$65
million more needed each year for SEWRPC plan
May
8, 2006 -- It would take a $65 million
annual funding boost to implement the $21 billion
regional transportation plan favored by a Southeastern
Wisconsin Regional Planning Advisory Committee,
according to new SEWRPC figures.
The
shortfall is about 10% of what SEWRPC says is
needed to each year for 30 years to fund the plan,
which heavily favors highway and road construction.
SEWRPC's
plan calls for significant increases in mass transit,
but for even more increases in road and highway
construction. For every $1 spent on transit, $1.94
cents would be spent on roads and highways.
Overall,
the plan calls for spending $446 million per year
on roads and highways, and $229 million per year
on transit, a total of $675 million per year.
Click here
to see the SEWRPC data.
The
report does not recommend any particular new taxes,
but does say that a dedicated funding source may
be needed to implement the transit recommendations.
SEWRPC
provides no information about the basis for its
cost or revenue estimates, which are contained
in a single table, and does not say whether they
include interest on bonding.
The
proposed transportation plan will be discussed
SEWRPC's Advisory Committee on Regional Transportation
during its meeting at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday May
10, at the Zoofari Center, 9715 W. Bluemound Rd.
SEWRPC
plan would cut farmland by 104 square miles
Sept.
12, 2005 -- Southeastern Wisconsin land
devoted to agricultural uses would shrink by about
104 square miles by 2035, under preliminary recommendations
from the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning
Commission.
That
is an 8.3% reduction from the 1,259 square miles
of farmland in the seven-county area in 2000.
Much
of that loss would be offset by an increase in
housing developments. SEWRPC recommends adding
80 square miles of residential development by
2035, including 14.5 square miles of sprawl-oriented
suburban and rural density housing of 0.6 housing
units or fewer per acre.
Waukesha
County would lose by far the most agricultural
land -- 31.7 square miles, or 18% of the county's
total farmland, according to the SEWRPC report.
The
next largest loss, in Kenosha County, would be
16.2 square miles, or 10.9% of the county's total,
according to the preliminary report, "A Regional
Land Use Plan for Southeastern Wisconsin."
Milwaukee
County would lose just 8.6 square miles of farmland,
but that is 42.5% of the total 20.2 miles of agricultural
land it had in 2000, the base year used in the
report.
Waukesha would gain 11.9 square miles of medium
density housing, defined by SEWRPC to include
2.3 to 6.9 units per acre. It also would pick
up 7.5 square miles in low density housing of
0.7 to 2.2 units per acre, and five square miles
of sprawl housing.
SEWRPC
acknowledges that the availability of water to
various communities west of the subcontinental
divide will influence development.
"The
subcontinental divide not only exerts a major
physical influence on the overall drainage pattern
of the Region, but also carries with it certain
constraints on the diversion of water across the
divide, and thereby constitutes an important consideration
in land use, water supply, and sanitary sewerage
system planning," the report says.
To
see a chart of proposed land use, click here.
To
see a chart of proposed land use by county, click
here.
To
read a SEWRPC newsletter summarizing the report,
click here.
Light
rail, bus guideways pushed for region
SEWRPC
calls for more bike paths, bus service
Aug.
29, 2005 -- Upgrading regional transit
systems to include light rail or fixed guideways
for buses is "essential" for meeting
mass transit needs in southeastern Wisconsin,
according to a new report from the Southeastern
Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission.
The
preliminary report also said a significant increase
in state funding for transit is needed to "address
rising costs, including inflation and real increases
in fuel costs, and to support system improvement
and expansion."
The
state, however, provided no funding increase for
transit in the 2003-05 budget, and just a 2% annual
increase for 2005-07. Annual funding boosts of
4% to 5% may be needed, SEWRPC said.
The
governor and legislature, in the 2005-07 budget,
favored major highway development over transit.
Highways got about a $160 million boost, more
than 50 times the $3 million transit increase.
The
SEWRPC report also calls for the development of
dedicated funding sources for transit's local
cost shares.
The
SEWRPC report, a preliminary update of the regional
transportation plan for the year 2035, is clear
in its support for light rail or a similar technology.
"Public
transit cannot offer convenient accessibilty to
metropolitan area services for those without an
automobile, offer an attractive alternative in
heavily traveled corridors and dense urban metropolitan
area activity centers, or provide a true choice
for travel if it is caught in traffic congestion,
and travel times are not comparable to those of
automobile travel," the report says.
Overall,
the study recommends doubling mass transit service
from about 69,000 vehicle-miles of service on
an average weekday to 138,000 vehicle-miles in
2035.
