Save the buses!
Impose a sales tax.
OK.
Fund light rail!
What?
Patrick McIlheran writes:
In case you thought that a sales tax for transit is all about saving buses, the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Transit Authority disabused you of that on Monday. This is also about ginning up money for train rides for hip people.
Actually, the RTA disabused you of the idea that we lack a regional transit authority. We've already got one. It just can't tax you, yet. On Monday, its members voted to ask the Legislature for that power.
They propose charging 0.5% in Kenosha, Milwaukee and eastern Racine counties to pay for buses - and commuter trains.
Polite opinion agrees that to pay for transit, sales taxes are the way to go, and, second, that we need lots more money for transit worthy of the name, which means rail, which we need because cool businesses won't show up unless we demonstrate our cosmopolitan cred.
So, for instance, the head of Milwaukee's airport-area business improvement group wrote online the other day that some unnamed start-up that would have hired 60 "creative design young professionals" eschewed Milwaukee because we lack trains. "People in northern Illinois want to come to the airport and downtown Milwaukee by train, but options are limited," wrote the essayist, Tom Rave.
Businesses and young professionals are rejecting Milwaukee BECAUSE there is no light rail. Yeah, right.
I am so tired of hearing that the only way to travel the road to a renaissance for Milwaukee is via trains.
I just don't buy it.
Rail is an incredibly costly investment. It's a gamble.
...The Milwaukee to Kenosha KRM line, for instance, would cost about $200 million to build, say its backers, and would cost taxpayers another $6.3 million a year to run - about $3.71 in subsidy per ride. For that, it would handle about 3% of the total travel between the three counties, hardly a cure for congestion.
And, as Rave and others are quick to say, we need more than one commuter train. Enthusiasts, including some in public office, see light rail in our future. A sales tax makes this thinkable.
Fine, although light rail costs a fortune. Minneapolis' planned line costs about $86 million a mile. Seattle voters just OK'd a 55-mile system that would cost as much as $300 million a mile.
That takes the matter far beyond the necessities of decent public transit. It amounts to taxing everyone, including lower- and middle-income people, to furnish premium rides to lure "creative young professionals" out of their BMWs.
"It's an amenity and should be thought of as an amenity," said Tory Gattis, a Houston business consultant and a sometimes critic of that city's light rail system. Just like cities add stadiums to attract businesses, they put in rail as a sign that they're big league.
"Every city has this, 'You're not a real city until you've got rail,' " he says.
But does it attract anything? Houston was among the nation's fastest growing places before it added rail. So were Dallas, Denver and Minneapolis. Adding light rail in Buffalo or beefing it up in Cleveland have done nothing to stem their decline.
Why assume that rail in Milwaukee would be a success story?
Why not assume that it would be ineffective, as in Buffalo or Cleveland?
Putting money into buses makes sense.
Putting money into light rail at a cost of tens or hundreds of millions of dollars per mile is not wise.
I just can't be sold on rail with the "you're not a real city until you've got rail" line.
It's important to determine what the residents of the city need most. What they need is not the same as what a few people want.
7 comments:
Like I've siad to you before Mary: You should travel the world a bit. If you could see how trains work and transform the way people live and work in Europe, you might get some perspective on this issue.
What makes you assume that I haven't traveled "the world a bit"?
Are you familiar with Milwaukee and southeastern Wisconsin?
Do you understand its population and economy?
To comment on this issue, you need that perspective.
From alot of the stuff you write, it's a good assumption that you haven't seen much of the world Mary.
I'm correct aren't I?
No, I'm not at all familiar with SE Wisconsin Mary. I have lived most of my life in the northeast and in Ontario, Canada. But I have travelled throughout most of the US and also through Europe.
I am not suggesting that rail is necessarily the answer for Milwaukee. But have you experienced life or even travel with affordable, efficient trains Mary? This is such a wonderful way to get around in Europe and in areas here where there is rail service... for many reasons. I wish it were that way throughout the U.S.
No, you're not right at all.
Look, this post is about rail and southeastern Wisconsin.
I don't understand why you find it necessary to weigh in on this issue.
So you HAVE travelled the world then Mary? Where have you been then? I'm curious to know. I was so sure.....
I haven't been to Eatontown, New Jersey.
Milwaukee is a very dense city, and cities just like it have extremely successful rail service that is faster and more convenient then bus or cars. Milwaukee had one too, then they ripped it out because oil was practically free.
I have been to towns much less dense and not as populated as greater mil. and they have had functioning transit that didn't run only on cars and buses.
Mary is right. If people don't want to pool their money together for a more efficient system that would lessen our dependency on foreign oil, then kudos to them.
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