Department of Transportation

The state Department of Transportation is about a week away from beginning a series of statewide meetings where you can weigh in on the long-range plan for Wisconsin transportation programs.

Here's a link to the schedule.

Here is the Milwaukee information:

Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Milwaukee County Downtown Transit Center
Harbor Lights Room
909 E. Michigan Ave., Milwaukee, WI

If a thousand people attended each of these meetings, and broght the same simple message - - rail, road aides and repairs first - - the media, department, legislators and Governor would get the word.

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It's the silver lining in an otherwise historically devastating economy:

With an understanding that we've been wasting our money on expensive fuel, overbuilt highways and oversized vehicles - - to say nothing of the overwhelming soot, smog and greenhouse gases the entire OPEC-dependent system produces - - there is no more logical time than right now to begin to shift public investments away from highway expansion to rail connections and infrastructure maintenance.

Leading economists tell us that the current dip in gasoline prices is temporary, that prices will again escalate.

Millions embraced transit at the height of the gas price spike. People clamored for better buses and more trains - - both in short supply in Milwaukee and across the state.

The incoming Obama administration plans to send the cities and states stimulus funding, and what better way to use it in Wisconsin than to repair our aging infrastructure - - from bridges to pothole-dimpled streets - - and to finally move towards a major statewide rail system combining High Speed regional links with local commuter and light rail initiatives.

Rail construction provides jobs; rail operation and maintenance also creates long-term employment, and more sustainable and logical development patterns will follow rail station and line construction.

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Milwaukee, Racine and Waukesha are among six Wisconsin counties violating federal air pollution rules, but the state Department of Transportation and the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission are cooperating to add more lanes and traffic there.

The other counties are Brown, Columbia and Dane - - all still free of light or commuter rail, but with pavement aplenty.

Makes sense?

Hardly.

As I have often written, there is a severe disconnect between scientific and regulatory findings in the US and in Wisconsin about air pollution and greenhouse emissions from vehicle tailpipes that is not coordinated with publicly-financed planning and spending that encourages more driving precisely where the air is already rated as unhealthy.

The state DOT paid SEWRPC $1 million several years ago to write a transportation plan for the region that called for adding 127 miles of new freeway lanes in Milwaukee, Racine, Waukesha, Kenosha, Washington, Walworth and Ozaukee Counties.

The plan did not call for adding one cent to transit systems.

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