Jim Rowen: Gorging on more lanes as railroads starve

Jim Rowen  —  6/06/2008 5:24 am

You may remember only a couple of weeks ago the state highway lobby was warning us on a daily basis that "Black Tuesday" was imminent.

That was the day when Gov. Jim Doyle was going to exercise his "doomsday option," wherein highway projects were going to be delayed, and transportation budgets were going to be drained for silly frills -- like education.

For a few days, I was scared to go outside, fearing I might stumble over an abandoned bulldozer or get panhandled by a laid-off highway engineer, but the budget got approved, the sky did not fall -- and did you know that more highway dollars have been green-lightened in the last few days than at any time in state history?

It didn't make much of a ripple out-state -- and that's too bad because it's your money, too, in Spring Green or La Crosse or Ashland -- but on May 30, federal regulators gave Wisconsin's Department of Transportation the go-ahead to begin an eight-year, $1.9 billion reconstruction and expansion of I-94 from Milwaukee's south side to the Illinois state line.

The plan calls adding a fourth lane for 35 miles in both directions -- a $200 million add-on that gobbles up frontage roads and wetlands alike, even though the plan's environmental impact statement concedes that the corridor is not beset by congestion.

And when all is said and done in 2016, there will only be minimal gains in travel times.

That $200 million would also launch the commuter rail plan that's ready to go in the same corridor -- a rail plan backed by the city of Milwaukee and others in southeastern Wisconsin looking for better interconnections all the way to Chicago -- but Wisconsin's DOT refuses to fund it.

Trains? I'm afraid not.

The mission in that department remains one-dimensional: road-building. To "let contracts," as former DOT Secretary Chuck Thompson once said.

The I-94 project for which the state will "let contracts" of $1.9 billion to the same builders who paid for those doomsday scenario press releases is part of a $6.5 billion regional highway-only reconstruction and expansion plan across seven counties in southeastern Wisconsin.

This uberhighway plan was drawn up in 2002-2003 by the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission with a $1 million DOT grant (when billions are on the table, $1 million is pocket change). It was produced based on traffic projections using gas costing $2.30 a gallon, in 2005 dollars, increasing at 3 percent annually.

Under those projections, the price of gas right now should be $2.51 a gallon.

As the kids say today when text-messaging each other: LOL (Laughing Out Loud).

To make matters zanier, another phase of the regional plan, the $400 million reconstruction of the Zoo Interchange, where I-94, I-894 and Highway 45 converge west of Milwaukee, was moved up to start in 2012 to satisfy Waukesha legislators, who complained that their commutes and piece of the regional plan weren't moving fast enough.

Is there enough money for all that construction? I'm still dodging a big pothole literally around the corner from my house.

Apparently money is not a problem, so long as there aren't any rail or transit projects included, and there is nary a penny in all this so-called transportation spending for an additional bus stop, let alone something as revolutionary as a light rail or commuter train station.

Even as gas prices skyrocket, and motorists drive fewer miles, state taxes and fees of all kinds will have to be raised to pay for this highway building binge in southeastern Wisconsin.

The pity is that neither state officials nor regional planners will take a timeout to rethink their assumptions and re-budget for fewer new lanes (the overall plan adds 120 miles) and some rail transit.

Southeastern Wisconsin is already a non-attainment area by federal air quality standards due to smog and particulate matter. Its lack of local rail services will only keep the air dirty, the regional economy starved for rail-related investment, and low-income workers without cars -- a Milwaukee norm -- disconnected from jobs in inaccessible suburbs.

Surely we can all see more clearly now that the road-builders' crocodile tears have dried.

We could have cleaner air, more transportation options, greater tax and employment fairness, and less permanent paving of the landscape if modern rail systems were included as routine items in state and local planning.

James Rowen is a Milwaukee writer and consultant who writes a blog, The Political Environment.

Jim Rowen  —  6/06/2008 5:24 am