The House and Senate have passed their comprehensive transportation bills and the next step is conference committee, which convened for the first time yesterday. While there are some very good parts of the two bills, the overall effect is the bills do not contain enough Corridors of Commerce funding to fund the completion of Highway 14 in the next 10 years.

As such, the U.S. Highway 14 Partnership along with Chambers of Commerce across the Highway 14 Corridor including GMG, Rochester, Owatonna, New Ulm and Waseca recently sent a joint package of letters to the House and Senate Transportation Chairs and the Governor. These groups called upon our state leaders to invest some of our state’s current good fortune in the future economic growth of Southern Minnesota by signing a transportation funding bill that provides a path to complete Highway 14.

You can see all of the letters halkan.