Gov. Tim Walz and DFL leaders of the House and Senate say they’ve struck a deal on minimum pay standards for Uber and Lyft drivers that will prevent the companies from making good on a pledge to leave parts of the state on July 1.

The agreement, announced at a Saturday evening news conference, preempts a recent ordinance from the Minneapolis City Council on pay standards and sets minimum rates statewide at $1.28 per mile and 31 cents per minute.

“No one else has been able to do this in the country,” Walz said in the hastily-scheduled news conference. “Minnesotans will be able to continue to use these services if they see fit.”

Democrats said the companies are on board with the deal, but Uber’s lobbyist did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Sen. Omar Fateh, DFL-Minneapolis, the lead sponsor of the bill, said after the announcement that it’s been “two long years” of work on the proposal.

Fateh, who had been missing from legislative action on Saturday, said he spent the day in negotiations with staff and DFL leaders to get the bill in the shape he wanted it to pass this session. The Senate, which is controlled by Democrats by a single vote, was in recess for 11 hours during the negotiations and all other work came to a standstill.

Legislators have a Sunday night deadline to pass legislation before they’re required to adjourn.

“Sometimes legislation like this takes a long time to negotiate,” Fateh said. “We spent the day, we got it right.”

The Minneapolis ordinance passed earlier this year would require a rate of $1.41 a mile and 51 cents a minute, or at least $5 minimum per ride. Those rates prompted Uber and Lyft to say they planned to leave the city as soon as the ordinance took effect.

Council members delayed implementation of their new rates from May 1 to July 1, giving legislators in St. Paul more time to negotiate a deal.

A study ordered by the state Department of Labor and Industry estimated that, for drivers in the Twin Cities metro area, it would take 89 cents per mile and 49 cents per minute to approximate the minimum wage, or $1.21 per mile to provide drivers with more benefits.

The range was higher for drivers in greater Minnesota, with the study’s suggested per-mile rate ranging from $1.16 to $1.40 because drivers tend to travel farther between fares.

Some City Council members weren’t happy with every aspect of the deal, including council Vice President Aisha Chughtai, who posted to X Saturday that “preemption is bad. Period.”

“Any and all attempts to undermine local control are bad,” she continued. “It’s a Republican and corporate tactic used around the country. Watching our @GovTimWalz cave to multibillion dollar corporations in insisting on preempting Minneapolis is gross.”

The announcement comes with a little more than 24 hours left to pass bills during the legislative session. Democrats wouldn’t comment on the status of other outstanding legislation, including a sports betting bill and a statewide package of infrastructure projects.

Responding to the announcement, Republican legislative leaders said they continue to be cut out of the negotiations.

“We’ve been waiting around for ten-and-a-half hours in the Senate,” Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson, R-East Grand Forks, said late Saturday. “Sen. Fateh and others were really holding up the work of the state and keeping Republicans in the dark on what’s going on.”

Johnson said they had to attend the press conference to learn the details of the deal on Uber and Lyft. He said bills that need bipartisan support are “jeopardized” in the final hours of session without collaboration.

Democratic leaders would not respond to questions about whether a special session would be needed to complete all their work.

Staff writer Josie Albertson-Grove contributed to this report.

46 different buildings across Minneapolis have opened their doors to the public this weekend.

It’s part of Doors Open Minneapolis — an initiative by the city to get people interested in local tourism and also provide an educational experience.

Hundreds of kids brought their favorite stuffed animals to the “Teddy Bear Clinic” at Hennepin Healthcare as part of this weekend’s events.

They worked with real doctors, medics and nurses to get “Teddy X-rays,” splint some broken limbs, stitch any loose seems and even see the inside of an ambulance in an effort to get kids more comfortable with health care.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey was also there with his daughter to educate her on health care.

Doctors say experiences such as these can really make a positive impact on little ones.

“This allows kids to be the parent and to have some autonomy, make some choices for their bear and see things in a really friendly way,” said Dr. Ashley Strobel, a pediatric emergency physician. “We once had like an 11-year-old girl come through maybe the first year of the Teddy Bear Clinic, she came back as a repeat customer… and she had been through our resuscitation room in the meantime as a patient and she said it made that experience less scary for her.”

If you didn’t make it this year, organizers say they’re hoping for another one next year.

Traffic deaths in Minneapolis fell for the third straight year in 2023, but they’re still well above pre-pandemic levels, according to newly released city data.

The number of crashes has fallen significantly, though, as have the numbers of pedestrians and cyclists struck, so what’s the reason for the increased deaths?

Speeding, officials suspect.

By the numbers

In 2023, 21 people died in crashes on Minneapolis streets, including pedestrians, cyclists, bikers and drivers. That figure doesn’t include collisions on freeways or those involving intentional crashes or medical emergencies.

In 2022, there were 22 fatalities and 23 in 2021. But those totals were notably higher than the three years before the COVID-19 pandemic, when annual traffic fatality totals ranged from nine to 14.

The data was presented to a City Council committee Thursday as an annual update to Minneapolis’ Vision Zero program. The initiative has sought to reduce traffic deaths by tracking data and installing hundreds of curbs, humps, plastic barriers and other methods to separate vehicles from less-protected travelers and force vehicles to slow down, especially in areas known to have frequent, serious crashes.

More than numbers

Reading the names of all 23 people killed last year, Vision Zero program coordinator Ethan Fawley choked up.

“These are totally unacceptable, and we have to do better as a city,” he said.

Among them were lives lost in two tragedies on Lake Street, which Fawley said was the “highest-injury street in the state.”

In June, five young women who had just left Karmel Mall after having henna applied for a friend’s wedding were killed when a driver ran a red light at 95 mph and struck their car. Sabiriin Ali, 17; Sahra Gesaade, 20; Salma Abdikadir, 20; Sagal Hersi, 19; and Siham Adam, 19, were killed. Derrick John Thompson, then 27, was charged with 10 counts of criminal vehicular homicide. His case is pending.

In October, Annalee Wright was killed while crossing the street with her two children, ages 14 and 6. She pushed them out of the way of a car driven by a 23-year-old man with a learner’s permit, police said. The children survived. The next day, Wright received her Ojibwe spirit name, Biiwaabik Ikwe, or Iron Woman.

Caused by speeding?

Cautioning that every crash is unique, Hawley said it’s difficult to say for certain what’s behind the higher level of deaths since the pandemic. But speeding seems like a prime suspect — especially because the total number of crashes has fallen notably.

When 2023 is compared with the 2016-2019 average, the number of total collisions has fallen 48%, and the number of crashes involving bicycles and pedestrians is down 35%. Yet, the number of severe crashes has risen 13% during that same period.

In the past three years, the percentage of fatal crashes that “clearly involved speeding” has remained above 50%, while the highest that rate reached before 2020 was 43%.

The data tracks with statewide and national trends that showed roads in Minnesota and the rest of the U.S. became more deadly during the pandemic, as motorists drove faster and were thought to have become more reckless. Fatality rates continue to fall, but transportation officials have been frustrated that they remain above pre-pandemic levels.

When City Council members asked Hawley if new traffic obstructions — especially plastic posts called “bollards” that are seen by many as unsightly — are working, he said the city needs more time to generate several years of data to be able to answer that.

Nonetheless, his office supports using them because anecdotally they appear to help, and they’re far less expensive than more permanent changes to streets.