'Led' by Scott Walker, The Region Is Letting Transit Die

There's going to be a quick, $25 million ponied by the state and some junior partners so upscale shoppers can drive a direct route off I-94 to the Pabst Farms proposed glitzy mega-mall - - but Waukesha's County Executive Dan Vrakas and Milwaukee County's Scott Walker closed ranks against the region's lower-income residents and said "no" to a regional transit system.

The region's big-city Mayors, including Waukesha's Larry Nelson, want a regional transportation system because they run cities, where people of all classes and needs live, work, and require transportation options.

The crazy anomaly in the dysfunctional regional transportation non-system is that Walker is in charge of Milwaukee's buses, which he's willing to help drive into oblivion with fare hikes and service cuts because his private-sector-first mentality, if you can call it that, wishes upon a star that someday everyone will own a car, will have no use for the bus, and can happily motor on over to Mayfair, even to Pabst Farms.

The losers here are Milwaukee central city residents, many without access to a car, let alone to vehicle ownership, whom Walker wants to pay more of their already meager incomes for shrinking transit services - - services that will not take them to jobs in expanding suburbs that Walker's anti-city policies are helping to grow.