University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Professor Marc. V. Levine gets it right in his op-ed from this Sunday's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Meanwhile, we have in County Executive Scott Walker a living example of willful obstinacy that is slowly and oh-so-surely killing Milwaukee and the surrounding region. This blind obstructionist is planning to proudly veto an advisory referendum on a (much-needed) 1-cent increase in the county sales tax!
Read that again: Scott Walker is vetoing a vote in which the people decide - - in a nonbinding vote - - whether it's worth a tax hike to fix the broken county.
He doesn't want to know how the citizens of his broken county feel about the current state of transit, parks, and other infrastructure?
Who does this sort of thing? A politician who is plotting a run for governor and who fears the likes of Mark Belling, that's who. Scott Walker is looking out for Scott Walker.
Once again, self-interest reigns, and Milwaukee's reputation as a non-starter that cowers under the clumsy brickbats of conservative radio talkers - - a cartoon-character breed that squeals in desperate search of attention and ratings and without regard to any larger truth - - spreads across the nation as surely as this poorly formed, run-on sentence spreads across your screen.
It's time to ignore the talk-radio narcissists and pandering politicians and do what needs to be done. And if a County Executive fears an advisory vote by the people that may hinder his political future, his time is up.
Dim light at the end of the tunnel
The region needs higher wattage ideas for transit
By MARC V. LEVINE
The
dismal failure of Milwaukee’s civic leaders to bring the region’s
public transit infrastructure up to 21st-century standards is more than
just another run-of-the-mill breakdown in leadership.
It is a public policy debacle that threatens the very economic
viability of this city and region — and it comes at a time when we
already are struggling with stagnant growth, spreading poverty and
shockingly high rates of joblessness in the inner city.
Skyrocketing gas prices and awareness of climate change are
reshaping the way Americans live, work and play. Mass transit ridership
is surging in cities with rail transit systems, as commuters seek
alternatives to $4.50-a-gallon gasoline. Suburban and exurban
communities, whose growth was predicated on cars and cheap gas, are
facing bursting housing bubbles and an uncertain future.
In this new era, the economic winners will be cities and regions
that have invested in state-of-the-art mass transit. Unfortunately, few
metropolitan areas are less prepared for these changes than Milwaukee.
Unlike in virtually all other large U.S. cities, leaders here have
balked for two decades at building any form of regional rail transit.
By contrast, other cities, such as Baltimore, St. Louis and
Minneapolis have built light rail systems since the 1990s (and
ridership has soared by 15% this year in all three places). In 2004,
Denver voters approved a $4.7 billion bond issue, underwritten by a
sales tax, for a 119-mile expansion of their system, while Kansas City
recently approved financing of a $1 billion, 27-mile light rail line.
Even in conservative, historically anti-tax “red states,” civic
leaders and voters have understood the economic imperative of investing
in rail transit. Salt Lake City recently raised the sales tax to expand
regional rail. Phoenix is building a 20-mile, $1.3 billion light rail
line. And in Texas, that bastion of big-government liberalism, Dallas
is investing $4 billion to double the size of its regional light rail
system to 90 miles.
In an era of expensive gas and pressures to reduce carbon
footprints, it takes some magical thinking to believe that Milwaukee
can remain economically competitive as one of the nation’s only large
cities without such infrastructure.
The intransigence of Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker,
bolstered by know-nothing talk radio hosts, columnists and bloggers, is
obviously the biggest impediment to sensible transit policy.
Fortunately, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett supports rail transit.
Unfortunately, he has offered an inadequate plan: a streetcar Downtown
Circulator that would run in a three-mile loop around downtown, which
is too small and too slow to generate either of the two key economic
benefits of rail transit — linking workers to employment hubs in the
region or promoting development along rail corridors.
Barrett sees the Circulator as a “starter” investment toward a more
elaborate rail system, touting its links to the vastly oversold KRM
commuter rail proposal. But it’s likely that the mayor’s trolley to
nowhere would draw meager ridership, thus providing more ammunition to
the opponents of light rail, foreclosing future investments and leaving
us with an underutilized white elephant ringing downtown.
Barrett, properly concerned about fiscal responsibility, notes that
“advocates have failed to explain how to fund a more extensive system.”
Yes, public finances are tight everywhere. Yet leaders in places as
varied as Denver, Baltimore, Dallas, Minneapolis and Charlotte have
financed the construction or expansion of their systems in recent
years. Moreover, even in fiscally strapped Milwaukee, we’ve found a way
to spend billions in the past decade on a baseball stadium and a
convention center, mega-projects that nearly all economists agree
contribute precious little to regional economic growth.
Surely, then, given the existential importance of transit for metro
Milwaukee, a financially sensible, $1 billion regional fixed-rail plan
can be crafted:
• Using the $91.5 million in federal funds already allocated.
• Minimizing capital costs by extensively utilizing existing rail rights of way.
• Creatively deploying such tools as tax incremental financing.
• Selling station-area development rights.
• Receiving infrastructure support from the State of Wisconsin.
• And, yes, implementing a regional sales tax (with rebates to
low-income residents) to fund transit improvements and operations.
If Sen. Barack Obama is elected president, more federal funding
likely will be available for rail transit. Obama’s campaign platform
calls for a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank that could
provide an infusion of funds to cities like Milwaukee to invest in
transit (as well as in other infrastructure vital to economic
development).
But the biggest problem is not fiscal but political.
Barrett and his allies should boldly confront the anti-rail
demagogues, advocating a comprehensive fixed-rail plan for Milwaukee’s
future that would link key hubs (downtown, the University of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the County Grounds and the airport) and stretch
from the North Shore suburbs through the central city, perhaps to
Brookfield.
The region’s corporate leaders, represented by the Metropolitan
Milwaukee Association of Commerce and the Greater Milwaukee Committee,
supposedly support regional rail transit. If that’s true, they should
make it the centerpiece of the Milwaukee 7 initiative, turning it into
a more muscular regionalism that could underpin an economic
revitalization of the city and region.
Rail is not a panacea for Milwaukee’s economic woes: It will not
single-handedly solve the crisis of inner city joblessness, end poverty
or create a culture of economic innovation here (although it will help
in all of those areas).
But imagine a future of $8-a-gallon gas, in which Milwaukee is one
of the few large cities in the United States without rail transit.
Businesses increasingly will locate in transit-friendly regions that
offer the efficient and economical flow of people, goods and services.
A Milwaukee without rail transit runs the risk of becoming economically
obsolete, a city whose leaders failed to invest in its economic future.
Investing in rail is not like flipping a switch; the lead time is
substantial. We already are way behind other cities, and our economic
viability is slipping away.
The time for action is now.
Marc V. Levine is a professor of history, economic development and urban studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Recent Comments