Research is showing that air pollution can damage the brain, according to the Utne Reader. Among the magazine’s recitations is this: “A German team recently surveyed 400 septuagenarian women and found those living within 54 yards of busy streets to have poorer memory skills than their quieter-block counterparts.”
Gov.-elect Scott Walker wants to put bigger freeways closer to schools. Who needs healthy kids, anyway?
It could be the Republican tidal wave means no money for freeway expansion / neighborhood destruction in southeastern Wisconsin.
It could be the Republican tidal wave means no climate change legislation.
From Construction Law Developments:
The Republican sweep to power in the House virtually assures that the unfinished business on the Obama administration agenda will not be finished any time soon. Most important to the construction industry is reauthorization of the federal highway trust fund, which Congress could not accomplish while both houses were under Democrat control. Now, unless the lame ducks get their tails in gear and pass a six year $500 billion reauthorization before Republicans take over in the House, it seems unlikely that anything good will come out of the next Congress for the construction industry.
Other construction related legislation likely to languish under Republican House leadership includes the Clean Energy and Security Act – also known as cap and trade, a public option for health insurance, the DREAM comprehensive immigration reform bill, and two bills designed to redirect unused TARP funds to infrastructure building: the Jobs for Main Street Act and the Small Business and Infrastructure Jobs Act. Any second infusion of federal stimulus dollars into the construction industry seems completely imaginary now.
State Sen. Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend) thinks expanding I39/90 is ridiculous, but will support building it bigger anyway if it is a toll road. From The Daily Reporter:
“That I-90 (expansion) from Madison to the state line is ridiculous,” Grothman said. “They’re building that thing for a bunch of Illinois people on Sunday afternoons. The only way I’m going to vote for that is if they do it with toll roads.”
So wasteful spending and environmental degradation is OK if the revenue is collected in a Grothman-approved way? He continues to amaze, but not in a good way.
Wow. Let’s do it. From Newsweek:
While floods inspire tent-pole news coverage, the American Southwest has been quietly struggling with the opposite problem: a near-crippling drought. For the first time, water in the Lake Mead Basin, which feeds much of the region, is in danger of falling into the “shortage” zone, according to recent federal estimates. And the National Weather Service is predicting the worst seasonal drought since the mid-1950s.
There is, however, one city that’s still all wet. Santa Fe has a water surplus large enough to support at least 160 new houses thanks in part to an innovative conservation program approved in 2007: for every new toilet installed, developers must pay for 12 low-flow toilets in existing homes (roving plumbers have literally gone knocking on doors in search of customers). Now, with virtually no commodes left to retrofit, the city has moved on to washing machines, showers, and urinals. Though environmentalists worry about desert sprawl, water experts say it may be only a matter of time—and thirst—before other cities follow Santa Fe.
(There’s a good chance, unfortunately, that conserving water would lead the Milwaukee Water Works to seek even bigger rate breaks for heavy water users in an effort to encourage water use because the utility has too much capacity. Yeah, I know it defies logic and common sense, but it is exactly what is happening in a case before the Public Service Commission.)
Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker last week endorsed the creation of Lexus lanes, which are freeway way lanes that allow rich folk to pay tolls to move faster than the rest of us.
The story was reported by the JS’ Patrick Marley rather inadequately, uncritically and without not a single question about details. Like, um, Scott, do you support Lexus lanes in addition to the Milwaukee-area freeway expansion recommended by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation and the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission?
If so, do you think the additional debt service required for the fifth lane will harm the state’s bond rating? How much damage to neighborhoods and the environment around freeways are you willing to cause so that certain people can drive faster?
If the intent of the new toll lane is to allow those who can pay to travel faster than everybody else, then obviously the tolls have to be set high enough to discourage everybody from using the toll lane. If you are not planning to expand the freeways from three to five lanes and intend only to expand from three to four lanes and limit the fourth lane to toll-payers, how will you ease congestion in the other three lanes? Or are you suggesting the reality — that Milwaukee-area congestion is not bad enough to warrant construction of a fourth toll-free lane? In that case, until the toll question is settled, shouldn’t the freeway expansion projects underway and being planned be cancelled?
If Walker simply wants to go ahead and build a fourth lane for rich people, the health and environmental impacts likely will be worse than if he builds a fourth lane for everyone. Under the toll scenario, there will be three lanes of stalled traffic belching out poisons and additional drivers zipping along emitting bad things, but perhaps at a lower rate. All the bad things associated with freeway expansion, like loss of wetlands and increased flooding, will occur, but any benefits will accrue to a much smaller group of drivers.
Walker’s idea is really pretty atrocious. A few folk reap the benefits, the public writ large pays the cost. Maybe that formula is now so common it’s not newsworthy any more.