Friday, February 13, 2009

Too Many Highway Dollars In Stimulus Package

Special interests still rule the roost, as the stimulus bill favors highway construction over transit.

The first $300 million of money for Wisconsin, which is about 7-9% of a possible $3-$4 billion state total, is already earmarked for highways.

And much of that will go for new lanes on I-90 and I-94, the highway lobby's speciality.

We'll see how much transit ends up with, and how much more goes for highways, as driving is falling off and the number of transit-dependent seniors is growing.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

On a positive note it looks pretty good for high speed rail in Wisconsin.. so that's a start.

James Rowen said...

I agree that could happen. We'll all monitor and advocate.

I admire your glass half-full perspective.

I know that there have been efforts over years to get coffee service on the Chicago-Milwaukee Amtrak trains without success, so an entirely new systen is almost beyond my comprehension.