Press Releases Are A Poor Excuse For Governance
Legislators Plale and Sinicki asking that rail money be tapped and spent on bridge repairs known dam*-well that these federal rail grant funds cannot be shifted around like substituting fries for mashed potatoes on a diner menu, but it will sound to some of their constituents as if the officials are actually doing something.
Electioneering...pandering...the same old same old.
Road-building has gotten virtually all Wisconsin's transportation (sic) budgeting forever: there is no relationship between fixing the Hoan and planning high speed rail.
Would they be asking for a rail repair from highway construction dollars if the circumstances were reversed?
I didn't think so.
No wonder Sen. Jeff Plale has drawn a Democratic primary contender in County Supervisor Chris Larson.
6 comments:
Of course there is a relationship between fixing the Hoan and the rail funds James - we can't afford both transportation modes and people actually use and depend on the Hoan bridge to get to and fro.
Versus your CSR which will be used by almost nobody.
Considering the CSR will never be built anyway, might as well cut our losses now and use the funds for something useful.
Plale is just using common sense.
Plale is posing. HSR is in a segregated fund in a segregated section of the U.S. DOT, and stimulus money cannot be reprogrammed unless it is shown that the money will never be used. This will certainly not be the case.
What Plale should have done is follow Mayor Barrett's lead and ask for new federal money that was just sent to Wisconsin to go toward fixing the bridge. The new money is more than sufficient, and would not keep other DOT priorities from continuing on track.
But then again, Barrett doesn't have to get worried about getting primaried this September, which is something Plale really needs to worry about that result after pulling this shenanigan. Think that anti-rail pose went over well on the Brady St. and Bay View residents in his district?
Maybe Plale saw this MJS article, which James seems to have missed:
Support for new rail transit systems dips below 50%
While I sympathize with users of the Hoan, I believe the road is not used to full capacity but would be with a biking and walking trail on that bridge.
Such a path would attract visitors from all over the Midwest. Nothing in the Midwest compares to the potential of a gorgeous ride over the "top" of a city, with a beautiful view of Lake Michigan and the string of parks along our shore. Chicago has a wonderful single day in the year you may bike on the Lake Drive, ground level. The views from on top in Chicago are pretty much the dominion of the wealthy. Our socialist roots keep Milwaukee more down to earth, sometimes retro, but the idea of a ride on the Hoan has brightened the imagination of many. It's time has come. Bringing tourists to our city will increase our tax revenue and enhance the value of living in the city as folk learn of our great parks, still safe after the most severe assault by private interests in generations.
As for taking rail money to fix the Hoan; it makes as much sense as taking money from health care, from schools, from job investments, from all the development that will happen with a well designed fast train between Madison and Chicago with Milwaukee in the middle of this modern investment. If you want to fix roads, then pay for them with gasoline money. Too long we have used our property taxes to fix and build roads. It's time for the users to pay. And even if you don't drive, you pay when those apples come to market in a truck - that cost is passed on to you. No need to be paying for roads out of your property taxes, too, just so someone can get a free ride.
It seems Plale and Sinicki have made up for past slights, at least long enough to do this. Memory can be so fickle some times....
Jim- Are you still quoting that biased poll from the Public Policy Forum that oversampled suburbanites and left out residents of Milwaukee County and African-Americans? That poll is way off of reality, and there have been far too many of them from the right-wing lie machine in recent weeks to try to build a narrative that doesn't exist.
What Plale and Sinicki should have seen in that poll is that Milwaukee County supports the train (you know, since they are elected to represent MILWAUKEE COUNTY in the Legislature). Larson has pounced all over their pose, both for being wrong on the issue, and for offering a solution THAT CAN'T BE DONE.
Sorry folks, the lies and propaganda are getting to me. We're gonna have to give as good as we get.
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