There are good reasons to look askance at some of the projects included in the state bonding bill that is awaiting Gov. Jesse Ventura’s signature. But spite is not among them.

The governor has made it clear he may slash away at the bonding bill &045; which provides, among other things, money for repairs and construction of public facilities &045; because money for his own pet project, a commuter rail line, is not included.

It is an important question with ramifications for Albert Lea and Austin. Funding for Albert Lea’s long-awaited Blazing Star Trail, which would link up to Austin, is in the bill, and so is money for the Shooting Star Trail, which starts in Mower County. One or both projects may not meet Ventura’s professed standard of statewide or regional significance.

However, creating recreational opportunities &045; including these trails, which will link into larger networks in the region and help build a strong trail system &045; is arguably a project that benefits all of southern Minnesota. And it would be a shame if he vetoed the funding not because of sound logic about the trails’ benefits, but because he wants to hit back at lawmakers who ignored his recommendations.

Ventura is right that light rail and commuter rail will be important in the future. Anyone who has driven in the metro area during rush hour knows that traffic is terrible and that all the automobile exhaust pouring from tailpipes cannot be good for the environment. Commuter rail, which has been successful in many major metropolitan areas from Chicago to Boston, would be the start of a solution.

However, one reason this mass-transit funding is not in this bonding bill is that the project has been so mismanaged by the Ventura administration in its early planning stages that almost nobody is ready to provide it funding. If Ventura’s departments could present a clear plan with concise and cogent arguments in its favor, commuter rail might be pulling from the station before long.

So the governor needs to direct his vexation in the right

direction. Cutting projects from the bonding bill with commuter rail as an excuse is as silly as the governor’s comments last winter suggesting all who disagreed with him were unpatriotic.

As is so often the case, Ventura is on the right track but for all the wrong reasons.