We kickoff 2012 with three predictions about how three projects, which have the potential to change Milwaukee’s landscape, will unfold in 2012. The projects? The reconfiguration of the Lake Interchange, the Milwaukee Streetcar, and Kohl’s potential re-location to downtown Milwaukee.

As the US economy continued it slow recovery from the Great Recession, Milwaukee was left with a couple of failed development projects to complete or redefine, a changing real estate market, the opportunity to make small infrastructure changes, and questions about the future of transit.

On Wednesday, November 16th, from 5:30 p.m. to 8:00, there will be a Public Hearing on the Draft Environmental Assessment Document for the Milwaukee Streetcar. During this meeting attendees will be able to provide a comment on the record regarding the Milwaukee Streetcar project.

This week there are two important public meetings regarding the future of Milwaukee’s built environment.

The Milwaukee Common Council voted to approved the Milwaukee Streetcar today, moving it forward to Final Engineering.

Yesterday, Alderman Donovan called for a referendum to be held before moving forward with the Milwaukee Streetcar project. A referendum that wouldn’t be held until the Spring primaries on February 21st, 2012. Making a proposal such as this reminds us that there wasn’t a referendum for the Hoan Bridge reconstruction, the I-94 expansion, or the $810 million, not including utilities cost, Marquette Interchange project.

George H. Bush was President, Robin Yount was roaming centerfield, and Milwaukee was being allocated funds that were to be dedicated for the development of a new mass transit mode. The funds, $289 million worth, represented a substantial amount of purchasing power in 1991. But the transit improvements never came.

The Milwaukee Streetcar is projected to go before the Steering & Rules Committee of the Milwaukee Common Council next week. If the project is able to pass the Steering & Rules Committee it is widely believed that it will pass the Common Council as a whole. However, passage by the Steering & Rules Committee is far from a sure thing, and now is a critical time to make your voice heard so that the project can move forward.

The Milwaukee Streetcar is finally poised to move forward. Following last May’s approval of a preliminary engineering study by the Milwaukee Connector Study Group, the Milwaukee Streetcar project has progressed to the next step in its development. In late June the Public Works Committee and Steering and Rules Committee will take up the project on subsequent days, followed by the full Milwaukee Common Council in early July.

“That’s our story. Now it’s probably not the one you have been reading in the papers, the one being written by folks who’ve never even been here.”