The Milwaukee Transit Riders Union will be hosting a presentation and open house organised by students from the School of Urban Planning at UWM this Saturday. The Transit Riders Union is functioning as a client for a transit visioning and planning project at the school. The students will be presenting the results of their project as well as gathering public input. All interested in the future of public transit in our area are encouraged to attend.

The presentation and open house will occur during the Transit Riders Union meeting this Saturday, at 11:15 am, at Brewing Grounds for Change Coffeehouse. Agendas will be available before the meeting.

Brewing Grounds is located at 2008 N. Farwell on Milwaukee’s East Side. It is located on rt. 30, is one block east of rt. 15, and 3 blocks south of rt. 21. More detailed directions are available in the Meetings section of the website.

Vote Pro-Transit on Tuesday, April 1!

Local and statewide elections will be held this Tuesday, April 1. All Milwaukee County supervisors, as well as the county executive will be up for election. Within the city of Milwaukee, aldermen, the city attorney, and the mayor are also up for election.

Polls are open from 7AM to 8PM. All employers are required by state law to allow their employees to take up to 3 hours off from work to vote, so long as they request the time off before the day of the election.

Milwaukee County Candidates

Map of Milwaukee County Supervisory Districts

City of Milwaukee Candidates

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel Elections Website (has information and articles on all city, county, and suburban races)

Shepherd Express Website (has information about and endorsements for city and county races)

89.7 WUWM Public Radio Elections Website (has information about all elections as well as interviews with some of the candidates)

How and where to vote in the city of Milwaukee

For information about voting in the suburbs, contact your local government:

Brown Deer: 371-3000

River Hills: 352-8213

Bayside: 351-8811

Glendale: 288-1700

Fox Point: 351-8900

Whitefish Bay: 962-6690

Shorewood: 847-2700

Wauwatosa: 479-8900

West Allis: 302-8200

West Milwaukee: 645-1530

Greenfield: 329-5219

Greendale: 423-2100

Hales Corners: 529-6161

Franklin: 425-7500

St. Francis: 481-2300

Cudahy: 769-2204

South Milwaukee: 762-2222

Oak Creek: 768-6500

The Milwaukee Transit Riders Union was recently featured in a column on the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel website. The column, written by former county and city hall reporter Larry Sandler, outlines the two candidates for county executive’s- State Senator Lena Taylor and incumbent Scott Walker- positions on different public transit issues.

It can be accessed here

Tuesday, 18 March 2008                                                     For immediate release

Contact: Samuel Jensen (414) 405 6753

or Matt Nelson (414) 273 9777

www.transitridersunion.org

Candidates lack transit vision

The Milwaukee Transit Riders Union on Tuesday urged both candidates for Milwaukee County executive to get serious about public transit. “Both County Executive Scott Walker and his challenger, State Senator Lena Taylor, lack realistic plans for dealing with Milwaukee County’s transit issues,” said Samuel Jensen, organizer with the Transit Riders Union. “Both candidates have spoken of the funding issues surrounding bus service in Milwaukee County, but neither candidate has put forth a realistic plan to solve them.”

During his first two terms Walker has repeatedly cut bus service and raised fares.

“Scott Walker’s inability to come to an agreement with other regional leaders on funding sources for the KRM Commuter Rail connection to Chicago and the Milwaukee Connector has left both projects stalled by the side of the road, with over $91 million in federal dollars soon to be lost to other cities,” Jensen said. “His only proposal for solving MCTS’s funding crisis involves increased state funds, an unrealistic proposition in a time of large state budget shortfalls.

“While his opponent, Senator Taylor, has repeatedly stated the importance of public transit in our county, she has yet to come forth with any proposals of her own on how to solve the current funding crisis. She has also not come forth with any proposal to get the KRM and Milwaukee Connector projects back on track,” added Jensen.

The Milwaukee Transit Riders Union urges both candidates to come up with detailed, realistic proposals for dealing with the serious issues surrounding public transit in our community before it’s too late.

# # #

For more information, contact Samuel Jensen (414) 405 6753 or Matt Nelson (414) 273 9777.

www.transitridersunion.org

Representatives from the Milwaukee County Transit System will give a short presentation at the Transit Riders Union meeting this Saturday outlining upcoming service reductions.

As per the current Milwaukee County budget, a number of routes will be shortened and/or reorganised later this month. Anyone interested in learning more about these cuts in service should attend the meeting this Saturday.

The meeting will be at 11:15 at Brewing Grounds for Change Coffee Shop, 2008 N. Farwell.

According to MCTS, bus service in Milwaukee County was suspended entirely at 5:30 today due to the snowstorm. Additionally, Waukesha Metro Transit service will end at 7:15 p.m.

Service is planned to resume as usual for both systems on Thursday morning.

For more information, visit: MCTS- www.ridemcts.com and Waukesha Metro Transit- www.waukeshametro.org.

This is a reminder that MCTS bus schedules will be changing as usual on December 30. The routes preview is now available on the MCTS website: http://www.ridemcts.com/preview/. There will be some small reductions in the number of trips, as well as the shortening of route 53. More changes are expected this spring, along with the cutting of sections of certain routes. We will post more information on this spring’s schedule changes when it becomes available.

The Milwaukee Transit Riders Union has been discussing the current plan to widen Interstate 94 from Milwaukee to the state line. Public input is still possible in the process. The closest public meeting to Milwaukee will be held at the Airport Best Western, which is just off MCTS Route 80. More information is available below.

Next road work tab $1.9 billion

Freeway project would expand I-94 to eight lanes from airport to state line

By TOM HELD
theld@journalsentinel.com

Posted: Nov. 15, 2007

The next massive freeway project for southeast Wisconsin, reconstructing and expanding I-94 from the state line to the Mitchell Interchange, comes with equally massive sticker shock: $1.9 billion, the biggest price tag in state roadway history.

State Transportation Secretary Frank Busalacchi shared that hefty cost estimate Thursday when he made public the preferred plan to expand the 35 miles of freeway from six lanes to eight.

The department will release its draft environmental impact statement on the project today, and will seek Federal Highway Administration approval to begin the construction in the Mitchell Interchange in 2009.

The state will look for federal highway funds to pay for half of the $1.9 billion estimated cost.

That figure covers the reconstruction of 17 interchanges in Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha counties, straightening of the Plainfield curve just south of Howard Ave. and the real estate costs to acquire a dozen houses and a dozen businesses in the freeway right of way. Two of the homes would be removed only if the state wins federal approval to add an interchange at Drexel Ave. in Oak Creek.

The completion date is set for 2016.

The number of homes to be removed has dropped steadily during the project planning, from earlier estimates of 40 to 45 in Milwaukee County alone, to the four in Milwaukee County and another eight scattered in Racine and Kenosha counties.

As the property impacts decreased, the price tag climbed, to a figure that stuns some officials.

“Those are huge, huge numbers when you’re talking $1.7 (billion) to $2 billion,” said Patrick Curley, chief of staff to Mayor Tom Barrett. “What that all means when this is all constructed is that it’s going to be higher.”

Barrett was tied up Thursday with the selection of a new police chief in Milwaukee and unavailable to comment on the I-94 reconstruction plan.

For comparison, the ongoing reconstruction of the Marquette Interchange is estimated to cost $810 million.

Only the deep tunnel project with other improvements to the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District appears to be a more expensive public works project, topping $4 billion, spread through the 1980s and up to 2010.

Taken as a whole, the freeway reconstruction in southeast Wisconsin, as projected by the regional plan commission, will top $6.23 billion, according to a 2003 estimate. That plan also calls for expanding the east-west I-94 to eight lanes from the Zoo Interchange to Highway 16 in western Waukesha County.

Objections raised

The logical question to ask is “what can we afford,” said Steve Hiniker, executive director of the environmental advocacy group 1000 Friends of Wisconsin.

The cost goes beyond dollars to the additional encroachment on farmland and wetlands and the additional auto emissions, Hiniker said.

“You have a couple billion dollars now going into freeway expansion at a time when we’re also trying to figure out ways to reduce auto travel because of the use and cost of oil and the impacts on our climate,” he said. “We have to take a deep breath and figure out how we’re going to build a multimodal system, instead of just pouring concrete.”

Gretchen Schuldt, co-chair of Citizens Allied for Sane Highways, a group opposed to freeway expansion, took a similarly critical view.

The added lanes will contribute to the health problems in children caused by the auto-produced pollutants, particularly those attending schools in the freeway corridor, Schuldt said.

And the plan to expand the freeways seems counter to the ongoing shift in transportation resources.

“The oil era is clearly coming to an end,” Schuldt said. “Instead of investing in transit and smart energy projects, we’re throwing it on pavement and will bankrupt the state sooner rather than later.”

Busalacchi found support for his plan from Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker and area legislators who regard the north-south corridor as a vital pathway for commerce and a link to the dollars available in the Chicago marketplace.

In their view, the 35 miles of concrete and asphalt, at nearly 50 years old, has deteriorated beyond repair, and projected congestion will hamper the transport of products into and through the state. Without the reconstruction and expansion, accident rates will continue to increase, they say.

Busalacchi said the result of rebuilding the interchange in its current six-lane configuration would foster gridlock in several areas. Traffic volumes will top 130,000 vehicles a day in Kenosha County and 190,000 vehicles a day near the Mitchell Interchange, exceeding the capacity of the six-lane freeway by 2035, according to DOT figures.

“In order to keep Wisconsin open for business, and to keep the economy growing, we have to keep this open,” Busalacchi said.

Rep. Jeff Stone (R-Greendale) said the lost business and economic impact of not expanding the corridor to eight lanes would be more than the cost of the project.

“These expansions are expensive, and yet, we have congestion that needs to be addressed, and the only way you’re going to get there is by adding capacity,” said Stone, who focuses on transportation spending as a member of the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee.

The plan Busalacchi provided includes changes in the construction schedule for the project.

Work would start on the Mitchell Interchange in 2009, with the reconstruction there to be completed by 2012, in time for work to start on the Zoo Interchange on the west side of the county.

The frontage roads in Racine and Kenosha counties would be rebuilt over the same time.

After completion of the Mitchell Interchange work, crews will begin rebuilding and expanding the interstate at the state line and proceed north.

Public hearings are scheduled as follows:
-Dec. 3, 4-8 p.m. West Middle School, 8401 S. 13th St., in Oak Creek
-Dec. 6, 5-8 p.m. Mahone Middle School, 6900 60th St., Kenosha
-Dec. 11, 5-8 p.m. CATI Center, 2320 Renaissance Blvd., Sturtevant
-Dec. 12, 4-8 p.m. Best Western Airport, 5105 S. Howell Ave., Milwaukee. Comments on the draft environmental impact statement can be sent to: WisDOT Southeast Freeways Team, 141 NW Barstow St., Waukesha, WI 53187. The deadline is Dec. 31.

Tuesday, November 13 2007, 10:32

by Steve Schultze

Walker budget vetoes cut $9 million 

Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker today issued budget vetoes that cut nearly $3 million for parks, $2 million for courts and $1.2 million for alcohol and drug abuse programs.

He also rejected a 4% pay increase for county supervisors, saying it was a last-minute budget addition by the board that gave the public no chance to weigh in. And Walker cut $2 million the board had earmarked for a rainy-day fund and trimmed several other pet programs of supervisors, such as $200,000 for youth athletics.

In all, Walker’s vetoes chop some $9 million in spending from the County Board-passed budget, bringing it back to nearly the same $241 million tax levy figure for 2008 that Walker had initially proposed in September.

In many cases, the cuts Walker made were in areas the board had plugged holes with county property tax levy to make up for reduced state or federal funding. Walker said it was important to hold the line on local increases in those instances.

To “backfill” with property tax levy in those cases would remove leverage the county might have in trying to lobby for restoration of state and federal funding, Walker said.

Walker did not disturb the $3 million in funding for bus and paratransit service added by the board, which restored bus routes that otherwise would have been trimmed and eliminated some fare increases that Walker had proposed. That was possible because of an unexpected extra $3.2 million in state transit aid included in the state budget.

His vetoes shouldn’t be taken as a sign he’s at war with the County Board, Walker said in his veto message.
“I am battling against the reality that Milwaukee County finds itself in a fight to keep businesses and families from leaving because our taxes are too high,” he said.

He pledged to work with Circuit Court Judge Kitty Brennan, the county’s chief judge, and the County Board in lobbying the state to increase court funding. Meanwhile, the $2 million courts funding cut could force trims that Brennan has told Walker and the board are unacceptable.

The County Board will take up the vetoes on Wednesday and needs 13 votes, or a two-thirds majority, to override them.

Board reverses budget cuts

County spending plan would raise taxes 3.7%, restore funds for parks, transit

By STEVE SCHULTZE
sschultze@journalsentinel.com

Posted: Nov. 5, 2007

The Milwaukee County Board on Monday restored proposed cuts to parks staffing, public transit funding and drug treatment spending by decisive margins, adopting a $1.34 billion budget that would raise property taxes by 3.7% next year.

The budget would restore some $9 million in items cut by County Executive Scott Walker, who has proposed six consecutive budgets that sought to hold the property tax levy to the previous year’s level. Supervisors said the increases they inserted are needed to maintain the social safety net and protect vulnerable citizens.

The vote on the overall budget was 14-5, with Supervisors Mark Borkowski, Paul Cesarz, Dan Devine, Joseph Rice and Jim “Luigi” Schmitt voting against it. That margin is veto-proof – assuming at least 13 of those who backed the budget stand by their votes in a veto showdown.

Schmitt said he was voting the wishes of residents of his Wauwatosa district who “feel they are taxed enough.”

Despite the solid majority in favor of the added spending, Walker threatened to veto the board’s entire increase.

Walker promised to veto the budget down to a 0% increase, saying he may find some creative ways to do so.

Walker urged taxpayers to call their county supervisors to support paring back the board’s levy increase.

He said he was heartened by the public opposition to Milwaukee Public Schools’ proposed double-digit levy increase last week.

The board is to take up Walker’s vetoes Nov. 14.

Next year’s county property tax levy would rise to $250 million with the County Board’s $9 million boost over Walker’s budget plan. The proposed $3.88 per $1,000 tax rate would mean a $6.19 property tax increase next year for the owner of a Milwaukee home valued at $150,000, if the board’s action stands.

“We’ve got a guy upstairs who thinks zero, zero, zero – no matter what,” Supervisor Roger Quindel said of Walker, whose courthouse office is one floor up from supervisors. Walker forced the County Board to repair overly harsh and unrealistic trims, Quindel said.

County Board Chairman Lee Holloway called the budget “about the best we could do right now,” given Walker’s cuts and other constraints.

Supervisor pay rate increase included

The budget includes a 4% pay raise for county supervisors that would take effect after the April election, raising supervisor pay to $52,080 next year and $52,704 in 2009. The increase passed 12-7 – one vote shy of a veto-proof majority.

Walker hinted he will veto the pay raise, calling its inclusion in the budget an unprecedented and unwise move. Holloway, who sponsored the amendment for the pay increase, said it was deserved and would be the first in more than seven years.

If no raise is approved by Dec. 1, supervisors’ pay would remain frozen at $50,679 through 2012.

Points of disagreement

In contrast to some recent budgets, the full board essentially rubber-stamped the changes made by the board’s finance committee over the past month and softened many of Walker’s cuts.

His plan to cut 81 park worker positions was shelved, as was his corresponding idea of hiring more summer seasonal help to plug the gap. That was one of the costliest increases made by the board at $1.9 million. The board went along with Walker’s plan to hire 12 new park bicycle patrols – part-time summer help to monitor the busiest parks.

The board reversed more than $3 million in cuts to transit, including shortening of several bus routes and eliminating a proposed 75-cents-a-ride increase in Transit Plus rides for people with disabilities. That would keep the paratransit fare at $3.25 a ride. The board ratified Walker’s 25-cents increase in bus fares, raising them to $2 a ride – one of the highest fares in the country. Adult and student weekly bus passes won’t rise, however.

An additional $3.2 million in state transit aid approved by the Legislature after Walker submitted his budget should be used to avoid cuts or fare increases proposed by Walker, supervisors said.

The board agreed on restoring $600,000 to partially make up for the loss of federal money for drug treatment programs; another $302,000 for drug and alcohol abuse prevention programs; and $280,000 to keep the 211 hotline, which provides social program referrals.

The board let stand Walker’s plan to increase spending on mental health by some $2.7 million, including $1 million to help private developers build more housing and $1.3 million for extra staff at the Mental Health Complex in Wauwatosa. Those moves were spurred by Journal Sentinel articles disclosing squalid living conditions for people with mental illness and the deaths of several people in the county’s care.

About $850,000 was restored by the board for court operations, and a new $1 million “inclusive housing fund” was approved with the money coming from proceeds of anticipated county land sales. The fund would help subsidize affordable housing.

The budget also includes a 75-cent increase in admission to the county zoo and a $1 increase in zoo parking.

The board also restored funding for University of Wisconsin Extension programs and the farm and fish hatchery at the House of Correction.

Supervisors warned that the budget still may be on shaky footing, in part because of its reliance on saving some $10 million next year on the county’s pension payment through refinancing its pension debt. The Legislature has not given the county the authority to issue 30-year pension bonds.