Funding shortage should sink unneeded highway expansion plans, groups say
$68.1 million revenue shortfall seen

June 16, 2006 -- The $68.1 million revenue shortfall forecast for the state Transportation fund should prompt the state to drop plans for unneeded freeway expansion, according two groups involved in transportation.

The Legislative Fiscal Bureau released the projection this week. To read the memo, click here.

"Mayor Barrett already has offered to help the state budget by foregoing freeway expansion in the City of Milwaukee," said Gretchen Schuldt, co-chair of Citizens Allied for Sane Highways*. "We think it's in the best interests of the state and the city for the state to take him up on his offer."

"Our transit system is bleeding," she said. "We need to fund that before building freeway lanes we don't need."

"It's time for the advocates of freeway expansion to take off their blinders and realize we're staring into a fiscal abyss the size of the Grand Canyon," said CASH chairman Robert Trimmier. "It's time to let sanity rule in transportation planning. We say the state should start showing that sanity by accepting Mayor Barrett's offer to forego expanding freeways in Milwaukee."

CASH is a coalition formed to oppose freeway expansion in Milwaukee. Barrett also opposes freeway expansion in the city.

Ward Lyles, transportation policy director for the state land use group 1000 Friends of Wisconsin, said the shortfall “is symptomatic of the dysfunctional transportation priorities of the legislature."

“Reports show that highway expansion projects have blown out budgets by more than a billion dollars, gas prices are skyrocketing and people are driving less, and demand for transit is on the rise,” he said. “Legislators are shoving their heads in the ground and ignoring the transportation reality right in front of them. They are stuck in the 1960s, trying to figure out new ways to raid drivers’ pocketbooks to expand roads that people will use less and less at the expense of options such as public transit that people need so badly."

The LFB said part of the transportation fund shortfall comes from the decline in fuel sales that occurred as prices increased. Statewide fuel sales are expected to be 109 million gallons less than expected this year, and 131 million gallons less than expected in 2007.

The state also was overly optimistic in its vehicle registration revenue projections, the LFB said.

"Although the number of registered cars and trucks is expected to grow compared to earlier years, the rate of growth is forecast to be lower than previously expected," the LFB report said. "Reductions in the forecast for disposable income and higher forecasts for vehicle prices and unemployment rates are the cause of the lower estimates."

Registration revenue is expected to face shortfalls of of $10.8 million and $15 million in 2006 and 2007, respectively, according to the report.

Various other revenue sources are expected to be up slightly, and WisDOT has moved to control travel and some employee costs, offsetting some of the shortfall, the WisDOT said in a response to the LFB's findings.

"The department has maitnained a vacancy rate of 8.1% or over 280 FTE this fiscal year," WisDOT said.

*Full disclosure: CASH co-chair Gretchen Schuldt is editor of storyhill.net

Busalacchi to push for Zoo Interchange reconstruction, Medical College president says
State cuts fog line painting to save $$

May 30, 2006 -- Secretary of Transportation Frank Busalacchi has given assurances he will push for the reconstruction of the Zoo Interchange to be put on the fast track, Medical College of Wisconsin College President T. Michael Bolger said.

Bolger told the Legislature's Road to the Future Committee he recently met with Busalacchi.

The secretary "was most attentive and sympathetic," Bolger said. "He did say to me personally that he would advocate for a speed-up to the Zoo Interchange."

Reconstructing the Interchange is expected to cost $500 million or more, according to inflation-adjusted estimates by the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Plannning Commission.

Shortly after Bolger's testimony, Washington County Highway Commissioner Kenneth Pesch said the State DOT has told

counties not to pay fog lines this year "to save a few dollars."

Fog lines are the white lines that run along the sides of state highways. The state contracts with counties for highway maintenance works.

The decision not to paint the lines was a "unilateral" one by WisDOT, Pesch said.

Listen to Ken Pesch's testimony.

storyhill.net on Thursday requested more information about that decision from WisDOT. No response has been received yet.

The state currently is rebuilding the Marquette Interchange, which is expected to cost about $810 billion. It also is spending $30 million on studies needed for the reconstruction of North-South I-94, a project that could cost more than $2 billion.

There is no funding plan for the North-South project, and there is not a complete funding plan for the Marquette.

The 2005-07 state budget includes $3 million for very preliminary work on documentation needed for the Zoo Interchange project.

Barrett seeks new transportation options
Honadel pushes wider freeways

May 30, 2006 -- The state should make major changes in its

long-term transportation policy to promote more efficient and sustainable transportation options, according to Mayor Tom Barrett.

"The City has generally opposed capacity expansion of freeways in the City of Milwaukee," Barrett said in a letter to the Legislature's 'Road to the Future' Committee co-chairs. "I agree with that position. I believe a better investment would be the building of modern rapid transit passenger rail service in the major travel corridors as viable options to highway expansion."

The bipartisan Road to the Future Committee -- formally known as theJoint Legislative Committee on Transportation Needs and Financing -- held a series of hearings around the state to get input on short- and long-term transportation needs. Barrett's comments were presented to the committee last week when it met at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

The committee, chaired by State Rep. Mark Gottlieb (R-Port Washington) and State Sen. Dan Kapanke (R-La Crosse), is widely perceived to have a strong pro-roadbuilding bias.

State Rep. Mark Honadel (R-South Milwaukee), who also appeared before the committee last week, said that freeway expansion should be pursued, despite opposition from MIlwaukee residents who would be most negatively affected.

"It is a mistake to allow opposition from several neighborhoods in the City of Milwaukee to shortchange economic development of the entire seven-county region, or possibly the entire state," he said.

Honadel is one of three legislators who sponsored legislation that would strip Mitchell International Airport from county control and hand it over to private interests. One of the arguments advanced for the move was that neighborhood residents should not have a say in airport expansion plans that would directly affect them.

Honadel, chair of the Assembly Assembly Southeastern Wisconsin Freeways Committee, said that many of the opponents of freeway expansion are Milwaukee elected officials. "It is my opinion that these opponents are flat-out wrong," he said.

Honadel's committee accomplished virtually nothing this year, according to the Journal Sentinel.

Barrett, in his letter, said that highways would continue to play a major role in Milwaukee's transportation system. The state's overwhelming emphasis on highway building, however, "had adverse effects on urban areas by contributing to sprawl development patterns and a diminished quality of life of many urban residents living along major arterials and freeways," he wrote.

"It’s time for a more balanced, multimodal transportation system in Southeast Wisconsin," said Barrett, who earlier this month vetoed a Common Council resolution endorsing a $300 million electric bus system known as the Connector.

To read the Barrett letter, click here.

To read the Honadel presentation, click here.

Mayor Barrett: No expansion

April 17, 2006 -- Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett told a crowd of several hundred south side residents last week that he opposes expanding North-South I-94.

"They have certainly gotten opposition from me to expanding the number of lanes within Milwaukee County," he said, referring to state officials.

“There are hundreds of other places where we either don’t have to spend the money or we can spend the money more wisely,” he said during a freeway listening session at Ronald Reagan High School.

Barrett appeared with Ald. Terry Witkowski before the largely anti-expansion crowd.

Barrett said he did not know where the state would find the money for all the highway projects in the planning stages, including reconstruction and possible expansion of freeways in the Milwaukee area.

Barrett

“Several weeks ago, the secretary of transportation for the state said there was a funding crisis right now in the state of Wisconsin with all the different highway plans that are on the books," Barrett said. "I want to make an offer – we’ll help. I don’t think we need to spend $250 to $300 million on this project right now.”

Barrett said there are problems with the Plainfield curve that need to be corrected, but that he did not support Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission recommendations that call for tearing down dozens of homes in the south side area.

The city stands to lose $600,000 in property tax revenue in a single year if the full SEWRPC plan is implemented for I-94, I-794, I-894, I-43, and US 45, he said. That does not include the tax impact of losing the businesses that SEWRPC estimates would have to be destroyed.

SEWRPC has estimated 140 homes and 13 businesses in the city will have to be destroyed to make way for freeway expansion.

"If I'm fighting for something, I'm fighting to preserve houses and businesses within the city of Milwaukee," Barrett said.

Click here for more videos from the meeting ...
and a question for Gov. Doyle.