Michele Bachmann is Afraid to Debate Her Abysmal Transportation Record

According to the Saint Cloud Times, Bachmann will be a no-show at a forum in Saint Cloud sponsored by the Transportation Alliance:

Candidates will discuss cars, trains, boats and planes next week at a St. Cloud forum sponsored by the Minnesota Transportation Alliance.

Two candidates will attend from Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District race: DFLer Tarryl Clark and the Independence Party’s Bob Anderson, according to Margaret Donahoe, director of the alliance. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Stillwater, was invited, but her office didn’t respond, Donahoe said.

The forum is from 10 a.m. to noon Wednesday at the Best Western Kelly Inn. There’s no cost to attend, but organizers ask that you visit www.transportationalliance.com/regionals.htm to preregister.

Bachmann has an appalling record on transportation.

Bachmann has always opposed funding for rail projects like Northstar. This is what used to be on Bachmann's campaign website:

"As your District 52 State Senator, I will work hard to add capacity to Minnesota highways.... This is my personal commitment to you." "Michele believes a successful transportation policy must put an end to the diversion of scarce funds to impractical and expensive rail transit programs that will have no direct benefit for area residents and will cost millions of dollars in the future for operating subsidies. She has called for dedicating 100 percent of the sales tax on vehicles to road construction."

During the last election Bachmann pretended to support Northstar (ECM editorial):

And while tending to matters at home in her district she found time to pillage legislative candidates who voted their conscience on the state’s transportation issues, but had to leave early from our one-hour endorsement interview.

What really sealed her fate, however, was her unwillingness to later answer point-blank questions about a bridge project in St. Cloud and the Northstar Commuter Rail. We find it disingenuous that she wears a Northstar lapel pin but won’t comment on whether or when the line should ever be extended to St. Cloud and Rice.

This is what 2008 candidate and former Transportation Commissioner El Tinklenberg said in a video interview I did for The Uptake:

She is about partisan polarization. She is about divisiveness. And the result is she has not been able to accomplish anything as a (state) Senator and she’s not accomplishing anything except in a negative sort of way in the district currently. We think we represent a strong alternative to that.

The district is the focus of some major chages in transportation, not only in terms of improvements to the existing system, but changes in that system. Northstar is a big issue. And I’m proud of the fact that I helped get Northstar started when I was at Anoka County. And now we’re making some progress on that. It’s disappointing to me that it’s five year later than what it should have been. It’s $90 Million more than when we introduced it back in 2000. Back then it was going all the way to St. Cloud, now it’s just going to Big Lake. So we’ve lost time, we’ve lost half of the line and we’ve increased the cost as result of the delays that came out of the Republican controlled House back in 2000.

I bring a record of having to do some things in transportation and some important things, the Hiawatha light rail line for example, as compared to Representative Bachmann, who when she was in the state Senate fought every transportation initiative that came along, has been a constant obstructionist for transportation issues in the state and has carried that on even now in her Congressional seat. She has voted three times to hold up funding for the reconstruction of the 35 W bridge. And I think that represents where her priorities are in relation to transportation issues .

She hasn’t been able anything done partly because of that kind of partisan, ideologue approach she’s taken to so many issues. But also she has used what support she has given to transportation, principally PRT or Personal Rapid Transit, as a way of really distracting the discussion of kind of delaying tactics in terms of transportation. PRT is not something that’s going to work to serve commuters. It’s not something that’s going to work to serve the transit interests and concerns and needs of Minnesota. And she’s using it simply as a distraction. She doesn’t really mean or intend to support any kind of increased funding for transit and she’s just using this as a way of diffusing the issue.

It appears that Mary Kiffmeyer will also be a no-show. Both Kiffmeyer and Bachmann have a record opposing reality-based transit and supporting Rep. Mark Olson's Personal Rapid Transit pods. Mark Olson is no longer in the MN legislature, but his boondoggle lives on... read the latest, goofy PRT news at The Personal Rapid Transit Boondoggle blog. As we noted last week, PRT remains a favorite GOP pork project - Pawlenty having recently pissed away upwards of $150,000 in State and Federal funds on promoting the pods.

Somebody needs to get a copy of the bizarre movie Bachmann and fellow pod person Ray Vanderveer made on the Hiawatha LRT. We only have the audio and the hilarious comment about Bachmann at the end of by former Rep. Ron Erhardt.

Listen: