Amidst His Foaming, A Worthwhile Belling Nugget

Mark Belling was in uber-rant this afternoon over the news that a bridge in the Zoo Interchange has been closed and two months of fresh congestion will further goof up the busiest interchange in the state.

Among his off-the-wall zingers:

People who live in Story Hill and object to an additional I-94 lane past their neighborhood are "crybabies;" people who live near the interchange and would lose their homes in the projected rebuilding live in "shacks;" complaints about the disruption to cemeteries in the reconstruction zone are "a crock;" and my favorite - - officials at the M7 and the MMAC who "enable" the opponents are "lefties."

Poor Tim Sheehy and his CEO constituents.

And Belling mocked those concerned about cemeteries having to move the graves of their loved ones - - including those buried on the grounds of the Veterans Administration cemetery.

And does Belling know or care that the earth in the Jewish cemeteries in the way of expanded freeway lanes is considered sacred?

But in the midst of Belling's superficiality, and the verbal and political flailing this afternoon, was one true fact:

The Zoo Interchange reconstruction scheduling (the redesign is still not a settled matter) should not have been postponed in favor of the I-94 north/south leg between Milwaukee and the Illinois state line.

That project was jump-started with stimulus funding last year.

The $1.9 billion leg was moved ahead of the Zoo Interchange project purely due to politics: the Democrats representing Racine and Kenosha Counties were united on the construction, so that project was moved forward in the timetables.

Furthermore, the traffic counts on I-94 north/south did not justify the expenditures, including one new lane in each direction, but politics, not transportation sanity, was ruling the decision-making.