislature really deserve the credit, rather than Walz himself.
"It remains to be seen how progressive Walz will be on transportation without the legislature delivering ambitious bills to his desk for a signature," wrote Joe Harrington, transportation policy coordinator for the Twin Cities-based advocacy organization Our Streets.
Walz hasn't actually commented on the bill's potential to remove highway projects, and that the greenhouse gas assessments won't be required under the bill until 2028, Harrington noted.
Still, others argue that Walz does deserve props for simply getting out of the way of transportation progress, rather than halting it in its tracks like certain governors that have made the news lately.
"We’ve had a wild ride in Minnesota over the last few years in terms of getting progressive transportation policy passed, and a lot of that is due to great leaders at the legislature — and great leaders like Governor Walz, who created the conditions where people feel they can go big," said Sam Rockwell, executive director of Move Minnesota Action. "I think it’s exciting to think about those conditions being created at the national level."
2. ... and made state law even better, particularly for bikes
In the months since its historic transportation bill passed, Minnesota followed it up with, well, another historic transportation bill — which Governor Walz signed, too.
In May of this year, Minnesota passed a companion bill to HF2887, which Ash Lovell of PeopleForBikes argued went "further than any other state-level bicycle safety policy" and placed "Minnesota at the leading edge of bicycle safety in the nation."
Among other wins, the bill promised to...
- Require any highway project over $15 million — not just highway expansions — that might increase emissions or driving to be canceled or mitigated, possibly imperiling a controversial I-94 rebuild in the Twin Cities.
- Update driver education standards to make sure motorists know how to operate their cars safely around people who walk and roll.
- Update the definition of an "electric bicycle" to draw a hard line between real e-bikes that are safe, slow, and only rarely operated with a throttle, and ultra-fast motorcycles with pedals that can endanger pedestrians.
- Require the state DOT to implement a Complete Streets policy to protect vulnerable road users, and removes some of their discretionary ability to skip those critical road design elements.
- Require regional and metro planning agencies to update their plans to be consistent with the state's greenhouse gas and VMT-reduction goals.
Of course, some advocates wish that bill had gone further: Harrington noted that the follow-up did not include "dedicated funding for anti-displacement policy" to protect vulnerable low-income and BIPOC residents, especially if all these transportation investments increase property values and rents.
Harrington also noted that the e-bike rebate that passed in the first bill "experienced significant technical issues in response to high demand, preventing the majority of applicants from receiving the incentive for electric bike adoption." A follow-up bill would have been a great opportunity to increase that funding, which still pales in comparison to Minnesota's subsidies for electric cars.
Rockwell argues, though, that the two bills have already proven good enough to inspire imitators, and that states like New York, Michigan, Illinois, Maryland and Oregon have called his office for advice on replicating parts of the law.
Since the federal transportation package will be up for renewal in the next vice president's term, some advocates hope Washington will join the herd of copycats, too.
3. He increased licenses for undocumented Minnesotans — which could save lives in hit-and-runs
One smaller but still significant aspect of Tim Walz's transportation record was his bold and controversial decision to start issuing driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants, thereby granting them access to driver's education and insurance.
Critically, it also hands undocumented immigrants a stronger incentive to stay on the scene after a crash and make sure that everyone involved gets the kind of prompt medical attention that can prove the difference between life and death. While hit-and-runs represent a small proportion of overall crashes — though in some communities, that's quickly changing — some researchers argue that undocumented people have a powerful incentive to flee the scene of the crash if their lack of a license or insurance makes them automatically guilty of a crime, even if they're not at fault.
One 2023 study estimated that granting migrants licenses reduces "the share of fatalities that are related to hit and runs by 20 to more than 50 percent, depending on the estimation methodology."
In a state with an estimated 81,000 undocumented residents, that might not make a big difference in overall fatalities; California, by contrast, has 1.8 million, and neighboring Illinois has 400,000. Still, it's a promising sign that Walz is a leader who thinks expansively about road safety and its many intersections with other social justice issues.
4. He is a savvy climate communicator
For some pundits, the most impressive thing about Walz isn't his transportation and climate policies, but the way he talks about transportation and climate policies — and the way he sells them to people who might feel apathetic about both.
In a recent article for Time, journalist Justin Worland argued that Walz has successfully marketed Minnesota's ambitious climate policies as job-creation policies, winning the endorsement of unions in the process.
"The surest way to get people to buy in is to create a job that pays well in their community," Walz told Worland. "All of us are going to have to be better about our smart politics, about bringing people in.”
Behind the scenes, though, Walz has been clear about the importance of reducing greenhouse gases for its own sake, even producing a report that promoted VMT reduction before the legislature enshrined policies to support that goal it into law, Rockwell said.
"It’s really easy to set climate goals, and it’s really hard to deliver on those goals," he added. "[That report was] huge; that came directly out of the governor's office, [and they made it clear] they embraced this nation-leading policy, and plugged it right into their own document. That signals to the legislature, and that signals to the advocacy community, that there’s an openness and a willingness there."
5. Walz has work to do on mobility justice
Of course, the battle to extend sustainable transportation access to everyone in Minnesota is far from over — and some advocates, like Harrington, argue that Walz's work has "been a step forward, but still leaves much to be desired."
For every new Amtrak line Walz helps get funded and BRT network he's helping to build, Harrington argues there have been at least a few mobility justice missteps, including "caving to pressure from the League of Minnesota Cities, which opposed reforms to limit local control in building affordable housing and lobbied the state government heavily on this and other issues."
Others, meanwhile, have criticized Walz's response to protests over police brutality against BIPOC Minnesotans in the transportation realm, including both progressives who slammed him for not "roundly condemning" police violence against demonstrators and conservatives who argue he wasn't aggressive enough.
We'll find out in November whether sustainable transportation advocates were convinced — and if Walz makes it to Washington alongside Harris, we'll find out if his transportation history in Minnesota can have an impact on our national transportation future.
