State Rep. Jon Richards Calls For Modern Transit: Is Scott Walker Listening?

State Rep. Jon Richards, (D-Milwaukee), calls for investment in rail transit in and around Milwaukee.

He is right. And the argument has gained greater validity as gasoline breaks the $4-per-gallon barrier.

The continuing obstacle is Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker, who does not believe in rail for the city, and who is willing use the riders of the county's deteriorating bus system as pawns in his struggle for transit spending control with Mayor Tom Barrett.

Walker wants to use all of a pot of federal funding to buy new buses; Barrett wants the money divided between new buses and a trolley system in the downtown.

The stalemate precedes Barrett's 2004 election.

The county's inability to provide reasonable transit and other important services recently led to the stunning public declaration by Sheldon Lubar, the well-known civil and business leader, that Milwaukee County government could be replaced with much-decentralized structure.

Lubar is also a Republican: disenchantment with Walker and county government is not necessarily partisan.

I have said in various forums that much of Milwaukee County's continuing fiscal problems began when former County Executive F. Thomas Ament and his allies on the county board of supervisors approved a series of greedy and ridiculously unsustainable pension obligations that continue to drain county coffers of millions of dollars annually.

Why I hold Walker responsible for the county's inertia ever since the pension fiasco was unearthed - - recall elections booted Ament and many supervisors, with Walker and other 'reformers winning election in 2002- - - is the way Walker relies on it as the political gift that keeps on giving.

Walker keeps on pleading poverty, and continues to cut services, including the transit system - - even though a large percentage of Milwaukee residents do not own cars, could less afford them now, and rely on buses that charge them among the highest fares in the country.

And Walker has not kept on top of pension problems that have mounted since 2002.

Walker will simply will not lead on fiscal policy. There's no innovation, no plan, no bold combination of tax shifts, let alone any increases, or revenue changes, with the state and city as partners, so that transit can be improved in the city and county.

He recently spelled out his pro-car, anti-rail belief system in an email to Charlie Sykes, posted here.

Opined Walker:

"The reality is that mass transit is for those who are transit dependent: people who need a ride because of income or health status. Its primary purpose is not to thrill people. Its primary purpose is to get people from one spot to another.

"Study after study shows that no matter how “exciting” rail is, the overwhelming majority of workers will stay in their vehicles and drive to work. So why spend millions and millions extra to move a percentage or two into mass transit?"

Maybe Walker doesn't know how many Milwaukee County residents have no access to automobiles, or what the impact of $4-gallon-gasoline has on a low-to-moderate income family?

UW-M researchers have noted that low-income families frequently lack access to an automobile, finding that 81% of people living below the poverty line in the Milwaukee-Ozaukee-Washington-Waukesha region live in the City of Milwaukee.

Walker thinks workers prefer to "stay in their vehicles and drive to work?"
What workers are these, and how in the real world do they get from Milwaukee to jobs in Pewaukee or West Bend or Cedarburg, for example?

Tacking to the right, and not to the center on this constellation of what should be seen as non-partisan matters has made Walker the darling of talk radio and the state GOP, but that leaves the public in the lurch.

Walker recently laid out his pro-car, anti-rail belief system in an email posted by AM-620 WTMJ talker Charlie Sykes.

Without creative solutions, without leadership from Walker - - and soon - - Milwaukee County will lose even more of its bus system.

The downtown trolleys could feed riders to the buses, and vice-versa, expand the new InterModal station downtown and coordinate with the Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee commuter line - - if that long-stalled initiative ever gets running.

Walker has managed to keep Milwaukee as just about the only rail-free big city in America. Soon it will be without a functional bus system, which is a county service.

Walker has to stop falling back on a bad hand he inherited in 2002.

He could start by calling Jon Richards.