Category Archives: Transit

Sen. Sullivan holding Town Hall meeting tonight

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Transit NOW wants everyone to know about this:

Monday: Sen. Sullivan Town Hall-Urge Support for Transit

Senator Sullivan is holding a Town Hall Meeting on Monday evening.

Because you are a constituent of his, we wanted to let you know about this opportunity to
thank him for his support of transit and urge his help in passing the RTA legislation.


There is just a few weeks lift in the legislative session to get an RTA bill passed. Action is needed now! Senator Sullivan has said that he has not heard enough from his constituents in support of the RTA.

Senator Sullivan Town Hall Meeting

Monday, March 29, 5:30 PM
Wauwatosa Library
North Avenue at 76th Street
(Apologies for the short notice—we just found out)


What is at stake?

  • Without action on the RTA, we are faced with losing up to a third of our bus service, which will be devastating to our economy and to families as people are cut off from jobs. Nearly half of the transit trips are for work purposes. A UWM study found that in the past 8 years over 40,000 jobs became inaccessible by transit due to cuts in service. That number is projected to climb to 100,000 in the coming few years under the current trend.
  • The RTA bill will give us property tax relief. It will allow for a shift in the transit funding source off of property tax and onto a sales tax—a smarter way to go because it brings in 20% – 30% of the revenue from visitors.
  • The RTA is a jobs bill—it will allow communities to keep people connected to jobs and school, it will help attract businesses and investors to create jobs by spurring economic development. It will reduce dangerous traffic congestion—and it will give commuters options during the Zoo Interchange reconstruction and other projects. It will allow us to be competitive in garnering our share of federal dollars—finally!
  • The RTA provides the structure for communities to fund transit systems and coordinate them efficiently on region-wide basis that is vital to supporting a thriving, green, globally competitive economy—and and give us property tax relief.

See a recent article in the Wauwatosa NOW:

County needs more transit options if economy to thrive, business leaders say
http://www.wauwatosanow.com/news/89055262.html

See a recent op ed by two Wauwatosa leaders:

RTA will spur Economic Growth
http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/84809982.html


Visit www.TransitNOW.org, and www.southeasternrta.wordpress.com for more info.

RTA for Milwaukee County

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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.

ACLU faults SEWRPC transportation program

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The Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, in developing a key transportation plan, failed to consider key demographic data, overstated the amount of money invested in transit and misrepresented highway funding, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

More here.

WisDOT slaps Obama

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It’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.