Monday, June 15, 2015

WI GOP legislators ignore reality, roadmap to sane road spending

Data has been available for a long time exposing Wisconsin's lobbyist-driven plan to over-borrow-and-spend on wider highways the public doesn't want or need or can afford (think I-94 from Miller Park to the man-made mess known as the Zoo Interchange or the projected expansion of I-39/90 from Rockford to the Wisconsin Dells, for just two among many examples).

"Fix-it-First" has been the mantra from 1000 Friends of Wisconsin for years, with recent updates, though the powers-that-be ignored these sound arguments, in part because the road-builders and their elected patrons understand that there is more money to be made in pouring new concrete than patching with asphalt.

So now that reality is beginning to sink in that Walker's Borrow-Tax-and-Spend 'transportation' budget violates too many conservative financing 'principles,' imagine for a minute taking logic a step further and reprogramming millions of dollars away from Walker's new-lanes obsession and investing it right where where motorists truly want and need it: on their local, obstacle-course streets.

And lest you think this is a plea to back-door fund some of the states' big cities, understand that the problem is just as real in out-state communities and the suburbs, because ice and salt and heavy trucks do their teeth-chattering damage statewide.

Did you know Wisconsin under Walker has fallen to third-worst nationally on the pothole rankings?

Here are photos taken today on streets in two, upper-income Milwaukee County suburbs. Adding superfluous new lanes on Interstate highways and throughout SE Wisconsin's misnamed "freeway" system does nothing to help heavily-taxed homeowners whose residential streets might as well have been maintained by tire repair and body shops.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your photos demonstrate why we need to bring back dirt roads as they have no pavement to crack and deteriortate into holes. If you liberals-types would just get out of the way, we could succeed in making Wisconsin one of the poorest states in America and the laughing stock of the midwest.

Anonymous said...

Compared to the streets on the north side, the pics you post look like pretty good roads. Well, I guess it is the suburbs and they feel entitled...