A gas tax increase has been on the table in MN for a long time. The current MN republican party has generally opposed it for a long time and this is just shifting the blame off of themselves.

A prime example of an infrastructure investment in a bike path is the Diagonal Bikeway. It is a separate paved bike only path along side a very busy crosstown in Northeast Minneapolis. It was built as part of an upgrade of a primary area artery. It significantly shortened traffic build up by removing the rather large number of bike commuters from the traffic lane. Win win situation, but politicians spin things how they want and even though it directly improved traffic problems it "wasn't an infrastructer inprovement".

Spinning a wheel is much more fun than a sound bite.