SEWRPC's make-up ranks among highest for suburban bias, study says

Jan. 31, 2005 -- Suburban overrepresentation on the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission ranks among the greatest in the country among Metropolitan Planning Organizations, according to a new study from The Brookings Institution.

Some 86% of SEWRPC's voting power goes to suburban communitites, and 14% goes to urban areas, according to the study.

If SEWRPC representation were weighted by populations, urban areas would have 49% of voting power and suburban areas would have 51%.

That 35 percentage point gap between existing and weighted urban representation on SEWRPC is the 12th highest among the 50 metropolitan planning organizations considered in the study, "An Inherent Bias? Geographic and Racial-Ethnic Patterns of Metropolitan Planning Organization Boards," by Thomas Sanchez.

MPOs, such as SEWRPC, are important conduits for receipt of federal and state transportation dollars. MPO studies also can have important ramifications for metropolitan growth patterns, the study said.

SEWRPC is the organization that recommended tearing down dozens of homes and businesses in Milwaukee to make way for wider freeways. It now is conducting a study to determine if suburbs that lie outside the Great Lakes Basin should be able to tap into Lake Michigan water.

"Unfortunately, the existing evidence suggests that in many metropolitan areas, current MPO boards simply are not structured to adequately represent the needs of central city residents," the study said.

Existing MPO set-ups "may systematically disempower people of color," the study said.

More time needed for county SEWRPC budget review, DeBruin says

Aug. 8, 2005 -- State law should be changed to give counties more time to review Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission budget requests, according to County Supervisor Lynne DeBruin.

DeBruin had intended to ask the County Board to drop its support of SEWRPC, but state law made that virtually impossible, she said.

The law requires the county to fund SEWRPC unless the County Board objects within 20 days of receiving the agency's request.

The county clerk's office received SEWRPC's $837,950 Milwaukee County funding request July 26, more than a month after it was adopted by SEWRPC on June 15, but less than 48 hours before the July 28 County Board meeting.

The request came too late to be part of the regular monthly board cycle, and the County Board does not meet in August.

"I'm livid," DeBruin said. She said she was told by County Clerk Mark Ryan that SEWRPC had never waited so long to inform counties of the funding request.

SEWRPC Executive Director Philip Evenson said the planning agency's business manager "sends the budget out as she gets time, being sure
to meet the deadline set forth in the Statutes."

SEWRPC is the agency that recommended 127 miles of freeway expansion, with the city of Milwaukee bearing the brunt of the negative effects. Milwaukee County has the same number of votes on the commission as smaller counties, such as Walworth County, but is taxed much more heavily to support it.

Milwaukee County's contribution will remain unchanged for 2006, at $873,390. Waukesha County's contribution will increase $6,715, to $670,190. That contribution is $203,200 less than the Milwaukee County contribution. None of the other SEWRPC counties -- Kenosha, Ozaukee, Racine, Walworth, or Washington -- will contribute more than $200,000.

The overall adopted SEWRPC budget for 2006 is $7,327,525, down $437,205, or 5.6%, from this year's budget of $7,764,730.

To review SEWRPC's 2006 budget, click here.

"I have no idea what the new Federal transportation budget may mean for our operations," Evenson wrote in an e-mail. "It will be months before that filters down (we employ no lobbyist)."

"In general, budget categories go up and down from year to year depending upon work program commitments and staffing levels," Evenson said. "Water quality (funding) will be down next year owing in part to anticipated reductions in aid from Wis DNR (Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources) and to an MMSD (Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District) funded project coming to an end. Planning research is down because we finished our new growth projections and because 2005 was an air photo year (Photos are taken every 5 years). We do have these budget spikes from time to time."

Feds recommend SEWRPC reforms
Public involvement, environmental justice concerns cited

March 2, 2005 -- SEWRPC needs to do more to address civil rights and environmental justice concerns and to improve its public involvement process in transportation planning, a federal agency said Wednesday.

The Federal Highway Administration, also found SEWRPC's transportation advisory committees "significantly underrepresent" the region's racial and ethnic composition.

In a report recommending numerous changes to SEWRPC practices, the FHWA said members of SEWRPC and its advisory committees also should attend public hearings and listen to comments. The public is generally not allowed to speak to the commission.

"While SEWRPC staff has done an excellent job of collecting and summarizing public comments and providing them to decision-makers during studies, there is a passion in the delivery of those comments that is lost in transcription," the report said.

FHWA also suggested SEWRPC should take additional steps before recommending expansion of transportation facilities -- like freeways.

SEWRPC should "re-evaluate and update" traffic congestion measures that "that are intended to improve traffic flow on existing facilities without... moving forward into expansion," said Dwight McComb, the FHWA official who presented the report.

In a criticism directly aimed at one SEWRPC's main functions, the federal agency said SEWRPC needs to better watch over implementation of transportation improvement programs.

"Implementation of goals related to safety, mobility, operations, freight, system preservation, environment, etc., is not routinely monitored," the FHWA said.

SEWRPC transportation improvement programs tend to be driven by infrastructure condition, the report said. That, however, "does not necessarily assure that safety, capacity, freight and other needs are addressed on a priority basis," the report said.

The local planning agency should work with the State Department of Transportation, FHWA and FTA to "identify fundamental performance measures" related to transportation goals, the report said.

SEWRPC Executive Director Philip Evenson said his agency accepted the FHWA recommendations.

"We certainly want to always continually improve and enhance the way we do our work and the quality of our work and our relationships with the many individuals and local governments and so on that we have to work with," he said.

The recommendations were contained in the FHWA's executive summary findings from a required review of the SEWRPC's status as the region's Metropolitan Planning Organization. As the region’s MPO, SEWRPC makes recommendations about transportation, land-use and natural resource issues and sets priorities for federal funding of projects.

A number of groups, including the Story Hill Neighborhood Association and Citizens Allied for Sane Highways, challenged SEWRPC's certification. The agency, however, was certified, as expected.

The FHWA said it would monitor implementation of its recommendations.

The federal government's opinion apparently was not of major concern to many SEWRPC members, as only 11 of the 21 commissioners attended the meeting in Kenosha where the findings were presented. Notably absent were Milwaukee County representatives Lee Holloway, chairman of the County Board, and William R. Drew.

McComb said after the meeting that the full FHWA report would not be available for a few weeks.

In the summary findings, FHWA said that:

• The makeup of SEWRPC transportation policy advisory committees are proportional to the region's overall population.
• FHWA and FTA (Federal Transit Administration) officials want to meet with Milwaukee and SEWRPC officials to explore ways to improve their relationship as it relates to transportation planning.
• SEWRPC should "expand environmental justice evaluation" to address the needs and circumstances in Southeastern Wisconsin -- the entire SEWRPC area.
• The Milwaukee community expects SEWRPC to take a more proactive role in issues facing minority and low-income populations. "Affordable housing, access to jobs, and community development are examples of regional issues that could benefit from SEWRPC's planning expertise," the report said.
• SEWRPC should conduct outreach to identify issues it can pursue to address "community needs related to economic development, land use, and transportation," the report said.
• A pilot project between SEWRPC and numerous other transportation and environmental agencies shows "great promise to improve trust and coordination leading to improved accountability for environmental concerns in the transportation planning process."
• SEWRPC has been a leader in air quality planning within the Wisconsin transportation community.