Northfield Transportation Advisory Committee Meeting Date: April 15, 2026
To: Members of the Northfield Transportation Advisory Committee
From: David Bennett, Public Works Director/City Engineer
Title
Consider formation of a small sub-committee to assist Hiawathaland Transit with expanding transit service.
Body
Action Requested:
The Northfield Transportation Advisory Committee a motion to approve [add names of NTAC members in the motion] to review and provide recommendations related to a potential alternative route.
Summary Report:
Hiawathaland Transit has received approval from MnDOT to launch the Rice County Community Connection service. This would connect communities to Northfield with transit services and allow residents to access services in other communities.
If NTAC wants to pause on this Rice County Community Connections and explore other benefiting transit service, Hiawathaland is requesting a small sub-committee be formed of existing NTAC members. The Chair will facilitate discussion including interest from members and to have the board appointments made within the recommended motion. The Mayor also may choose to appoint additional non-NTAC members related to this work. This likely would not require a Council action due to the more tactical focused work of this group but the City Administrator will be further exploring this in discussion with the Mayor to determine if additional Council actions should occur.
Hiawathaland cannot attend the meeting on October 21 but have provided some additional information below.
Community Connector – This route would primarily bring other communities to Northfield or vice/versa
We are planning to launch similar connection routes for Goodhue and Wabasha counties to provide transportation access across our 3-county service area.
Third Route – This would add to the Blue/Red Line - We have attached an Excel workbook with ridership information for our 3 route towns (Faribault, Northfield, and Red Wing) for ...
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