GM Adjusts To Reality: WisDOT and SEWRPC Do Not

Yeah, there's a lot of alphabet soup in that headline - - with SEWRPC, our Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission being more obscure than the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, or General Motors.

The ironies in Wisconsin surrounding oil-related stories are really cringe-worthy:

GM pulled the plug on truck and SUV production in Janesville, and the state is apparently considering asking the company to return some of the millions of dollars in state aid the company got to keep the Janesville plant modern and open.

Sounds fair, even bold. But hold your applause.

This is the same state government that last week won final federal approval to spend $1.9 billion to rebuild and expand I-94 from Milwaukee to the Illinois state line.

$200 million of that price tag is to pay for adding a fourth lane to the corridor - - 35 miles in each direction - - even as the same gas-price shock that is closing down the Janesville GM plant is also dampening down driving, and causing a companion spike in transit use.

But the I-94 corridor reconstruction plan has no money for a stalled commuter rail project that awaits start-up funding.

And pre-construction project documentation indicates there is minimal congestion on I-94 from Milwaukee to Illinois, as is, with little reduction in commuting times expected by adding the $200-million new lane - - the same amount needed to get trains rolling from Kenosha to Racine to Milwaukee.

And the analysis to justify the highway plan was done before gas hit $4-a-gallon: that planning concluded in 2003, when gas was a lot cheaper, and SEWRPC and WisDOT projected that by 2008, gas would cost $2.51-a-gallon.

Oops.

Really big Ooooooops.

Anybody at WisDOT and SEWRPC suggesting trimming the I-94 expansion, and investing in rail?

Nah.

GM is shutting down the Janesville plant because it has a bottom line to meet and can't keep losing money selling vehicles that customers have abandoned.

SEWRPC doesn't have to meet the same kind of bottom line.

Its financing is automatic, with millions in property tax dollars for operations transferred to its treasury quietly each fall from seven county budgets.

And WisDOT just collects gas tax revenues, various vehicle fees and millions in bonding income, which. protected by both parties, legislators and Governors, it turns over to contractors to build more roads, and little new transit service.

GM has to deal with the market.

WisDOT and SEWRPC can ignore it.

Put yourself in the position of a Janesville GM worker.

Your job is disappearing, but the state government is still taking your tax money and sending it to Southeastern Wisconsin - - the entire 25-30 year freeway plan calls for $6.5 billion in transit-free construction - - to build more roads that you and the rest of us will probably use less.