Highway to Hell

The highway cabal is alive and well in 2022. The highway growth machine is an antiquated giant that keeps chewing up transportation budgets while doing nothing to alleviate the congestion. The media is more than happy to continually produce content detailing how wonderful each new highway project will be. For example, I-94 project about progress, connection. Sadly, the results are never as promised.

Milwaukee has made major highway investments in the Plainfield Curve, the Marquette Interchange and the Zoo Interchange, among others, over the past few decades. All these resources and money have done nothing to alleviate traffic congestion or make commutes any smoother for drivers. In fact, it has made things much worse. The roads, and routes, are more complicated and congested than ever. Travel times have increased, not decreased.

The political power of the highway cabal is evidenced by the fact that induced demand is a well-known result of highway expansion, yet we keep expanding highways. As Benjamin Schneider states, "When traffic-clogged highways are expanded, new drivers quickly materialize to fill them." Or, as Adam Mann out it, "Building bigger roads actually makes traffic worse."

As the report The Congestion Con details:

In an expensive effort to curb congestion in urban regions, we have overwhelmingly prioritized one strategy: we have spent decades and hundreds of billions of dollars widening and building new highways. We added 30,511 new freeway lane-miles of road in the largest 100 urbanized areas between 1993 and 2017, an increase of 42 percent. That rate of freeway expansion significantly outstripped the 32 percent growth in population in those regions over the same time period. Yet this strategy has utterly failed to “solve” the problem at hand—delay is up in those urbanized areas by a staggering 144 percent.

Those new lane-miles haven’t come cheap and we are spending billions to widen roads and seeing unimpressive, unpredictable results in return. Further, the urbanized areas expanding their freeways more rapidly aren’t necessarily having more success curbing congestion—in fact, in many cases the opposite is true.

If we really want to improve transportation safety, access to jobs, and mobility, we should be simply repairing (making safer) the roads we have while improving our modes of public transportation. 

For Further Reading:

How Induced Demand Explains the Vicious Cycle of Congestion

Expanding highways and building more roads actually makes traffic worse

Induced Traffic and Induced Demand

Generated Traffic and Induced Travel

Midweek Reading

Gerrymandering locked in Republican control for another decade in Wisconsin. The power hungry want even more.

Take It From a Trucker: There's No Trucker Shortage. It's a Pay Shortage

Volk Heroes

9 Takeaways on the New Stadium Interchange Project

Deadly Collapse at Amazon Warehouse Puts Spotlight on Phone Ban

This legendary 92-year-old biologist has some advice for saving Earth

Yes, most Americans own capital

Biden's Economic Performance Has Proved Unbeatable

Midweek Reading

How highways make traffic worse
The Hoax Master of Wisconsin
The New York Stock Exchange president says the stock market is not a casino. Here’s what academic research says.
Stock Market Gambling Around the World and Market Efficiency
‘Real World’ Republicans Demand To Know Why Nancy Pelosi Didn't Stop Jan. 6 Riots
A closer look at senators who voted to convict Clinton, not Trump
Let's tell the truth about the Republican Party: It's the real enemy of the people

Midweek Reading

Changes that Would Make a Difference in the Biden Administration

AOC’S NEXT FOUR YEARS

The stock market is overvalued, according to almost every measure dating to 1950

What Foxconn Will Cost Taxpayers

The stock market’s strength tells us less about the true state of the economy than at almost any other time over the last five decades

By one key measure, household income, metro Milwaukee is worse off than it was in 1980

If Wisconsin's Legislature were a business, Republicans would've already been fired

How the Satanic Panic Led Straight to QAnon

TRUMP IS TERRIFIED ABOUT GOING TO PRISON AFTER LOSING THE ELECTION, AS HE SHOULD BE

Trump Supporters Spend Weekend Clogging America’s Highways

Disappearing Data

Data show these US industries have the most recession proof jobs

The Other Tool Democrats Have to Rein in the Supreme Court

The NFL rewards men who put their hands on women

The current state of the pandemic in five graphs

Republican senator ‘personally benefited from tax change he sought’ (Ron Johnson is a piece of shit)

To Hell With Florida

Science Denial and COVID Conspiracy Theories

Vos, GOP Use Faked Photos Against Opponents

Wisconsin Reading

34% Of Walker Donations From Outside State
Highway Debt Up 87% Under Walker
Reality Differs From Walker's Economic Claims
What Walker Says, And What's Really Happening With The Wisconsin Economy
Scott Walker Is A Failed Governor
Gov. Scott Walker's Promise To Create 250,000 Jobs In Wisconsin Remains Elusive
Does Cutting Taxes And Spending And Beating Up Unions Spur Growth: The Story From Wisconsin And Minnesota

Midweek Reading

Concept Of "Limited Government" Is Right-Wing Bunk
Move To Ghost Job & Back Gives Capitol Police Chief Big Raise

Chief Dave Erwin — who has overseen a crackdown on Walker protesters at the statehouse — received an overall salary hike of 11.7%, to $111,067 a year, the same rate as his predecessor. That amounts to an $11,680 annual raise... 

Walker officials took similar steps to skirt civil service salary limits for Deputy Police Chief Dan Blackdeer. His pay jumped by 14.6%, to $96,048, on June 16.

Why Pot Makes You Feel Good
A Texan Tragedy: Ample Oil, No Water
Social Security A Model For Washington Budgetmaking
How The State Borrowed A Billion Dollars To "Cut" Your Taxes
Billion Dollar Blunder
Five Facts About Household Debt In The United States

US Infrastructure Is A Disaster

• 1 in 9 of the country's bridges are rated as structurally deficient, meaning they require significant maintenance, rehabilitation, or replacement. 
• Of the 84,000 dams in the U.S., 14,000 are considered "high hazard" and 4,000 are deficient. It would cost $21 billion to repair these aging dams.
• 42% of the country's major urban highways are considered congested, and 32% of major roads in the U.S. are in poor or mediocre condition.
• Even though a third of Americans don't drive cars, 45% of households lack access to transit. 
• There are 240,000 water main breaks in the U.S. each year, and many water mains and pipes are over 100 years old.
• The Federal Aviation Administration anticipates that the national cost of airport congestion and delays will nearly double from $34 billion in 2020 to $63 billion in 2040.
• 90% of locks and dams experienced an unscheduled delay or service interruption in 2009. Barges being stopped for hours can prolong transport of goods and drive up prices.
• Congestion on rail lines is costing the U.S. economy about $200 billion a year, or 1.6% of economic output.
• Although public school enrollment is gradually increasing, national spending on school construction declined to $10 billion in 2012, about half of what was spent before the recession.
• National Park Service facilities saw 279 million visits in 2011 and has a deferred maintenance backlog of $11 billion.

10 Signs That US Infrastructure Is A Disaster

Repairing Infrastructure & Interest Rates

From Barry Ritholtz:

What can we do as a nation to take advantage of these interest rates before they return to normal? Choose your favorite part of America that can be upgraded: 

• Our electrical grid consists mostly of wires strung between wooden poles, which may have been innovative in 1850 but is somewhat past its sell-by date today. After Hurricane Sandy, much of New Jersey, Long Island and Connecticut lost electrical service for two weeks. The entire grid needs to be hardened, upgraded against cyberattack — and buried underground. 
• We can make our road system “intelligent” by using sensors and software to move traffic more quickly and efficiently than the current “dumb” system does. The productivity boost and fuel savings make this a big return on investment. 
• Bridges that are well past their life expectancy should not simply wait to fail. We should be actively replacing these. The alternative is waiting for random events — like the truck crash that caused the Washington state Skagit River bridge collapse — to cause a disaster. 
• The United States’ cellular network is a decade behind Europe’s and Asia’s coverage and reliability. Mandate better minimum service requirements and make available cheap financing to wireless providers to do so. We can do the same with broadband as well. 
• The interstate highway system has been one of the lasting legacies of the Eisenhower administration. It is time for a full upgrade of this economic multiplier.

Midweek Reading

Why Government Is Virtuous
Can't Deny Global Warming After Seeing This Graph
Republicans Stopped Worrying And Learned To Love Government
Here's One Smart Way To Fight Big Box Stores
Highway Revolts Break Out Across The Midwest
Collapse Of Science, Not Housing, Ended The American Dream
Congress Has Only Itself To Blame For IRS Troubles
How Shareholders Are Ruining America Business
Wielding Derivatives As A Tool For Deceit
Consumer Debt Is Soaring. That's Good News (For Now)

Worst State Highway Systems

20. Wisconsin

2013 Ranking: Wisconsin’s state highway system is ranked 31st in the nation in overall highway performance and efficiency.

Last Year's Ranking: It is a slight decline for Wisconsin which ranked 27th in the previous Annual Highway Report.

Problem Areas: Wisconsin ranks 7th in deficient bridges, 15th in fatality rate, 30th in urban interstate congestion, and 31st in disbursements per mile.

Total Spending Per Mile: $165,184/mile.

The Good & The Bad Of Our Infrastructure

There has been a lot of talk about infrastructure amongst politicians, pundits, economic developers, etc. as a needed path toward revitalization. Different groups analyzing America's infrastructure have given poor grades to the quality of our bridges, electricity and water infrastructure.

Yet, Evan Soltas recently opined about The Myth of The Failing Bridge:

Maybe it's going too far to say, "The U.S. is doing just fine, thank you very much." The nation would benefit from reordering its infrastructure priorities -- away from new highways, for example, where we are already overbuilt and usage is falling for the first extended period on record. And we'd do well to take advantage of low interest rates and idle construction resources to knock out all of our future infrastructure needs. 

But the idea that the U.S. has an infrastructure crisis? No. A broad, permanent increase in spending is unwarranted...

Between 2001 and 2011, annual public investment averaged 3.3 percent of gross domestic product, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The average OECD nation spent 3 percent of GDP over the same period...

Total public construction spending has varied between 1.7 percent and 2.3 percent of GDP for the last 20 years, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. By the Congressional Budget Office's slightly different measure, infrastructure spending has been between 2.3 percent and 3.1 percent of GDP since 1956...

Believe it or not, infrastructure has improved significantly over the last two decades. In its report for 2010, the Federal Highway Administration said that 57 percent of all vehicle-miles were traveled on federal highways with ratings of "good" or higher -- according to a measure of road quality pleasingly known as the International Roughness Index. That was up from 48 percent in 2000. The percentage of roads in bad condition has also declined: In 1989 6.6 percent of rural and urban interstates were rated "poor"; now only 1.9 percent of rural interstates and 5.4 percent of urban ones earn that grade.

Despite warnings from President Barack Obama, America's bridges have never been safer. The highway administration rated 21.9 percent of its bridges "deficient" in 2009, as compared to 37.8 percent in 1989. And contrary to Obama's implication, the word "deficient" does not mean unsafe, at least as the highway administration uses it. A bridge is "deficient" when it would benefit from expansion and renovation in line with usage.

Traffic congestion has diminished. In 1989, 52.6 percent of urban interstates were rated "congested" according to a comparison of peak volume to planned capacity. In 2009, the figure was 26.3 percent. 

So how can we have, as Soltas claims, steady infrastructure spending and improvements alongside others claiming failing grades for much of our infrastructure?

In 2010, 57 percent of all vehicle-miles may have been traveled on federal highways with ratings of good or higher, compared with 2000, but it could be that federal highways have been getting the bulk of infrastructure dollars. Regardless, a 9 percentage point improvement is still laudable. Yet, if this is where a majority of our infrastructure dollars were spent, we would expect to see an improvement.

Are population changes (primarily people moving), between 1989 to 2009, responsible for the decrease shown in traffic congestion? Because more people are living in certain mega-regions, does it follow that the areas which have lost population would have less congestion? Information concerning migration and commute times could help flesh this metric out.

Do we just need to re-prioritize how our infrastructure money is spent?

[source]

Jason Sattier has found that infrastructure spending is actually declining.

“In 2012, the Federal Highway Administration said 67,000 — 11 percent — of the nation’s 607,000 bridges were structurally deficient,” USA Today‘s Marisol Bello reports. “That means the bridges are not unsafe but must be closely monitored and inspected or repaired.” 

The chart above from Business Insider‘s Joe Weisenthal illustrates just how little money the federal government is spending on public construction. Despite this, proposals like an infrastructure bank can’t even get a vote in the House of Representatives.

The American Society of Civil Engineers 2013 Report Card gave our infrastructure a grade of D+. They estimate the U.S. needs $3.3 trillion in infrastructure investment by 2020. They estimate Wisconsin has 1,157 structurally deficient bridges, 71% of roads are of poor or mediocre quality, $6.2 billion is needed for drinking water and $6.4 billion is needed for wastewater. Almost 14% of Wisconsin bridges are either functionally obsolete or structurally deficient.

John Diehm and Katy Hall provide a graphic of bridge collapses across the country:

As Dave Jamieson notes, Washington Bridge Collapse: 759 Bridges In State Have Worse Sufficiency Scores.

The Times reports that, according to federal records, the bridge in question has a sufficiency rating of 57.4 out of 100, which is well below the state average of 80. Yet 759 other bridges have even worse marks.

Lydia Mulvany reported, "Seven Wisconsin highways built in the last 20 years are underused, raising questions about the more than a billion dollars they cost taxpayers, according to a report the WISPIRG Foundation released Thursday...The state still is spending billions on highways while cutting funding for local roads and other forms of transportation, the report said. The 2011-2013 biennial budget appropriated $1.2 billion for highway construction projects, and Gov. Scott Walker's current budget proposal includes more than $3 billion in highway spending."

It appears, across the country, certain infrastructure is getting the bulk of spending (highways and more recently rail), whilst the neediest infrastructure goes without.

Total federal clean-technology spending, by year (billions), 2009–2014

[source]

Not all is bad, as Brad Plumer details:

Our infrastructure is actually getting better in some areas. For the first time in 15 years, the grade for U.S. infrastructure rose, from a D to a D+. And six areas have seen improvement since 2009, including roads, bridges, rail, drinking water, solid waste disposal and wastewater treatment. Two big examples: 

1) U.S. rail is getting better: Rail in particular has seen some big upgrades in the past few years, partly thanks to stimulus money but largely due to private investment: “In 2010 alone,” the report notes, “freight railroads renewed the rails on more than 3,100 miles of railroad track, equivalent to going coast to coast. Since 2009, capital investment from both freight and passenger railroads has exceeded $75 billion.” 

2) So are our roads: America’s roads have also become sturdier in recent years, thanks to an uptick in federal stimulus spending as well as increased investments from states and the rise of private-public partnerships — overall investments have now increased to $91 billion per year.

We are taking care of certain infrastructure (highways), it seems. Yet we are obviously neglecting other areas (water, electricity). The findings appear to indicate that merely diverting some of the funding for new/repaired highways and roads toward other infrastructure needs could go along way in helping address some of our most pressing infrastructure projects.

For Further Reading:

Impact Of Infrastructure Investment On America's Future

Infrastructure Readings

Investing In Infrastructure

More Extraordinary Returns: Public Investments Outside Of "Core" Infrastructure

Public Investment & Private Sector Growth

Whatever The Cause, Washington State Bridge Collapse Points To Bigger Problems

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/05/24/192217/whatever-cause-washington-state.html#storylink=cpy

Expand The Parkway?

I see the idea of expanding the Lake Parkway south to Oak Creek is percolating again. With that in mind, here's an old response to that proposal (at the time, July 2009, being pushed by Pat McIlheran, Journal Sentinel writer, and Pat Jursik, Milwaukee County board member):

Pat [McIlheran] follwed up his last bit of nonsense with more of the same, Radical old idea: Let us move around.

In the latest expounding of obliviousness, Pat pushes for extending the Lake Parkway all the way to southern Oak Creek. Is there any problem more highways will not solve for these guys?

McIlheran then runs through the typical gamut of right-wing, development, talking-points: the automobile represents freedom, no one wants to ride the train/light-rail, and building on green space is cheap and therefore preferable.

His description of Pat Jursik's, Milwaukee County Board member, idea for this highway expansion is "revolutionary". In today's environment - sprawl, pollution, water shortages, crumbling roads and infrastructure, stressed budgets - to suggest we build more is absurd. To suggest we build mass transit options that alleviate our dependence on automobiles and highways is, as Pat would say, "Right on!"

McIlheran thinks that if we don't expand highways and if we do expand rail options, we are "cutting off people's options." Someone check into Pat's relationship with the highway lobby. Is there a status quo entity for which he is not a shill? Again, Pat goes back to the oldie but goodie, implying that because we are Americans we can do whatever we want...the planet be damned! Not building highways, continuing to allow us to spew pollutants, nor paving over green space somehow equates to American freedom and would be "cutting off our options".

He then goes on to show more ignornace regarding the latest research, and a complete blindness to a Milwaukee case study. He, agreeing with Jursik, pontificates that tearing down the highway and replacing it with a surface street or lift bridge would be foolish. Maybe they both should read, 4 Cases of How Tearing Down a Highway Can Relieve Traffic Jams.

They mention how surface streets isolate one area of the region from the other. But on the contrary, what they actually do is encourage high-density development and community along those surface streets. Just the opposite of what McIlheran and Jursik are proposing. They want to relieve surface streets of traffic - which would relieve the businesses along these streets of customers. This of course would lead to more exit-ramp, big-box retailers sprouting up along the highways so drivers can jump on and off to get items they might need on any given day. We'd hate to see people shopping in their own neighborhoods supporting local retailers and entrepreneurs. It's much better that we spend money at absentee-owned stores that pay a lower wage and subsequently siphon much of that spending outside our border. Basically, McIlheran and Jursik just want more of the same. More highways for more driving, just not on surface streets, so all of our driving can be at higher speeds, alongside more of the same, haphazard development we've seen over the last 50 years.

The boogeyman here is congestion. We need more highways to relieve all our congestion? What congestion? Milwaukee has one of the shorter commute times of any larger city. Milwaukee was recently ranked the third best city in the country for commuters by Forbes magazine.

We need an investment in rail. Being one of only two or three areas in the country without, or not planning, light-rail is bad for business, the environment, and our quality of life. And, this would only make our commute time even better.

Glaringly absent from the article is a discussion of induced demand. The phenomenon whereby building highways, adding lanes, actually increases congestion on those highways. But economic development, urban planning, and quality of life are obviously not Pat's forte. He's only worried about convenience.

Is McIlheran unaware of the environmental issues breathing down our necks? Or just unwilling to make lifestyle changes to avoid catastrophe? He even makes a crack about, "the silliness of opposing all new pavement." Seemingly, somehow, glorifying and proclaiming the righteousness of paving over open space. Again, showing his complete ignornace regarding the environmental issues with sprawling development.

For Further Reading:

Car Clowns

Road To Nowhere 

Monday Reading

$207 Million For Suburban Freeway
Congress' Potential Faulty Tax Logic
"Ever Expanding" Government Illustrated (Part III)
Federal Judge Rules Ban Of Project Labor Agreements Unconstitutional
Richest 1% Account For Nearly All Of Recovery's Gains
Tax Code Not Aligned With Basic Principles
The Evolution Of Top Incomes In The U.S.
The History of Milwaukee & It's Government
The Wisconsin Uprising
Video Shows Walker Saying He Will Negotiate With Unions

Roads, Roads, Everywhere

With a dying planet and a dying economy, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation decides to double down on pollution and antiquated energy and transportation sources.

DOT kills Hoan Bridge bike lane proposal.

The Walker Jobs Plan: Layoffs

Elections have consequences. State budget cuts have consequences.

As James Rowen notes, Big Teacher Layoffs Announced for Milwaukee; Another Walker Jobs Success.

Milwaukee has roughly 350,000 working-age citizens. If we use an average yearly total compensation of $50,000 for each of the 350 teachers being laid off, this works out to $50 per year, per working-age taxpayer, to fund these 350 teachings positions. The "savings" from these layoffs is a minuscule part of the overall budget. Walker has taken an ax, rather than a scalpel, to the budget.

It's one thing to cut wasteful programs. No one would argue against such. It's quite different to butcher a crucial pillar of being a competitive economy - our schools. And, it's especially egregious when one does this while claiming the sky is falling and while also giving millions away in corporate tax breaks.

Scott Walker has no problem initiating hundreds of millions of dollars in corporate tax cuts, while simultaneously slashing education spending. Big businesses already complain about the lack of skilled workers. How will increasing class sizes and demoralizing our public education system help to provide a more robust and skilled workforce?

As I noted in an earlier post, Walker wants the state to borrow $75 million to combine museums of state history and veterans into one 200,000 square foot building. Walker also wants almost $119 million to replace the Department of Transportation's headquarters." We're broke, but we have $200 million for two non-essential buildings?

So...during a recession, a few of the highest priorities for our governor are: unnecessarily combining two museums, replacing the public headquarters of the department involved with the road builders (a huge Walker campaign contributor), and downsizing our educational system.

The recall elections can't happen soon enough.

Weekend Reading

Company's Arena Leaves Cities With Problems

House Keeps Farm Subsidies, Cuts Food Aid

How Today's Conservatism Lost Touch With Reality

Interstate Highways As Long-Haul Project

Red State Education Rules? Guess Again

We'll Only Have Giant Deficits If Congress Wants Giant Deficits

With Executive Pay, Rich Pull Away From Rest of America

Weekend Reading

Actually, Highway Builders, Roads Don't Pay For Themselves

The Bad Teacher Boogeyman

Income Redistribution: The Key To Economic Growth?

A Jobs Deficit Or Skills Deficit?

The Left Has Nowhere To Go

A Physicist Solves The City

Inequitable Interchange

The Wisconsin Department of Transportation is going to use eminent domain to obtain non-blighted land and spend millions on an interchange for Whistling Straits golf course. "The interchange, which will be open for a week or so every few years, " Tom Daykin reports.

The blatantly private beneficiary and the use of eminent domain for such are highly problematic. Especially for something that will rarely be used and of utilization to such a select few.

For those who are going to trot out the line, "But sports grow the economy and add jobs." No, they don't.

For Further Reading:
A Closer Look At Stadium Subsidies
Stadium Swindle

Car Clowns

The Journal Sentinel reports, Rail Opponents Rally Suburbs.

Fine. We'll route rail around these communities. No charges, no more questions asked. When communities along the route are booming, and then these anti-rail suburbs want in, too bad, so sad.

But, city-dwellers and would-be rail-users would like to have our money back. The tax dollars which allowed the continued expansion of the highways (to the detriment of cities), and thus these anti-rail suburbs. But seriously...

Plenty of viable citizens didn't want highways dissecting their neighborhoods. But the U.S. marched forward building roads everywhere, transplanting homeowners and businesses. Supposedly this was in our best interest. Highways were a magical route to cheaper land (and environmental degradation). Never mind the problems with water availability, wetland destruction, sewer runoff, and pollution.

Well, we've learned something since then. Continued highway expansion is unsustainable and environmentally destructive. This isn't an all-or-none dilemma. The automobile and rail need to coexist. Most other communities realize this. Milwaukee is one of the last few metro areas to begin implementing a rail plan or system.

City folk have been forced to support (tax dollars) highways. Now the shoe is on the other foot. Suburbanites it's time to reciprocate; and rejoice in the positive consequences.

Money For Nothing

Workers need to sacrifice, unions must make concessions, programs and services must be cut...belts need to be tightened.

Unless it applies to the highway lobby, then we've got $22 million (which will likely end up much more) available for temporary fixes. Subsidizing the sprawl of business and people with large highway interchanges at the edge of cities, enabling the auto-dependent life to continue, must stop.

How about a tax or a toll, so that those who use these concrete eyesores have to pay for them? If you must build on the edges, out in the middle of greenfields, miles and miles from other developments, a fee, a tax, whatever you care to call it, should be applied. There is no free lunch (or so they say).

Yet, suburbanites, through massive highway building, cheap gas, and weak environmental standards, have had their entire lifestyle highly subsidized. It should not be cheaper to build on open space than it is to reuse an existing, blighted inner city building. Our planning principles should be encouraging reuse. If a developer concludes he/she must build on open space, the cost should reflect this environmentally unwise choice.

It's many of the same suburban conservatives whom feel they shouldn't have to pay anything in taxes that primarily benefit from such highway building. Taxes actually do pay for a lot of things, which we obviously take for granted. Now because of years of disinvestment due to a "starve the beast" mentality (organized by anti-tax zealots: think Reagan) we're finding ourselves in need of repair and advancement of infrastructure we built during WWII.

Many important regional/national businesses are located near the interchange. They are important to the future of the region. But to persist in building highways to deal with our transportation needs does nothing to improve the situation. In fact, it encourages continued sprawl and auto-dependency.

If the Zoo interchange must be done, do a complete project now. And, tie it into other modes of transportation in the region, connecting it to businesses and neighborhoods. During a time when many people, businesses, and neighborhoods are hurting, this would be a dose of much-needed deficit-spending to ensure improved job numbers now, and a healthier overall outlook for the future.

Why Wisconsin doesn't have a holistic plan for a regional transportation system in place - efficiently and sustainably connecting metropolitan Milwaukee's airport, rail, buses and highways with Madison, Kenosha, Racine, Green Bay, etc. - is inexcusable. What have we been doing since it was announced federal money was available for transportation infrastructure? $51.2 billion was made available for transit in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

If we have financing available for the Moderne, the Bookends, Miller Park, and a host of other ancillary development, we should have funding available for a 21st century transportation infrastructure.

Unemployment has been climbing. Infrastructure projects create jobs, and they make locations more marketable and sought after for businesses and homeowners. We need some leaders and visionaries to step forward in the planning and infrastructure realm. The lack of imagination, the inability to make bold decisions, the unwillingness to invest in light rail, and the tunnel vision of continuing to follow the same unsustainable development patterns will lead to the irrelevance of Milwaukee and the region.

For Further Reading:
Center for Neighborhood Technology
Economic Development and Smart Growth
Making The Connection
Mixed-Income Housing Near Transit
Transit Oriented America