Subdivision 1. Definitions.
(a) "Fully developed service area" means the fully developed area, as defined in the Metropolitan Council's development guide, plus the cities of Mendota Heights, Maplewood, North St. Paul, and Little Canada.
(b) "Regular route transit" has the meaning given it in section 174.22, subdivision 8 , except that, for purposes of this section, the term does not include services on fixed routes and schedules that are primarily intended to provide circulator service within a community or adjacent communities rather than feeder service to the system of metropolitan regular route transit operated by the council.
Subd. 2. Service areas.
The council may provide financial assistance (whether directly or through another entity) to private, for-profit operators of public transit only for the following services:
(1) services that are not regular route services;
(2) regular route services provided on June 2, 1989, by a private, for-profit operator under contract with the former regional transit board or under a certificate of convenience and necessity issued by the commissioner of transportation;
(3) regular route services outside of the fully developed service area that are not operated on June 2, 1989, by the former Metropolitan Transit Commission;
(4) regular route services provided under section 473.388 ;
(5) regular route services to recipients who, as part of a negotiated cost-sharing arrangement with the council, pay at least 50 percent of the cost of the service that directly benefits the recipient as an institution or organization; or
(6) regular route services that will not be operated for a reasonable subsidy by the council.