Streetsblog Capitol Hill

This is it — the final, epic showdown of Parking Madness. We started with 16 reader-submitted contenders for the title of America’s Worst Parking Crater, and Milwaukee and Tulsa have emerged from three rounds of voting to face off in the championship.

Only one will be immortalized and receive the “Golden Crater,” Streetsblog’s prize for asphalt expanses run amok.

It’s up to you to decide who claims the title, based on the incriminating evidence we’ve compiled below. So let’s get acquainted (or reacquainted, as the case may be) with these two examples of parking devastation:

Downtown Tulsa has been a favorite from the start because of the sheer surface area devoted to parking. Stephen Lassiter of BikeWalkTulsa submitted this photo and told us that “the southern half of downtown is almost entirely surface parking,” as you can see below:

Lassiter also sent along photos showing this part of Tulsa in 1978 versus 2005.

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We’re down to just four cities: Milwaukee, Dallas, Houston, and Tulsa. But only one can be the champion of Parking Madness, our hunt for the worst parking crater in an American downtown.

Today is a very exciting day, because we’re kicking off the Final Four with two venerable parking competitors: Milwaukee and Dallas.

Milwaukee has been holding strong through two contests — thanks, presumably, to the sheer expanse of its parking crater.

Reader “Aaron from Milwaukee” submitted this area, saying “the desert covers about a half mile south of I-794 to the Milwaukee River, and east of Milwaukee Street.”

This wasteland is part of Milwaukee’s Third Ward, not far from the lakefront. “It’s acres of parking over the former bustling wholesale food warehouse district, mostly serving eight or nine weekends and 10 full days each year associated with Summerfest and Milwaukee’s various ethnic ‘-fests,’” Aaron says.

Here’s a panned out view that shows this parking travesty’s position between the Third Ward and the lakefront.

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So far, Texas is really dominating our Parking Madness tournament. The two Final Four spots awarded so far have gone to Lone Star heavyweights Dallas and Houston. We might have an all-Texas final.

But there are still two remaining spots in the Final Four of terrible downtown parking craters. One of those spots is going to go to either Milwaukee or Columbia, South Carolina — today’s Elite Eight match-up.

Let’s refresh ourselves with the Milwaukee parking crater:

Submitted by reader Aaron from Milwaukee, this one is not a crater so much as a lunar landscape bereft of human life forms.

The area is between Milwaukee’s Third Ward — a rather hip area — and the lakefront. Aaron tells us they occasionally hold summer festivals on part of this lot — so a few times a year, at least, this place has people in it. One thing’s for sure, though: parking lots so close to the waterfront are even sadder then regular parking lots.

Here’s a wider view where you can see the parking/freeway complex divide the Third Ward from the lake:

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Earlier this month we asked you: What is the worst parking crater in America? What is the ugliest parking scar draining the life from a downtown?

And Streetsblog readers answered. In all we received 23 submissions from nearly as many states, from the blazing blacktop of San Bernardino, California, to the asphalt expanses of Philadelphia — and a lot of pockmarked places in between. We received so many, we had to break it down into a March Madness-style tournament, matching up 16 finalists in a single-elimination bracket.

Who will take home the championship? That’s up to you. Over the next two weeks, we’ll be matching up city versus asphalt-maimed city and asking for your vote to determine who will advance. Ladies and gentlemen, the bracket:

We’re kicking off the competition today with a matchup between two proud metros. One gave us the Champagne of Beers, the other gave us Frank Sinatra. It’s Milwaukee versus Jersey City.

Remember to vote at the bottom.

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In the politically polarized Milwaukee region, there are two widely divergent visions of what transportation should do.

There’s the Waukesha vision, which might be summarized as all highways, no transit. This suburban Republican stronghold — one of the most conservative counties in the country — has for years been systematically severing the already limited transit connections to its core city, Milwaukee.

Then you have the Milwaukee vision, which prioritizes transit, at least to the extent that it can. This is a city that tore down a highway before the feds were handing out TIGER grants to fund such projects. It is currently planning a streetcar project. In 2008, Milwaukee County voters elected to raise their taxes in order to expand transit options — before the state legislature refused to authorize the collection of funds.

That should give you a sense of the transportation feuds in Wisconsin’s largest metro area. The region’s weak transit system is a key factor in Milwaukee’s status as the nation’s most segregated metro area. But in this battle, the Waukesha vision is generally winning — and it’s not that close.

There is no better example of where Wisconsin’s transportation priorities lie under Scott “No Train” Walker than the Milwaukee Zoo Interchange megaproject. At $1.7 billion, it is surely one of the most expensive interchanges ever built (keep in mind this is a state that “couldn’t afford” to operate passenger rail at $8 million a year). And guess who will benefit most from Wisconsin’s massive road expenditure — the transit riders in Milwaukee, or the super commuters from Waukesha?

This week, a civil rights group and an environmental group filed suit in federal court against WisDOT, alleging that the interchange project — which contains no provisions for transit — is in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. Title VI requires government agencies that receive federal funding to not administer it in a way that has a “discriminatory impact” on minority groups.

Thats exactly what Wisconsin’s asphalt-only transportation policies do, says Dennis Grzezinski, an attorney for the plaintiffs, the Milwaukee Innercity Congregations Allied for Hope and the Black Health Coalition of Wisconsin. The groups are seeking to halt construction until a new plan can be developed that does a better job addressing environmental and equity concerns.

“We’re pointing to this incredible imbalance between billion and billions spending on the highway system and the deterioration of the transit system,” said Grzezinski. “That’s the sole means of transportation for a larger part of the Hispanic and African American communities. If we keep spending huge sums of money on highways, these groups are just going to be left behind in terms of health and education and work.”

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Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is no friend to rail transportation. He won the governorship based on the rallying cry of “No Train,” a concise summary of his position on the planned upgrade to the Milwaukee-to-Madison line. And we all know how that one ended.

When Wisconsin voters went out last week and affirmed his leadership, it prompted some concern about the future of another important rail project in the Cheese State: the Milwaukee Streetcar.

But while Walker got a chance to flex his obstructionary muscles on the president’s inter-city passenger rail plan, the Milwaukee streetcar may be outside his reach. The reason is a 1990s civil rights complaint filed by the city of Milwaukee. It makes an interesting case study in how a municipality can triumph over an anti-transit governor.

Back in the late 1990s, Scott Walker was a member of the state legislature. The “No Train” governor of the day was Tommy Thompson.

Congress had awarded $289 million for a Milwaukee transit project 10 years earlier. The region flirted with the idea of a busway between Milwaukee and suburban Waukesha, but Thompson quashed the idea, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

In the late 1990s, the region’s leaders got together and came up with a plan recommending the money be split between a Milwaukee light rail system, an expansion of I-94 and expanding bus service to Waukesha County. The plan was agreed upon by local leaders and approved by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation.

But according to the MJS, Walker and a group of suburban Republicans convinced Thompson to issue a mandate that none of the money would be used for light rail.

In response, City Alderman Bob Bauman, an attorney, spearheaded an administrative civil rights complaint against the state through U.S. DOT. The document alleged that by eliminating transit routes while preserving funding for highways, the state’s directive was discriminatory against the many carless African Americans that live in Milwaukee.

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There’s a livable streets battle taking place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It’s the same one that’s been going on in Syracuse, New York and Cincinnati, Ohio.

All three of these Rust Belt cities are considering or undertaking conversions of one-way streets back to two-way traffic. The goal is to slow down motorists a little bit and create a more hospitable environment for pedestrians — and, as a biproduct, for local businesses.

In these cities and others across America, one-way streets were a 60s-era innovation designed to increase car capacity in downtowns — meant to funnel drivers as quickly as possible onto exit ramps and off to the suburbs. But as mid-sized cities across the Midwest see an increase in downtown living, there has been heightened awareness about the drawbacks of this arrangement for pedestrians.

“You essentially have a drag strip,” Milwaukee Alderman Robert Bauman said of one of the city’s four-lane, one-way arterials. “They are a constant source of complaints — from residents across the street and visitors who choose to walk rather than drive.”

The Alderman has been a leading advocate for a series of four conversions of one-way streets to two-way streets. His motivation? A more livable, less car-centric city.

Two-way streets “keep traffic speeds down,” he said. “They’re more conducive to pedestrian activity. They’re more conducive to retail activities. In every aspect except traffic capacity, they’re more conducive to urban areas.”

Bauman is hoping the city’s Common Council will approve the conversions at their next meeting in a few weeks — before their summer recess begins and before a related bridge project gets underway.

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Here’s another installment of our series on key governor’s races. Here’s the news from Wisconsin and Ohio. Check out our previous coverage of California, Texas, Maryland, Colorado, and Tennessee. Let them serve as a reminder to vote on Tuesday.

“I’m Scott Walker. And if I’m elected as your next governor, we’ll stop this train.”

That’s the rhetoric from Wisconsin’s Republican gubernatorial hopeful. He calls the high-speed rail line planned to link Madison and Milwaukee a “boondoggle,” estimated to cost Wisconsin $7 million to $10 million dollars a year in operating costs. Stopping the rail line – which is eventually meant to link Chicago to Minneapolis – would mean sending $810 million in federal rail construction funds back to Washington. Walker says President Obama’s “radical environmental agenda” is killing jobs. [PDF]

As much as $100 million could already have been spent on the rail line by the time Walker would take office. But he says that won’t stop him from putting the brakes on it. He’s suggested using the money for other transportation projects, but the federal grant is earmarked for rail. If Wisconsin doesn’t want it, some other state will claim it.

Walker has years of experience fighting transit. As Milwaukee County Executive, he’s tried to cut funding for buses and by refusing to allocate more funding to transit, he forced a choice between service cuts and fare hikes.

His Democratic opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, supports the rail project as part of his broader promotion of public transportation. Barrett has a 98 percent lifetime score from the League of Conservation Voters. He’s pushed for clean sources of energy and worked to convert the city’s vehicle fleet to hybrid and biodiesel cars.

Wisconsin’s transportation budget comes from gas taxes and vehicle registration fees. It’s frequently been raided – to the tune of $1.3 billion over the last eight years – to pay for unrelated projects. Meanwhile, the state has documented almost $700 million in annual unmet transportation needs.

Both candidates are against the raids, and Republican Walker even goes so far as to support a constitutional amendment banning such behavior. But the candidates’ proposed solutions to the crumbling infrastructure are worlds apart. Walker’s a roads-and-bridges guy. Barrett says increasing transit use will take the burden off roads and reduce wear and tear on highways.

Walker has also suggested re-routing sales tax revenue from new vehicle purchases to the transportation fund. That could add up to about half a billion dollars. (However, he wants to repeal the corporate income tax, which brings in about $1.6 billion every two years. How that will help balance the budget is anybody’s guess.)

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As mayor of Milwaukee from 1988 to 2004, CNU President John Norquist made urbanism and livability top priorities. Some of his most notable achievements centered on the redevelopment of highway corridors with street grids and infill, culminating with the demolition of the Park East Freeway in 2002 -- one of the largest voluntary highway removal projects undertaken in America. Other projects, like the introduction of a light rail system, never reached fruition.

In the second part of our interview (read the first part here), Norquist discusses these victories and setbacks, and how federal policy can help cities and towns do the right thing.

Ben Fried: Expanding the transit system in Milwaukee has been a very long, protracted process. You wanted to build light rail. What sort of resistance did you meet from other public officials?

Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Buffalo, Detroit, Cleveland -- the regional planning commissions they have really aren’t looking out for city interests, they're looking out for the exurban interests.

John Norquist: Any time I had to fix a problem at one level of government, there was another one that would pop up. We had a Democratic governor, but then we had a county exec who was against light rail. The mayor wasn’t really for light rail. When I got elected mayor, I was for light rail but the county exec was still against it, that was Dave Schultz in 1988. And then we had Tommy Thompson as governor who wasn’t for it. He said he was open to it at the beginning when Schultz was against it. And then once Schultz left, then Thompson became more against it. The right wing talk shows went after it and so he followed their lead, you know the local Rush Limbaugh types. And then it just seemed like every step of the way, we get one group that had to be for it on the other side. The county runs the transit system, so it’s kind of hard to do it without them. If the city had run the transit system we would have been able to do it right away.

It’s frustrating, because Milwaukee was always ranked by the Federal Transit Administration as one of the best places to put in a light rail, because it was built around the street car system. There was over 350 miles of street car in Milwaukee at the end of the war, 200 miles of inner urban. We had a really, really good transit system and by 1958 it was all gone. But the land use patterns were all built around street car lines. Now I think my successor, Tom Barrett, has got himself some clout with this. They put an earmark in the budget bill that just passed that gave him control of a nice big chunk of money, so he might be able to get that street car going.

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