Meantime, Milwaukee wallows in dogma-enforced mediocrity.
You will recall that Charlie Sykes hauled out all the old chestnuts the other day when he attacked me for suggesting that light rail, killed by Tommy Thompson eleven years ago, could have offered motorists in the Milwaukee area today an appealing alternative to $4-per-gallon.
And an economic development tool, with stations and lines that attract residential and commercial investment.
That very scenario is unfolding in one city now constructing light rail - - Charlotte, North Carolina - - with a population of about 625,000 people.
Milwaukee's most recent population estimate is 602,000, or about 5% less than Charlotte's.
Here is the text of a recent story from Governing Magazine about what's happening in Charlotte - - and by contrast, what we are missing because of traditional risk-aversion and one-dimensional thinking and governing here.
More than Just a Train
June 2008 Governing Magazine
By ALEX MARSHALL
I’m starting to believe the hyperbole about the revolution being spawned by Charlotte’s new light-rail line.
Riding the spiffy silver and blue trains of Charlotte's new light-rail line, I watch through the train's windows how cranes and excavators push around dirt for new development projects.
Back when urban junkies — myself included — dreamed that cities could center around train lines, we railed at the formula-oriented developers who could crank out only cul-de-sacs and subdivisions near the newest highway off-ramp.
They ignored the possibility of putting apartment buildings and mixed-used projects beside a trolley line, even if a city could manage to get a rail line built.
No longer.
Now big international companies such as Cherokee Investment Partners, which is involved here in Charlotte, are poised — even eager — to swoop down, buy land and put up pedestrian-friendly businesses and homes around new transit stations.
And they're being joined by plenty of competitors.
This is not to suggest that progress in Charlotte has been easy. Arranging streets, parking, condominiums, shops, plazas and other components of development around transit here involves many choices.
Planners and developers still are struggling to balance the competing needs of parking and active street life in these new projects.
But in terms of a market and a vision, there is increasing clarity. Living near a transit stop has become part of a tried-and-true formula of downtown living.
Charlotte opened its $465 million, 15-stop, 10-mile "blue line" last November.
LYNX, as it is called, has about 13,000 riders daily, well ahead of the low-ball federal projections.
Now, the city and region are working on the many other ideas for lines and extensions.
A total of 7,000 new condominiums are planned along the line.Seeing how successful Charlotte's new line is, I start believing what I first dismissed as hyperbole — that it was revolutionary.
David King, who helped shepherd through assistance for LYNX from the state's transportation department when he was its deputy secretary, says, "Most people don't realize this is going to change the face and shape of Charlotte."
Last November, just weeks before LYNX opened, a grassroots referendum backed by angry anti-tax and anti-transit activists asked voters to repeal the half-cent sales tax for transit funding.
It failed by a two-to-one margin.
"The light-rail vote was a seminal moment," says Mark Peres, the president and editor of Charlotte Viewpoint, a magazine about culture and civic life.
"We were being held hostage by a minority viewpoint. Those people just sort of went away. It's just seismic in its impact."
The original plan for financing the system, however, builds in some difficulties for the future.
Back in the late 1990s, Mecklenburg County and the city of Charlotte banded together with Raleigh, Durham, Greensboro and other cities to push a bill through the legislature allowing counties to propose tax increases to their citizens to fund transit.
Charlotte's voters approved the tax in a referendum. There also emerged an agreement that the state DOT would match local funding, or 25 percent of the total cost.
The federal government was expected to pay 50 percent.Now, as new lines are planned that go beyond Mecklenburg, there is a question of who will pay and how.
Will surrounding counties and localities enact their own sales taxes?
Or is Charlotte expected to be the primary local funder, even for lines outside Mecklenburg County?
And what should the role of the state transportation agency be?
It is, after all, the one agency whose jurisdiction cuts across multiple county lines.
I believe the parties should explore having the state agency take more direct responsibility for building and paying for transit within urban areas.
When the state builds a road, it takes on the burden of coordinating with all the counties it goes through. It buys land, negotiates rights of way and designs and builds a project.
Why should transit be any different?
DOTs are traditionally highway-minded, and North Carolina's is certainly no exception. But bringing these agencies into the transit fold suggests a way to turn them into allies.
Eventually, it makes sense for state transportation money to be portable and to be used for either roads or transit lines, as conditions fit.
Whatever the models developed, it's a near-certainty that the new lines here in Charlotte will be built. There is simply too much interest in this new way of living.
Our transit system's past excellence makes the present crisis all the
more galling. Milwaukee has gone from a pinnacle to a precipice in less
than 10 years, and the reason is a lack of investment. If there is one
lesson from the TMER&L years, it is that you have to spend money to
make money, even in the leanest times. You have to invest in equipment,
routes and promotional campaigns to keep riders on the bus. Milwaukee's
recent practice has been disinvestment, and the results speak for
themselves. Between 2000 and 2006, no system of comparable size in
America lost more riders.
These should be the best of times for
urban transit. Skyrocketing gasoline prices, disruptive construction
projects and a surge of concern for the environment should make riding
the bus an obvious choice for thousands of new patrons. But local
transit managers are handcuffed, forced to raise fares and cut service
as Milwaukee County continues its fiscal floundering.
If you want to catch the bus, you'd better hurry. A new study by the Public Policy Forum concludes that the Milwaukee County Transit System as we know it is in the fast lane to oblivion. In less than a decade, a system that used to win awards as the best in America has entered a downward spiral of rising fares and declining service. The result, to no one's surprise, has been falling ridership and therefore falling revenue, which has led to even higher fares and more drastic service cuts. If the downward spiral is allowed to continue, it will become a death spiral.
To make matters worse, the system has rapidly been gobbling up its own seed corn. Federal funds intended to replace aging equipment have been diverted to cover operating expenses, which has only delayed the day when the bill for a new fleet will come due.
How did such an exemplary system lose so much ground in such a short time? Don't blame our supposedly pampered transit workers. Milwaukee's system is already the most cost-effective of its size in the nation, and the union made significant concessions in recent contract talks. Blame it, if you'd like, on skyrocketing fuel and health insurance costs, both familiar culprits completely beyond the control of the system's managers. But the root cause of the current crisis is a lack of political will on the part of our elected officials. Milwaukee's county executive and County Board - the transit system's ultimate managers - have either failed to recognize the problem or refused to deal with it. In either case, their lack of leadership is striking.
Eighty years ago, the system had another brush with oblivion. In the 1920s, local transit service was provided by The Milwaukee Electric Railway & Light Co., the predecessor of today's We Energies. Private automobiles were challenging trolleys for control of the streets in the '20s, and TMER&L faced stagnant ridership, falling profits and general fears of extinction.
Instead of cutting back, the system's leaders decided to fight back. They introduced high-volume "articulated" cars - tandem units with reduced crews - to boost operating efficiency, and they joined the move to rubber tires, adding the first gasoline buses to the transit fleet in 1920.
"The motor bus is the poor man's limousine," one ad proclaimed. "It gives him all the comforts and delights of closed-car motoring with none of its expense. It is swift, sure, silent, comfortable and even luxurious."
TMER&L also tried to lure passengers back with the promise of more interesting rides and speedier service. Double-decker buses began to operate on the downtown lines in 1923, attracting a steady stream of pleasure riders. In 1925, work began on the first rapid transit route, which offered fast, frequent service in state-of-the-art cars between downtown and western Milwaukee County.
The Great Depression stopped the transit system in its tracks. TMER&L experienced a sharp loss of both riders and revenue after 1929, but once again its leaders fought back. The weekly pass became a system staple in 1930. Trackless trolleys - rubber-tired vehicles tethered to overhead electric wires - made their Milwaukee debut in 1936. A full menu of promotions, particularly for off-peak travel, helped to stem the losses. In 1931, TMER&L won the Coffin Medal as the best electric railway system in America.
By the late 1930s, TMER&L had decided to leave the transportation field. It was a barely profitable sideline to the much larger electric power business and a political headache besides. But the old standards were maintained, enabling the system to meet the unprecedented demands of World War II. With defense plants humming, gasoline rationed and new automobiles non-existent, Milwaukee's mass transit ridership reached an all-time high of 428 million in 1944 - more than 10 times the current figure.
The entire system finally was purchased by a private operator in 1952, who sold it (with the help of federal grants) to Milwaukee County in 1975. It was clear by that time that public subsidies were needed to support public transit - just as public funds are used to build the public roads we clog with our private cars. The Milwaukee County Transit System did just as well under public ownership as it had in private hands. In 1987 and again in 1999, MCTS was named the best system in the country.
Our transit system's past excellence makes the present crisis all the more galling. Milwaukee has gone from a pinnacle to a precipice in less than 10 years, and the reason is a lack of investment. If there is one lesson from the TMER&L years, it is that you have to spend money to make money, even in the leanest times. You have to invest in equipment, routes and promotional campaigns to keep riders on the bus. Milwaukee's recent practice has been disinvestment, and the results speak for themselves. Between 2000 and 2006, no system of comparable size in America lost more riders.
These should be the best of times for urban transit. Skyrocketing gasoline prices, disruptive construction projects and a surge of concern for the environment should make riding the bus an obvious choice for thousands of new patrons. But local transit managers are handcuffed, forced to raise fares and cut service as Milwaukee County continues its fiscal floundering.
Public transit would be a vital service even if gasoline prices fell below $2 a gallon. Milwaukee's riders include everyone from students to senior citizens, but the Public Policy Forum found that 75% of them rely on the bus as their only practical means of transportation and that 43% take it to their jobs. For low-income workers, in particular, public transit is not just a convenience; it's a lifeline. Milwaukee's current economic development efforts are critically important, but all the jobs in the world won't do much good if workers can't get to them.
The Forum recommends an annual $10 vehicle registration fee as the first step to pulling the transit system out of its death spiral. That strikes me as modest indeed, but I'm sure even that proposal will face an uphill battle.
Have we really become so averse to new taxes that we're willing to let a vital service starve to death instead of fixing its obvious problems? I hope Milwaukee will answer that question in the negative - and before our once-proud transit system comes to the end of the line.
John Gurda is a Milwaukee historian. His column appears the first Sunday of each month.
If the king tells you to ‘jump!’ you say, ‘how high?’ And when Warren Buffett tells you to buy something you say ‘how much?’ So when Buffet, one of the kings of investing, starts putting his money into freight railroads, financial analysts take note. Michael Sivy of CNN Money correctly observes some of the competitive advantages of rail moving forward into an age of high energy costs and the need to reduce emissions and overall consumption:
Railroads are far more energy-efficient than their competition. Locomotives today get 80% more mileage from a gallon of diesel than they did in 1980. As a result, trains consume far less fuel than trucks do to move the same amount of freight. That not only saves on costs, it reduces emissions of greenhouse gases. In fact, the Environmental Protection Agency calculates that for distances of more than 1,000 miles, using trains rather than trucks alone reduces fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions by 65%.
This amplifies the trend that the Wall Street Journal covered at length a few weeks ago (covered in this entry) about the increasing use of rail for freight nationally. A downside of more railway freight can be more competition for track space, which is shared with passenger rail in most places.
As airways and airports become more and more congested, with reliable on-time travel becoming a thing of the past, I wonder when we might see the same sort of renaissance of passenger rail. Whether moving goods or moving people, it takes a fraction of the fuel and resulting emissions to move a load of people from D.C. to New York on a train compared with a jetliner.
A respected investor who predicted the internet bubble bursting sees investments in rail to be a smart proposition. Eric Janszen spoke with Wired about transitioning from an economy based on the traditional models of finance, insurance, and real estate — all currently slowing down or crashing in front of our eyes — and into massive investments in ‘clean tech:’
Janszen: … You could create a process that gradually forced a lot of relatively painless transition without wrecking the economy.
Wired: What types of infrastructure changes would be part of that transition?
Janszen: Transportation. The big capital-intensive effort is high-speed rail. You need government to get its act together to pull something off. I’m also proposing public-private corporations that have the deep pockets of government but the obligations to shareholders of a private corporation. There are going to be market mechanisms, so you don’t end up years late and billions of dollars over budget.
ABOVE: Nope, it's not turn three at Indy - - it's a residential subdivision street with a park path(!) opening right onto it. Because a right angle turn would SLOW US DOWN too much.
After
a year that saw 17 pedestrians killed in the city, the most per year in
a decade, Milwaukee police are targeting more dangerous drivers with
the help of $50,000 in state grants.
"We're going to be out there. Experienced motor officers are going
to be on this. They are good at what they do. They arrest drunk drivers
and they arrest speeders," said Officer Scott Beaver of the
department's Accident Reconstruction Unit. He said Friday that the
extra attention will start this weekend.
Alcohol or excessive speed were factors in several of Milwaukee's 17
fatal pedestrian accidents last year. The 17 deaths were the most in
the last 10 years, according to state traffic records. Milwaukee
recorded 34 total traffic fatalities last year, a figure that does not
include freeway fatalities.
Eleven of the total fatal crashes in 2007 involved intoxicated
drivers, Beaver said. Of the 17 pedestrians killed last year, six were
intoxicated when struck, Beaver said.
Patrick McIlheran: Parking-lot rules good for roads?
Warning: Nervous driving is heading our way.
This is all the rage in Europe, the way traffic "calming" speed
bumps were decades before they started ticking us off here. Now,
European bureaucrats are paying towns to rip out the bumps as well as
traffic lights, stop signs, crosswalks, curbs, parking places - pretty
much any traffic regulation. U.S. planners are admiring it.
The point is to make drivers nervous so they slow down. "Generally
speaking, what we want is for people to be confused," said a deputy
mayor of Bohmte, Germany.
Following a Dutch guru of what's called "shared space," the town
makes traffic on the highway that is its main street mingle - cars,
trucks, bikes, people wandering in front of Mercedes SUVs. Now,
apparently, drivers crawl through at 15 mph, heads swiveling madly lest
they hit something.
.... In fact, we've all had some recent experience with shared space.
This would be your typical mall parking lot, Saturday morning before
Christmas. How did you like that experience of mindful driving?
I can tell you at Brookfield Square last weekend, the theory
certainly held. We were all negotiating, the cars, the clots of
teenagers, the snow, the don't-give-a-damn Olds Cutlasses - all
negotiating for shared space by eye contact, brake-stomping panic and
emphatic, unidigital gestures.
What a funny guy! See, those silly, backwards Europeans and their silly, backwards public space can best be compared to, get this, our wonderful American mall parking lots! He cracks himself up!
I'll tell you this: When I'm out on a run on Drexel or 51st Street - - and you HAVE to use those roads for short stretches if you want a decent 5- or 6-mile loop or if you want to access the Oak Leaf Trail - - give me the NERVOUS (attentive) driver over the RELAXED (auto-pilot) driver any day of the week. (As I look into the windshields of oncoming cars, the vast majority consist of a just a driver, ear attached to a cel phone. And to the guy I flipped off with both hands as he crested Drexel hill IN THE PEDESTRIAN/BIKE lane so he could pass a car turning left; sorry - the thought of impending death got the better of me before I leapt into the ditch to avoid being squished. And kudos to you for managing to flip me off in return before thinking of your brakes or steering out of the pedestrian lane. Way to stick up for yourself; don't let the big, bad runner intimidate that four wheel drive Dodge Ram!)
Franklin's roads - - like those of so many sprawled suburbs - - are built for speed; pedestrians, kids, and bikers be damned. Soon, I'm sure, they'll add banked corners as well.
Milwaukee aldermen voted today to oppose the expansion of Interstate 94
south of the city to eight lanes, urging instead that money saved by
scaling back the $1.9 billion project go to bolster rail initiatives.
The
Common Council voted 10-4 to back the resolution, which is aimed at
influencing the state Department of Transportation as it completes a
new round of hearings on the proposal.
Ald. Bob Bauman, who
sponsored the measure, said the state should be working with local
units of government on a comprehensive approach to upgrading
transportation links from Milwaukee south through Racine and Kenosha
counties.
He noted there also are discussions for high-speed
rail upgrades that would include the corridor and for a
Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee commuter rail. Those projects have been
stalled since they are without a complete source of funding.
Bauman
moved today to pull the measure from committee, where it had been held,
to assure the city weighed in before the end-of-the-month deadline.
Aldermen had initially thought they would be given an extension.
Voting
in favor of the measure were Bauman and aldermen Ashanti Hamilton, Joe
Davis, Mike D'Amato, Willie Wade, Bob Donovan. Michael Murphy, Jim
Witkowiak, Tony Zielinski and Willie Hines. Opposed were aldermen Jim
Bohl, Robert Puente, Joe Dudzik and Terry Witkowski.
In emphasizing fears
of traffic congestion as a rationale for adding freeway lanes, Journal
Sentinel columnist Patrick McIlheran and other leading voices in the
Milwaukee 7 region miss a real strategic opportunity to refocus the
story our region tells.
Milwaukee's highway system is a success, one of the least congested
of any major metropolitan area in the country. The Texas Transportation
Institute is the most respected name in traffic analysis, and its 2007
report ranks our region 52nd in metropolitan freeway congestion, on par
with modest locales such as Tulsa and Grand Rapids, Mich.
The typical driver of Detroit or San Diego highways experiences more
than 50 hours of delay per year, compared to 19 hours in Milwaukee.
Even without the extensive re-engineering and lane expansions that are
propelling projected freeway costs into the stratosphere - and driving
up state debt - Milwaukee actually saw its rush-hour period shorten
between 2000 and 2005.
Except for a few problem spots, Milwaukee has its highway traffic
problems licked. In touting regional economic assets, Milwaukeeans need
to say it loud and proud - come here for our uncongested highways - and
then work with the state to shift investment into areas such as
high-tech research and education, transit and tax relief where our
region needs to be far more competitive.
Stephen Filmanowicz
Communications director
Congress for the New Urbanism
Chicago
The Reid Plan, a blog that concentrates on Milwaukee urban development, notes the following: The UW-Milwaukee plans to acquire land with the intention of building a new engineering school - - in Wauwatosa! When even the city's namesake university flees the city, you gotta wonder ...
Dave Reid writes:
Although UWM's ambitious plan to grow the university has value and
promise its choice of location in Wauwatosa will have long term
negative impacts on the city, the students, and the region. By locating
the new school in Wauwatosa it will add congestion, promote costly
freeway expansion, make higher education less affordable, put
additional burdens on students, increase pollution, and encourage
sprawl.
Locating UWM's new engineering campus within the city
has numerous benefits for the students and the city. By locating within
the city, students will have better access to mass transit and shorter
distances to travel. By locating within the city, students who have
gone to undergraduate school at UWM and wish to go on to graduated
school won't need to move out of their homes to be close to campus. By
locating within the city, students will have better access to
internship opportunities at Fortune 500 companies such as JCI and
Rockwell. By locating within the city, Milwaukee keeps 300 college
graduates who will spur development, support local business, add eyes
on the street, innovate, live and work. Keeping UWM within Milwaukee
helps the students to help the city.
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel coverage of the story is here.
Tragic news confirmed yesterday as the body of a woman recovered in Lake Michigan near McKinley Marina was confirmed to be that of Milwaukee "green" architect Diane Trevarrow Evans.
"Like the Greatest Generation before us, we too can refrain from
throwing away what can be renewed and purchasing only what is
needed. Every detail does matter. The cumulative impact of the
innovative positive choices we make in designing building details
can help to preserve the natural environment contributing to the
health, safety, and welfare of future generations to come."
The Political Environment: "Light Rail Pays Off In Charlotte: Milwaukee Loses Through Political Timidity"
James Rowen links to a terrific article about transit success by Alex Marshall, author of a favorite book of mine, How Cities Work: Suburbs, Sprawl, and the Road Not Taken.
Meantime, Milwaukee wallows in dogma-enforced mediocrity.
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