Milwaukee to get transit?
Mayor Barret and a few responsible members of the Wisconsin congressional delegation did an end-run around County Executive Scott “Fu** the City” Walker to make use of $91 million in federal funding for public transit.
If we’re to believe the write-up from BizTimes.com, the decades-long logjam has finally broken and Milwaukee will be moving into the 21st century. Fellow Milwaukeezers, rejoice!
For more details on the plan, check out this nice PDF from the city:
Filed under Milwaukee, politics : Comments (6) : Mar 13th, 2009 by tadfad
March 15th, 2009 at 11:40
Dude, this is freaking awesome. So, it’s been approved? Like, it’s actually going to happen in the next couple of years?
March 16th, 2009 at 09:59
I’m going to try to not get my hopes up, but one of the commuter stops is research park! This wouldn’t help me out as far as driving to work, but this would be just great for going downtown, leave the car at RP and ride downtown. I love it!
March 16th, 2009 at 20:00
Sounds very interesting. Way to go Milwaukee.
March 17th, 2009 at 19:50
I think it’s really going to happen! Hooray Milwaukee!
March 30th, 2009 at 07:59
The Cost of Rail
“As America’s largest city without rail transit, some people want San Antonio to “keep up” by building light rail. You need to know only one thing: Light rail is really expensive.
I mean, really, really expensive. The average mile of light-rail line costs two to five times as much as an urban freeway lane-mile. Yet in 2007 the average light-rail line carried less than one-seventh as many people as the average freeway lane-mile in cities with light rail.
Do the math: Light rail costs 14 to 35 times as much to move people as highways.
…
How successful is light rail? In 1980, before Portland began building light rail, 9.8 percent of the region’s commuters took transit to work. Today, it is 7.6 percent.
Since 1980, Portland has spent more than $2.3 billion, half the region’s transportation capital funds, building light rail. Yet light rail carries less than 1 percent of Portland-area travel. That’s a success?
…
Is light rail good for the environment? Hardly. Dallas and Denver light-rail lines consume about as much energy and emit about as much greenhouse gases per passenger mile as the average SUV.
…
Taxpayers lose because their money is wasted on rail when buses could do the same thing for less. Transit riders lose when transit agencies cut bus service to pay for rail. Commuters lose when money spent on rail, which does nothing to relieve congestion, delays projects that actually can reduce congestion.”
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9958
May 2nd, 2009 at 08:51
Caught your light rail story Tad, got to say to Brandon way off man, way off. First of all, take a look at the site your quoting, I mean seriously a libertarian think tank group that’s individually funded. Hmm I wonder if they might be a little biased:) If you look at Minneapolis’ light rail usage numbers they’re staggering, in fact even opponents of the rail came out after its immense success and basically said we were wrong. It expanded way ahead of schedule and continues to succeed. As far as environmental concerns I would assume they are considering both rail and train and comparing that to only a car without the energy needed to build and maintain the roads. I can assure you after living in Europe that if it was so environmentally damaging they would not have it in countries that have over 40% of their energy coming from renewable sources. Look I like to look at both sides of the issue but look at sources before you just quote bullshit.
Also to the libertarians here I’m sad to inform you that Ron Paul’s reputation is DONE. Sacha Baron Cohen has absolutely crushed his reputation in his next film by coaxing the man into an interview and into bed with him – no seriously I’ve seen leaks. Some of RP’s ideas were great, others totally fucking stupid. Like disbanding major public institutions like the Education Dept and assuming that private industry would step in and everything would run smoothly. – Brilliant, I can’t see any social stratification occurring as a result of that, I mean rich white people in Brookfield would totally go to school with poor black kids in MKE so …
Just thoughts