While road builders and their parasitic allies in the Legislature and the Wisconsin Department of Transportation cite job creation as they push billions of dollars at unneeded highway expansion, the real jobs are in public transportation, according to the Transportation Equity Network:
What would happen if 20 metropolitan areas shifted 50% of their highway funds to transit? They would generate 1,123,674 new transit jobs over a five-year period — for a net gain of 180,150 jobs over five years — without a single dollar of new spending.
There’s a concept — putting dollars where they would both create jobs and would add real transportation value. Don’t know about that 50%, though — we have a lot of bridges and roads to fix (although WisDOT would rather expand highways than maintain them).
Now that we know the Marquette Interchange was screwed up…
September 3rd, 2010A ramp built as part of the gee-golly-whiz Marquette Interchange project was closed down Thursday because it’s cracked.
According to the JS:
State Transportation Secretary Frank Busalacchi said the cracks were discovered during a scheduled inspection on Monday and further investigation revealed that the 40-foot concrete support was designed improperly and is inadequate to support the weight that rests on it, including steel girders and the roadway.
Busalacchi says contractor HNTB is accepting responsibility for the mega-mistake, according to the JS.
Now that we know that the $800 million project is screwed up, we need answers to a few questions:
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