Category Archives: Journal Sentinel

The JS on tolls

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The JS is fine with destroying neighborhoods, increasing flooding in neighborhoods, tearing up crucial wetlands, making more kids sick with asthma, potentially increasing birth defects and pumping more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere as long as some drivers pay a few bucks for the privilege.

Yes, the editorial board has endorsed freeway Lexus lanes, again misquoting poor retired Phil Evenson, formerly executive director of the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, in an unconvincing effort to justify its position. Lexus lanes are freeway lanes that allow those with enough cash to buy their way out of the traffic jams the rest of us must sit in.

The paper pretends that the only cost of additional freeway lanes is the cost to build them. There are loads of additional costs in health and environmental and economic consequences that are well-documented and should be considered, but are simply ignored by the paper. In its increasingly right-wing view, the massive cost of a convenience for a few should be externalized to the community at large.

And while freeway expansion advocates long have argued that more lanes will ease congestion (they don’t, by the way), even that alleged benefit is passe for Lexus lane advocates. By their own accounts, traffic in the untolled lanes remains congested — defeating the entire purpose of freeway expansion in the first place.

Toll advocates say that excess revenue could be used to fund mass transit. In Minnesota, though, that excess revenue amounts to a mere $300,000 a year, an amount that does not come close to what the Milwaukee County Transit System needs to stay afloat, much less operate at an optimal level. Inflicting great damage on neighborhoods to provide a quick rides through them to a relatively few people who mostly — by a large margin — don’t live there is simply a bad idea. Funneling the leftover pocket change to transit doesn’t make that stinky proposal smell any sweeter.

Finally, Phil Evenson did not endorse Lexus lanes during his 2008 remarks. Evenson made that clear way back then. Shame on the JS for again misrepresenting his remarks.

Walker’s toll lanes

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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.

We Energies’ woes

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The JS’ Tom Content has an interesting story today about the mess at the We Energies Oak Creek power plant. In short, the plant doesn’t work for a lot of the time. (The good news is that the coal monstrosity’s nonfunctionality means it is polluting less.)

Ratepayers are paying significantly larger bills to pay for the problem-plagued plant. Yes, we get to pay truckloads of money for something that isn’t working yet! We Energies promises that the many fixes needed won’t hit ratepayers’ bills, too. From the story:

… customer groups remain troubled, and auditors at the Public Service Commission are looking into the problems as part of their audit of the company’s pending rate case.

The recurring problems raise the question of whether the utility should have accepted the keys to the plant when it did, said Charlie Higley, executive director of the Wisconsin Citizens’ Utility Board, which represents residential and small business customers.

“When you lease a car, you lease one that works. You wouldn’t want to pay for a car that’s not working under a lease arrangement,” Higley said. “That’s the same analogy that should be applied here. The ratepayers should not be paying for this plant until it’s properly operating.”

Higley has a great point. Why didn’t We Energies find the problems before it accepted the keys and turned on the juice? When did We Energies find the debris the story refers to? (Full disclosure: I’m on the CUB Board. This blog, though, is independent.)

 Can ratepayers get a partial refund on construction costs?

 

 

 

The story relies for perspective on Charlie Higley, executive director of the Citizens Utility Board, which represents mostly residential ratepayers before the Public Service Commission and in the courts. CUB is a small, statewide organization that relies heavily on donations from members.

Tough times continue for JS, despite “penetration” bloviation

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The Journal Sentinel, in an understandably un-bylined puff piece, boasted Sunday that it still has the highest readership ratio — aka “market penetration” — among the 50 largest newspaper markets.

Among the things not mentioned: the actual circulation figures of the papers in the top 50 markets (the JS is not in first place) or the change over the years in readership figures. Is the JS just bleeding to death slower than other papers are?

The paper’s second quarter financial reports, released in July, were not good. Revenue continues to slide – it was down $2 million, or $4.1%, as advertising continued its decline. Classified ad revenue was down 9.5% “largely due to decreases in the real estate, automotive and other advertising categories,” Journal Communications reported. Retail advertsing was down 5.6%.

Online advertising was up $300,000, but the real boost in the bottom line came from cutting costs, not by any big jump in advertising bucks:

Daily newspaper operating expenses decreased 8.3%, primarily due to the reduction in employee related costs, other cost reduction initiatives and reduced expenses related to revenue declines partially offset by a $0.2 million increase in newsprint and paper expense.