by jboullion | Mar 16, 2010 | Uncategorized
From an article by Richard Mial in the La Crosse Tribune:
Should local communities have the right to charge an additional half-percent sales tax to operate mass transit systems?
That’s an issue being considered in the Legislature in the last month before it ends its session for the year.
State Rep. Jennifer Shilling, D-La Crosse, said she is in favor of “empowering” local communities to take steps to shore up transit funding.
She has introduced a bill authorizing La Crosse County to have a regional transit authority – an additional level of government that could impose taxes for mass transit.
Already, the Chippewa Valley, Dane County and Chequamegon Bay communities along Lake Superior have such an authority, although none have enacted it yet.
If passed by the state, it wouldn’t happen automatically. The county board first must pass a law and then voters must approve a referendum.
Shilling and other local representatives spoke at a public hearing Thursday on several provisions to allow specific communities to enact RTAs.
While Shilling’s Assembly Bill 791 would give such authority to La Crosse County, legislators have suggested it makes more sense to enact a law that would allow any county to create a transit authority if its citizens vote to do so.
Shilling told the committee that, “An RTA would reduce costs for users, provide residents and visitors with additional transit options, reduce road congestion for drivers, ease parking needs and decrease energy consumption and air pollution.”
Dick Granchalek, president of the Greater La Crosse Area Chamber of Commerce, said mass transit can be good for business.
by jboullion | Mar 10, 2010 | Uncategorized
From an editorial in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Failure to get behind one plan threatens to again doom state legislation that local transit systems desperately need to continue serving their communities.
There is widespread support for the creation of regional transit authorities that would provide the dedicated funding necessary for transit systems in southeastern Wisconsin – especially the Milwaukee County Transit System. But there is a possibility that nothing will happen in the current legislative session. And if that proves to be the case, supporters in the Legislature should look no farther than their mirrors for someone to blame.
Instead of uniting behind one sound proposal – such as that offered by the governor and legislative leaders in January – legislators have offered different versions of RTA legislation that only serve to confuse the issue.
On Thursday, legislators are expected to hold a public hearing on the issue in Madison. Transit riders, business leaders, union leaders, local officials and others should make sure their voices are heard. They should stress the importance of transit in building jobs and the economy, and they should tell legislative leaders to unite behind one proposal and make sure it is approved this spring. Transit systems and the families and businesses that rely on them cannot afford to wait much longer for relief.
Ridership on the Milwaukee County Transit System was down 9% last year to a 35-year low, as Journal Sentinel reporter Larry Sandler reported on Monday. The reasons are wide-ranging: the economy, the loss of a contract with Milwaukee Public Schools and certainly a continuing pattern of fare increases and/or route cuts that discourages riders.
And things won’t get any better as long as governments that fund transit have to rely on an already overburdened property tax. To provide the funding that systems require and at the same time offer property taxpayers relief, legislators need to approve legislation that would authorize the creation of regional transit authorities.
That legislation should include a 0.5% sales tax increase for Milwaukee County, as the governor’s bill proposes and other funding means in other counties.
by jboullion | Mar 9, 2010 | Uncategorized
From an article by Larry Sandler in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Milwaukee Common Council President Willie Hines Jr. joined business and labor leaders Tuesday in urging state lawmakers to approve legislation expanding the Southeastern Regional Transit Authority and authorizing a 0.5% Milwaukee County sales tax for transit.
“The current financing strategy is obsolete and can no longer sustain our system,” Hines said of property tax support for the Milwaukee County Transit System. “Our transit system is desperately in need of help.”
At a news conference in the City Hall Rotunda, two days before a hearing by the Assembly Transportation Committee, Greater Milwaukee Committee President Julia Taylor, construction trade union leader Lyle Balistreri, Milwaukee Area Technical College faculty union leader Michael Rosen and Milwaukee Area Workforce Investment Board Chairman John Kissinger said public transit is crucial to connect workers to jobs.
They and Hines recited the statistics: 52% of county bus riders don’t have a valid driver’s license; 75% have no other form of transportation; 43% ride the bus to work; and 42% of residents below the poverty line don’t have access to a car. Cheri McGrath, a blind Wauwatosa resident, added that unemployment is 75% among the disabled, who largely rely on transit.
by jboullion | Feb 8, 2010 | Uncategorized
From a blog post on BizTimes by Robert Mariano, chairman and chief executive officer of Roundy’s Supermarkets Inc. in Milwaukee, co-written by Dick Hansen, president and CEO of Johnson Financial Group Inc., Racine:
On behalf of the nearly 7,400 employees we represent, we wish to express the important role regional transportation plays in our economic future. We are committed to ensuring dedicated funding for a balanced regional transit system and encouraging our business colleagues to do the same.
We represent two of southeastern Wisconsin’s largest institutions and provide critical services to thousands of local residents on a daily basis. We understand that a fully-funded transit infrastructure impacts our clients, customers, business, and the economic climate in southeastern Wisconsin. We have hundreds of employees that use buses to get to work every day, however that number continues to decrease as the bus system disintegrates. Continued cuts to the system impair our employees’ ability to get to work and our clients’ and customers’ ability to get critical services and products.
We hope it is clear that we understand firsthand how transit affects our larger community as well as our specific organizations, and we are committed to working with the Legislature to see that a politically and economically sound funding source for transit is implemented in our region during this session.
We are issuing a call to action for our representatives in Madison. We need a truly regional, multi-county, multi-modal regional transit authority including Kenosha, Racine and Milwaukee Counties to be immediately focused on improving bus transit throughout the region and advancing the KRM commuter rail project. We must have a dedicated funding mechanism for transit, which must provide property tax relief, restore routes and rescind fare increases to allow for efficient and effective bus operations throughout the region to allow for economic development and regional growth.
by jboullion | Jan 25, 2010 | Uncategorized
From an article by Larry Sandler in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Despite a setback in the county budget process, Milwaukee County officials still are planning for enhanced express bus service, also known as bus rapid transit.
County Executive Scott Walker’s administration is preparing to give the County Board options in March for a one-route or two-route bus rapid transit system, using $36.6 million in federal funding, said Brian Dranzik, administration director for the county Department of Transportation and Public Works.
That cash is the county’s portion of $91.5 million in long-idle federal transit aid, which Congress divided between the city’s planned streetcar line and the county bus system after local officials couldn’t agree on how to spend it. The money legally cannot be spent on the Milwaukee County Transit System’s operating expenses.
Walker has long advocated using the federal money for bus rapid transit, or BRT, which supporters tout as offering the advantages of light rail at a lower cost. BRT lines typically use modern, energy-efficient buses that resemble light rail vehicles, running in reserved lanes or separate roadways, with stoplights rigged to turn green when the vehicles approach.
The Milwaukee County version would run in regular traffic but with automatic green lights for buses. Like their counterparts elsewhere, local BRT stops would have electronic signs showing the wait for the next bus.
In the 2010 county budget, Walker proposed a BRT line from the County Grounds in Wauwatosa through downtown Milwaukee to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Supervisors sliced that plan out of the budget, saying they wanted more details.
Transit officials recently presented three options to the board’s Transportation, Public Works and Transit Committee. One option would have used all the federal money to buy new buses, without adding BRT service.
