Senate File 10901, a proposal to provide $10 million per year in fiscal 2026 and 2027 for grants to cities of the first class for traffic-calming infrastructure and related safety projects, drew extended testimony and questions about roadway safety, emergency response and program flexibility before the committee laid the bill on the table for possible inclusion in future finance legislation.

Senator Johnson Stewart described the bill as a response to municipal funding shortfalls for local safety work and traffic calming. Randy Newton, Saint Paul’s city traffic engineer, told the committee Saint Paul has seen 74 fatal and 282 serious injury crashes over the last five years and noted a 90 percent increase in fatal crashes since before the pandemic. “These are life-altering crashes,” Newton said, and he urged funding to accelerate safety improvements he said could not be completed at current spending rates.

Ethan Foley, Vision Zero program coordinator for Minneapolis, described site-specific traffic-calming treatments and the city’s process for coordinating with emergency services. He said Minneapolis requires proactive review of calming measures by the fire chief and that some devices — for example, speed cushions — are designed to allow emergency vehicles with wider wheelbases to pass without delay. “Those speed humps can work on a street where the fire truck...that might be the last block that they're going to a house on. So the change...doesn't impact overall response time very much at all,” Foley said.

Minneapolis City Council Member Oren (Oreen) Chowdhury testified in support and urged the committee to fund the backlog of neighborhood projects; she said Minneapolis has more than 1,400 eligible neighborhood applications and an estimated $20 million is required to address them. Council testimony and city traffic engineers disagreed on exact phrasing of the bill’s appropriation: the bill sponsor described $10 million per year in 2026 and 2027 while other speakers referred to $20 million in total — an inconsistency the committee discussed during floor-level messaging and in an amendment conversation.

Committee members asked detailed questions about emergency-response impacts and whether calming devices would slow first responders. Foley and Newton said treatments are selected case-by-case in coordination with fire, police and EMS and noted design options (speed cushions, roundabouts) intended to preserve emergency access. Senator Farnsworth and others raised recruitment and staffing trends in law enforcement as a contributor to rising road-safety problems; several senators noted the complex interplay of engineering, enforcement, education and emergency response.

Senator Nelson circulated an A1 amendment to broaden allowable uses of the grants so cities of the first class could apply funds more flexibly for road, bridge or traffic-safety work rather than restricting dollars solely to traffic-calming devices. The sponsor and chair expressed willingness to continue that conversation; Senator Nelson withdrew the amendment during the hearing to allow more negotiation.

At the end of the hearing the committee laid Senate File 10901 on the table for further consideration and possible inclusion in finance work. The transcript records no roll-call tally for the tabling motion.