I visit home (Alverno neighborhood) often. My last visit involved a lengthy discussion with my Mother about the proposed rail project for Milwaukee. My Mother’s FIRST response was, “I don’t want to pay for a service I won’t be using”…A simple, straight to the point, south-sider answer. She isn’t alone. The population uninformed about the long-term benefits of mass-transit, like my Mother, is probably staggering in the city of Milwaukee. She doesn’t want another property-tax increase. And let’s face it, Wisconsin is known for high taxes, so I don’t blame her. But along with not being educated about the benefits of mass transit, and the resentment for increased property taxes to fund the project, comes a negative attitude towards progress. Many in Milwaukee, like my Mother, feel that progress is negative…”white-collar”…or even snobbish. Change is bad, and progress is even worse.

My point is simply this…Building a new transit system in Milwaukee, raising funds, and dealing with local Politicians are the small issues to solve. Getting through the minds of many, (and I mean many!!!), Milwaukee anti-progress, blue-collar, change is bad citizens, is even more challenging!

The citizens, like my Mother, don’t care about the policitcal bickering or how a modern rail system can make Milwaukee appear more appealing nationally.

Show them the benefits of mass-transit. Give them a reason to support your agenda. Show these people how mass-transit will ultimately, in the long run, lower taxes. Show how transit can reduce emissions, and eliminate billion-dollar interstate/highway projects. Educate these frugal people how transit will generate new businesses, which will in turn generate new tax revenues for Milwaukee that can ultimately slow the increase of property taxes!

Speak their language.

It’s that simple.

I disagree, however, with the thought that the mayor’s plan provides “a start” in the right direction. It seems to me that, if the route does not link up to the existing richness of Milwaukee’s near-downtown neighborhoods, people simply won’t use the transit line. If people don’t use it, it will be dismissed as a failure and future projects to the airport, UW-M and other city neighborhoods won’t be initiated. There’s a danger with the “build it and they will come” approach…

There’s a lot at stake here and I’d be interested in working with others to talk through ways that we, as Milwaukee’s citizens, could advocate for more promising route/design alternatives. It’s encouraging to see that others (those responding to this post) are interested in this issue…I think there are many more who would be as well if they understood the issue better.

Some people’s views have changed over time, particular property developers and small business owners, as they examine the financial rewords being reaped in cities that have built systems. In DC, the Georgetown area apposed a Metro stop for many of the fear-mongering reasons given by rail opponents here (i.e. it brings in the “wrong element”), now many Georgetown residents and businesses view that historic decision with regret.

So the downtown loop is a political compromise, but at least it is a start … in general national attitudes are shifting in favor building multimodal systems and this is a good thing; the loop will help accelerate the change in attitude.

The pattern in other cities is that empty shops and lots tend to fill up near transit stations and along trolley routes. These routes attract transit oriented development, and increase the density and value of the neighborhoods they traverse and are embedded in. They do this because a societal demand exists for vibrant, walkable, urban areas. These areas attract entrepreneurs, creative types, free thinkers, and the colorful spectrum of people that tend to occupy dynamic urban scenes. This tends to be a liberal, open and creative society, which tends to garner hostility from those who are threatened by this sort of urbanity.

The logic of the Cato Institute and Reason Foundation fellows, who paint rail transit as an oppressive liberal conspiracy to destroy the American Dream, defies rationality. A demand exists for the aforementioned urban lifestyle. Build a line or transit station and the developers, like good capitalists they are, infill to meet the demand. Contrast this to the inverted causality used in some anti-transit arguments including locals; the causally inverted illogic that the natural density created near transit in response to the pent up demand must be some sort of liberal social engineering conspiracy.

Public transit, especial rail based public transit, uses less natural resources to move people while using less human labor to operate it and maintain it. It is inherently economically superior to a transportation model based on individuals having a quarter ton personal device that spews tons of carbon in the atmosphere, requires acres of dedicated land to be paved, eats up a large percentage of personal income and is thrown away every eight years.

Expressways and suburban sprawl are part of an incredibly inefficient and resource wasting lifestyle. Automobiles are a great conduit for channeling the peoples’ money to oil companies, road contractors, and automobile manufacturers. Our society has been brainwashed into seeing automobile dependency as freedom, when in fact it is a drain on our resources and wealth. People who live in walkable urban areas well served by public transit, not only have a lower carbon footprint, they have more money to spend at the local restaurant, food market, theater, or small business.

Our economic self interests and our long term interests are both served by building rail transit. Milwaukee needs to get with it. It is time to start. If the loop is it, then let’s start building the loop.

Lay the rail, put up the overhead wire, let’s go!

If the legislature grants Milwaukee County the authority to levy the 1% sales tax for parks and transit it would go a long way toward making this a reality. Until then, the RTA as currently proposed is geared almost exclusively to deal with the KRM and sufficient local control is not in that plan to forge our own destiny and grow a “modern transit system.”

Chicago has a Central Loop through their downtown, and it seems to be working for them.

PS Matthew I’m in for a yearly pass!