Streetsblog Capitol Hill

If you value principles like social and fiscal responsibility, the Wisconsin transportation budget is an unmitigated disaster. Not only does Wisconsin DOT’s spending plan gut funds to transit and local streets, it lavishes $900 million in borrowed money to pay for extravagant highway projects of dubious value to the public.

Good government groups and environmental advocates have proposed an alternative. The 10 Percent Solution, as they’re calling it, would cut 10 percent, or $300 million, from the highway budget and shift it back to transit and local streets. The plan would reduce overall borrowing by 22 percent.

“Demand for transportation choices is increasing, while transit service is being cut and our roads and bridges are crumbling,” said Bruce Speight, director of Wisconsin PIRG, which produced the report jointly with 1000 Friends of Wisconsin and the Sierra Club. “But the transportation budget proposal doesn’t help return taxpayer money to communities for road repair and transit. Instead, it funnels hundreds of millions into highway expansion projects.”

A big problem with WisDOT’s proposed budget, advocates say, is that state leaders continue to prioritize highway expansion even though Wisconsinites are driving less. On average, each resident drove 500 fewer miles in 2010 than in 2004.

“Wisconsinites need a transportation budget that reflects and supports how we travel, not the interests of highway lobby and big road construction firms who profit from taxpayer-funded and high-priced highway expansions,” Speight said.

Meanwhile, the state has been consistently reducing its contributions to local streets. Since 1998, the share of statewide funding that was dispensed to localities for road maintenance has fallen from 32 percent to 19 percent — a policy which is tantamount to increasing local taxes. Over that time, meanwhile, the share of state funds being used for highway expansion increased from 43 percent to 47 percent. To make matters worse, transit suffered a 10 percent cut in the 2011-2013 budget, and this new budget does not restore that funding.

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Last week, protesters gathered on the statehouse steps in Little Rock, Arkansas, to oppose a bill that would transfer money from the state’s general fund into its highway fund.

The 100 or so protesters — mainly from the education and social services sectors — warned that the legislation would transfer $2.3 billion in revenue over 10 years out of classrooms and clinics and into the state Department of Transportation, according to the Arkansas News.

Arkansas Advocates for Families and Children have dubbed the bill “highway robbery.”

It’s not just Arkansas. States unwilling to reexamine the way they fund and implement transportation projects are increasingly faced with trade-offs between transportation spending and other priorities. As the federal gas tax continues to stagnate, more and more states are considering extreme measures to shore up transportation budgets — including robbing funds from education and social services.

States are in a difficult position, says Eric Sundquist of the State Smart Transportation Initiative. “The road lobby is still pushing for more, more,” he said. ”It’s started to dawn on people that this money is being sucked out of state and local treasuries.”

Wisconsin has come under fire for much the same reason as Arkansas. During the 2011 budget cycle, Governor Scott Walker was pushing highway expansion projects totaling $400 million. In order to raise the money without raising the gas tax, Walker proposed transferring $140 million from the state’s general fund to highway spending.

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We’ve been watching how governors around the country are getting extra “creative” as they try to keep their transportation budgets solvent. Yesterday we witnessed an excise tax on bicycles floated in Washington State.

But the award for the wildest funding scheme may go to renowned highway spender Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin, who wants to raise $6 billion for the state’s roads by selling 37 publicly owned power plants. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported this week on Walker’s bizarre plan keep the highway money flowing, and send the bill to utility customers:

The move could also have the unexpected effect of linking the prices paid by some utility customers to the financing of the state’s road system. Bonds for the road work would go through even if the state property was not ultimately sold.

What are these projects that are so tremendously important the state’s assets must be sold to pay for them?

Well, Wisconsin is going to blow a considerable chunk of that change on a project called the Zoo Interchange, outside of Milwaukee. This $1.7 billion — yes, billion with a “b” — project would be one of the most expensive interchanges ever built. Walker specifically mentioned that it was one of his two top priorities in an interview with the Journal Sentinel.

Last year a coalition of nonprofit groups in Milwaukee filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the state, charging that the project was discriminatory because it does nothing for transit-dependent Milwaukee residents. Dennis Grzezinski, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said the Zoo Interchange is “just about the most expensive approach they could have taken.”

This from the same guy who couldn’t stomach passenger rail in his state because it would require a subsidy of a few million dollars a year.

Sad to say, Wisconsin’s plan is not much worse than the ones being promoted in other parts of the Midwest.

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Scott Walker, maybe we would respect your decision to pull the plug on high-speed rail in your state a little more if you weren’t such a hypocrite about transportation spending.

The Wisconsin governor refused to pony up an estimated $4.7 million a year to provide 21st century intercity rail service to his constituents. But he’s only too happy to spend $1.2 billion on just four highway projects that will keep the state chugging along as if it were still the 1950s.

Walker’s backward thinking on transportation is well-trod territory. WISPIRG has put the cherry on top with its new report, “Highway Boom, Budget Bust.”

“The main finding of this report is that Wisconsin stands out like a sore thumb, compared to most other states, with regard to how much the state plans to spend on new road capacity and highway development when you consider our relatively slow population and driving growth,” wrote WISPIRG Director Bruce Speight. “The trends hardly justify diverting limited transportation resources from other uses and modes.”

According to the Tri-State Transportation Campaign’s report on State Transportation Improvement Plans, Wisconsin’s Department of Transportation plans to spend 30 percent, or $1.6 billion, of its STIP dollars on new road capacity. That puts the state in 11th place in the nation for the proportion it spends on road capacity. The national average is 19 percent.

Beware of placing too much importance on STIPs, though — as Smart Growth America cautioned after Tri-State released its report, the plans are often rosier than the reality. At the moment, Wisconsin is still planning to spend more on repair than new construction — but historically, states end up spending less on repair and more on new road capacity than they plan, and there’s no guarantee that Wisconsin won’t go down that road too. And that would be too bad, since 43 percent of Wisconsin’s roads are rated as being in “less than good” condition and it has 1,142 structurally deficient bridges.

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Score one for environmental and civil rights groups in Wisconsin in their campaign against the highway-centric Wisconsin Department of Transportation.

The U.S. Department of Transportation has found WisDOT to be in violation of federal civil rights statutes, following a complaint by advocates for minority groups in Milwaukee. WisDOT has been found “deficient” and given 90 days to remedy the situation, according to a report from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Among the violations cited by U.S. DOT, WisDOT has not updated its Title VI compliance plan since 2004. That document is supposed to explore how the agency’s activities affect minority groups, and an update is required yearly by federal law.

The Journal Sentinel noted that the ruling met with approval from the ACLU of Wisconsin, the group that is pursuing a lawsuit against WisDOT over the $1.7 billion Zoo Interchange, outside of Milwaukee, which does exactly squat for people in the region who depend on transit.

“For years, civil rights groups and transit advocates have argued that state authorities have been discriminating in favor of highways that benefit white suburbanites and against transit projects that would benefit urban minorities without cars,” the Journal Sentinel reported. The state of Wisconsin is currently pouring $6.2 billion into its highway systems, despite being “broke,” in the words of Governor Scott Walker. Milwaukee’s transit system, meanwhile, is facing fare increases and service reductions.

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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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If you ever doubted whether a small investment in biking and walking could have a large impact, here is your proof.

The last transportation law, SAFETEA-LU, provided four communities with four years of funding to build an infrastructure network for nonmotorized transportation (a fancy way of saying “sidewalks and bike paths”). It wasn’t a lot of money — $25 million each to Columbia, Missouri; Marin County, California; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Sheboygan County, Wisconsin.

The program built 333 miles of on-street biking and walking routes, 23 of off-street facilities, and 5,727 bike parking spaces in the four municipalities — not to mention some outreach and education. Not bad, especially when you consider that $100 million would only buy about five miles of new four-lane highway in an urbanized area [PDF].

FHWA summed up the results in its report on the outcomes of the pilot program [PDF]:
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Wisconsin, Ohio, New Jersey, Florida — the Republican governors in each of these states recently aborted a major rail project claiming it was too expensive. Their methods were remarkably similar; their justifications aligned. In many ways, it was like they were all working from the same playbook.

Now that the Government Accountability Office has exposed New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s distortions (a.k.a. lies) to justify killing the ARC rail tunnel project to Manhattan, it makes you wonder if similar investigations in Wisconsin, Ohio and Florida would reveal the same.

Today James Rowen, who writes The Political Environment blog out of Milwaukee, reminded readers that he was pointing out the distortions put forward by Wisconsin Governor Scott “No Train” Walker more than a year ago. In August 2010, Scott Walker, then a candidate for governor, told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel that the train would cost Wisconsin $8 million annually to operate.

Meanwhile the newspaper reported the actual cost to the state would be less than one-tenth of his claim:

Operating costs are projected at $7.5 million a year, not counting the part covered by fares. But [WisDot official Carl Anne] Renlund said the state is already using federal funds to cover 90% of the Hiawatha’s $5.2 million annual operating cost – leaving $520,000 a year for state taxpayers to pick up – and hopes to do the same with the new line. That would mean state taxpayers would be paying $750,000 a year for the service to Madison.

In Ohio, Governor John Kasich also relied on half-truths or worst-case scenarios in his campaign to kill Ohio’s 3C Rail project. Kasich repeated over and over that the train would be too slow to attract passengers, traveling at an average speed of 39 miles per hour. “The 39 mph high-speed train is dead when I become governor,” he told Ohio reporters.

Kasich did not change his tune when the plan was altered to raise the average speed to 50 miles per hour, as reported by Martin Gottlieb of the Dayton Daily News in October 2010:

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We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Roads don’t pay for themselves.

But maybe they should.

“Taxpayers cover costs that should be borne by road users,” asserts the State Smart Transportation Initiative at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Road subsidies push up tax rates, squeeze government services, and skew the market for transportation.”

SSTI, along with the smart growth group 1,000 Friends of Wisconsin, published a study in October showing that “between 41 and 55 percent of [Wisconsin’s] road money comes from non-users” [PDF].

Between 2004 and 2008, roads in the state cost an average of $4.24 billion annually. Of this, $1.74 billion came from revenue sources unrelated to road use—primarily property and sales taxes—while another $600 million was borrowed…

The fact is, roads constitute one of the biggest tax burdens we face.

Non-users fork over $779 per household for roads — as opposed to $50 for transit. But most drivers still believe that transit eats a huge chunk of transportation funding while roads are self-supporting. SSTI wanted to dispel that notion, said study author Bill Holloway.

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Streetsblog had a chance today to ask the former Democratic chief of the House Transportation Committee, Rep. James Oberstar of Minnesota, about life since the 2010 election, when he lost by a hair to Republican Chip Cravaack. He said he’s spending his post-Congress time traveling to France, getting paid to say things he used to say for free, and telling his four kids and seven grandkids the story of his wife, who succombed to breast cancer 20 years ago.

We also asked him for his thoughts about some major themes in transportation today. 

On the “dissipation” of high-speed rail funds:

We reshaped Amtrak in the 2008 authorization, designating 11 corridors and creating a mechanism by which there could be competition from private sources and from state consortia, with Amtrak, to provide the passenger rail service in a particular corridor.

At first, I didn’t like that idea, but I spent a lot of time talking to Mr. Mica about it and as we talked, I said, “You know, that’s beginning to make more sense. We ought to challenge Amtrak. That’s a good idea; let’s put this into the bill.” And then we got consensus that high-speed should be defined as 110 mph, and that was in the bill. And we got a bill that George Bush signed!

So there was a structure against which to pit [the $8.5 billion in stimulus dollars for high-speed rail]. I thought that was going to happen. Instead, it was all put up for competition for various states to come forward and put a proposal on the table.

Wisconsin, for example: to Madison, Milwaukee, Chicago. That should have been done as part of the Midwest High-Speed Rail Initiative, with Chicago as the hub, south to St. Louis, east through Detroit to Cleveland and eventually to Cincinnati, and west to Minneapolis-St. Paul. That would have been one very defensible, manageable anchor.

The Northeast Corridor could have been another important anchor. The west coast, which is already underway: a third anchor to this system. And then some other amounts in the other corridors, depending on proposals that they would have and should have submitted to DOT.

Allowing pieces to be bid or requested by states dissipated the critical mass of investment. And I’m not saying that in hindsight – that was my concern at the time.

On the attack on Transportation Enhancements in Congress:

Transportation Enhancements was the pivotal point of transformation at the end of the interstate era — an era in which travelers went where the road took them — to the era in which users of our system had a say in their quality of transportation and where that road should go in the future and how their transportation experience should be managed.

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