The 2010 and 2011 amounts are budgeted figures.

A new slogan for Gov. Scott Walker — “Mono-modal: the only way to go.”

Click on the picture to make it larger.

“If we massively subsidize roads made of concrete and asphalt for people who drive cars and trucks, there’s nothing wrong with a comparable subsidy for roads made of steel rails for people who ride trains.”

These are the concluding words of a op-ed by David R. Riemer, director of the Community Advocates Public Policy Institute at Community Advocates Inc. You know those roads? They’re heavily subsidized (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, April 3, 2010)

The following graphs were built from Riemer’s Excel spreadsheet and from Wisconsin Department of Transportation data: State Transportation Data

SOURCE

The source of Road funds – by percentage:

58.2% of Road funds come from the use of motorized vehicles: Fuel, Registration, Title, Fees.

41.4% of Road funds come from your Income, Property, and Sales taxes.

EXPENSE

How are Road funds spent?

92% of State transportation revenues are spent on roads.

Mass Transit receives 4.42 %

Railroads, Harbors, Airports receive 3.36%

The proposed Milwaukee to Madison Rail line would get 0.21% of State Transportation Funds..

In dollars:

For every $10 WisDOT spends on roads:

$9.20 goes to roads

44 cents goes to Mass Transit operations

34 cents goes to Rail, Harbors and Airport

2 cents would go to the operation of the Madison-Milwaukee high speed rail.

THE ROAD USER

We all use roads.

Car and truck drivers pay for roads with gasoline taxes and fees.

When a product is delivered the price includes the fuel and registration fees of the truck, and those fees are paid by you and me, the buyer.

And so everyone uses and pays for roads. While drivers pay per mile through gasoline taxes, their ride is subsidized by the rest of us.

CONSIDERATIONS FOR CHANGE

Consider other common services: water, sewer, gas, telephone, and electricity. For these we charge closer to cost because we have meters in each house to calculate real usage.

As Riemer points out: “For the most part … we don’t sock it to the taxpayers to subsidize the users of these equally essential services. Rather, the users of those services pay, more-or-less, for 100% of the cost.”

All transportation is subsidized. From the sidewalk to the airport, an effective government will provide the infrastructure that serves all citizens. An effective government will remove barriers to accessing jobs, schools, hospitals, recreation, and commerce.

To serve taxpayers who should not drive do not drive, cannot drive, or do not want to drive, we need transportation policy that brings the benefits of mobility to all citizens.

… in Wisconsin and Ohio, newly elected Republicans soon to enter gubernatorial offices, have promised to shut down their local federally funded intercity rail corridors that they fear will overwhelm them with future operating expenses. Of course, those complaints are patently absurd when put in context of each state’s respective overall transportation budget. Wisconsin, for instance, spends more than a billion dollars on roadway construction annually and would have been asked to contribute a mere $7.5 million to train operations. Is such a small contribution really such a huge price to pay for a transportation alternative?

It also looks like money desperately needed for transit will be the first to get the ax.

From streetsblog:

Apparently, for Republicans, the big target for cuts appears to be transit spending. Tymon suggested to the Road Gang that the current $8 billion allocated for transit annually could shrink to $5 billion. The Road Gang was, apparently, relieved to see that transit would bear the brunt of the burden of spending cuts.

Meanwhile,  Jim Tymon, staff director of the House Highways and Transit Subcommittee, said the Republicans want to bring transportation spending back to it roots in the 1950s – interstate commerce and travel, with a strong focus on the National Highway System. It all adds up to a possible revision of the longstanding 80/20 ratio governing highway and transit spending, with transit losing ground. Tymon confirmed that a new calculus could be coming.

According to Streetsblog’s sources, Tymon discussed reducing the Surface Transportation Program and eliminating federal mandates to states about how they should spend their money – for example, the “inappropriate” mandate for bike-ped projects, which he said should be up to state discretion.

Ugly, ugly, ugly.

From the Utne Reader:

Commuters board from a station one story above the ground, and when the straddling bus parks to pick up riders—as many as 1200 per vehicle—it doesn’t disrupt the flow of traffic…The innovating company, Shenzhen Huashi Future Parking Equipment, claims that building the infrastructure for straddling buses is three times faster and much cheaper than a comparable distance of new subways. The wheel-rail-hybrid buses are powered by municipal electricity and solar energy, thus reducing the cost of their operation as well as fuel consumption. They will purportedly reduce traffic jams by 25 percent.

From Minnesota Public Radio:

Brookings Institute transportation policy analyst Robert Puentes said the Obama administration and the presumptive transportation committee chairman in the next Congress, Florida Republican Rep. John Mica, both oppose increasing the gas tax.

“And in fact the folks who’d been talking about it the most I think one of them is Mr. Oberstar,” he said.l “So, you’ve lost someone with all the technical and institutional knowledge his tenure on the committee, but you’ve lost one of those voices who was promoting this as the way forward, the gas tax idea.”

Minnesota this year received just over $550 million in federal gas tax revenue for roads and bridges.

Scott Peterson, the Minnesota Department of Transportation’s director of legislative affairs, said he is confident the state won’t lose any money — with one possible exception.

The federal highway trust fund is bankrupt because spending exceeds revenue. Congress has applied band aids sending general fund dollars to the fund.

Peterson isn’t convinced that will continue.

“Now again with perhaps a renewed emphasis on lowering the deficit I’m not sure we can continue to count on that,” he said.

The funding picture for transit is equally cloudy.

Will Walker raise state and local taxes to build bigger roads where they are not needed in order to repay his masters?

PR Newswire reports that

According to the HNTB America THINKS transit survey, nearly 9 in 10 (87 percent) Americans who have access to public transportation where they work or live take advantage of it. In addition, almost 7 in 10 (69 percent) Americans feel there are many times when public transit is a better option than driving, and nearly three in ten of them choose higher gas prices (29 percent) and convenience (29 percent) as the biggest motivators for riding public transportation.

“Whether it’s buses, commuter trains, light rail or streetcars, public transportation is an essential element for our communities,” said Elizabeth Rao, chair public transit services for HNTB. “People like transit and successful cities deliver it.”

Approximately 1 in 4 respondents think the most valuable feature of public transportation is that it reduces traffic congestion (28 percent), or saves users money (24 percent), while about 1 in 7 (13 percent) say it’s most valuable feature is the environmental benefit.

“Healthy transportation infrastructure is economically and environmentally sound. It spurs job creation, stimulates the economy, reduces dependence on foreign oil and enhances quality of life,” said Rao. “Unfortunately decades of underinvestment have taken their toll.”

The nation’s largest public transit agencies face an $80 billion maintenance backlog just to bring their rail systems to a state of good repair. Within the next six years, almost every transit vehicle (55,000 vehicles) in rural America will need to be replaced.

Hellow, Wisconsin Department of Transportation and Milwaukee County! Are you paying attention? Both are severely underfunding transit and have been for years.

And is HNTB paying attention to itself? HNTB has not been a big transit friend in southeastern Wisconsin, first consulting on the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission study that recommended expanding freeways and then getting multi-multi-million dollar contracts on projects to expand those same freeways. (That’s a 10 on the ethical puke-o-meter, if you are keeping track.)

Wow.

And in Wisconsin, we are expanding freeways instead of preserving transit. It is a really sick philosophy: transit riders can wait forever in the heat or cold for their bus; car drivers in their temperature-controlled vehicles should never be delayed at all on the freeway.

What would a basic ethics class make out of that one?

This isn’t about high-speed rail or big new capital projects. Someone’s actually paying serious attention to the nuts and bolts of buses and (existing)  urban rail lines!

From the Dedham Transcript:

“It’s been a challenge for mid-size systems in Cleveland to rural systems in the Dakotas to the big systems in the urban areas,” Therese McMillan, second in command of the Federal Transit Administration, told the News Service after delivering remarks at a meeting of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. “Everyone is really struggling.”

McMillan cited the national recession as a cause for stress of transit systems nationwide, and she noted that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 permitted 10 percent of capital transportation spending to be used for operating expenses, such as running trains and paying employees.

But McMillan remained mum on a proposal that would permit large urban transit systems to regularly spend more federal dollars on transportation operations, acknowledging the proposal, supported by Rep. Michael Capuano, but saying the Obama administration has yet to take a position.

On the other hand, McMillan pointed to a transportation authorization bill pending in Congress that would provide $2 billion to cover operating costs for transit systems, a proposal supporters say would stave off fare increases and service cuts. According to the bill’s preamble, 84 percent of federal transit systems have raised fares, cut services or have considered one of those actions since January 2009.

Under the bill, sponsored by Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), federal transportation funds may be used to transit systems’ operating expenses in order to “restore a reduction in public transportation service and related workforce reductions” or to “rescind all or a portion of a fare increase.”

The full Assembly tabled his amendment. Cullen represents the district that includes Story Hill.