Milwaukee Streetcar Plan Should Win Procedural Vote Thursday
I expect the committee planning Milwaukee's streetcar system to vote affirmatively Thursday, thus keeping the long-stalled project on track.
Most modern cities in the US and worldwide have some form of rail; Milwaukee needs to be steady in its resolve to get the project begun and expanded, regardless of the roadblocks that will be thrown in the way by talk radio, rightwingers, Tea Partiers, and the like.
Details here.
6 comments:
Agreed. And what's forgotten in all of this, is that the County received funds as well, and as of yet isn't doing anything to improve the bus system.
The street car will be an asset for Milwaukee. The conflict inherent to transit debates can be circumvented since Milwaukee is going it alone. NO suburban/exurban naysayers, NO Influence from awful talk radio mind dribble, NO intergovernmental power struggles. One community, one vision and the resolve to get something done. It's so very very refreshing.
And no self-funding of yet another one of your wasteful choo-choo projects.
You don't want our involvement from outside Milwaukee, well except for the picking of our pockets for all of the funding.
So, Anon Jim, by your 'logic,' should Milwaukee be able to hold back its gas tax and income tax and property tax contributions to the I-94 expansion to the Illinois line? Or to the Zoo Interchange project? Or to the Pabst Farms interchange?
James - while I do not know this for 100%, my guess is that the total amount of external governmental money going into Milwaukee from the suburbs, the state of Wisconsin, and the Feds (and I mean all forms of aid, revenue-sharing, grants, assistance, child care, food stamps, education, the never ending etc.) exceeds the amount of tax revenue going out.
So I would say yes, Milwaukee can keep all of it's tax revenue, but the spigot flowing in would be turned off.
Regarding the gas tax and the road projects you mention, theoretically road building would be self funded via the state and federal gas taxes. The fact that the highway funds get looted for all sorts of other reason, like Diamond Jim Doyle did to reward the teachers unions for their payoffs to him, is just what happens when you give dishonest politicians control of the piggy bank.
And that is without even getting into the fact Milwaukee got more than their fair share of the road building budget with the reconstruction of the Marquette interchange.
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