The Joint Finance Committee early this morning approved the creation of a Regional Transit Authority, but limited it to Milwaukee County.
The committee also approved a new authority and a $16 per car rental car fee, which will automatically rise with inflation, to fund the expansion of the Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee commuter line. The KRM is a much needed development, but having it run by a non-elected body using automoatically increasing taxes is far, far from ideal.
The Milwaukee County proposal would allow a 1% sales tax to support Milwaukee County transit. That’s good news for transit (if not for sales tax payers) and bad news for transit. It’s good because it would get some desperately-needed money to the Milwaukee County Transit System. It’s bad because it would get money only to the Milwaukee County Transit System and would seem to pretty much gut chances that suburban counties will extend transit within their borders.
On the other hand, if this measure holds, a more developed transit system in Milwaukee County could prompt business leaders to look more favorably at locating in Milwaukee city or county, rather than in places where workers don’t have a good way to get to their jobs.
There is a lot of room for mischief and funding diversion in the measure, though. As Wispolitics.com reports, “The motion also specifies that revenues from the RTA’s sales and use tax can be used to fund transit, parks, cultural, and emergecy medical service programs in Milwaukee Co. Milwaukee Co. will be the fiscal agent for the RTA.” Fifteen percent of the revenue will be earmarked for the city of Milwaukee.
WisDOT slaps Obama
Monday, February 9th, 2009It’s hard to figure: a governor who endorsed Barack Obama for president when it was a semi-risky thing to do is letting his transportation department show total disrespect for the man now that he holds the highest office in the land.
President Obama had made a few priorities absolutely clear: this country must reduce both greenhouse gases and dependency on foreign oil.
Gov. Jim Doyle’s WisDOT, in planning for a new Zoo Interchange, is taking a real slap at the president by totally ignoring those priorities. There will be no planning for any transit to be incorporated into the new design, nor will there be a freeway / transit alternatives analysis done, despite the city’s request.
It’s a road-only study — more greenhouse gases, more dependency on foreign oil. Guess the governor doesn’t like the president all that much.
And why is this plan roads only? Because of a timeline Gov. Jim Doyle set when he was running for re-election and worried that the Republicans would criticize him for not rebuilding the Zoo Interchange before embarking on the North-South I-94 project. There is no valid engineering, environmental or geopolitical argument against including transit in the Zoo Interchange project. The opposite is true. The region, state and country would be better off if transportation planning included transit. That a project this big doesn’t isn’t just a slap at the president and his priorities — it’s a slap at all of us.
Tags: Barack Obama, Doyle, Transit, Zoo Interchange
Posted in Barack Obama, Commentary, Environment, Federal government, Freeways, Gov. Doyle, Transit, WisDOT | 2 Comments »