Eyes on Milwaukee
Committee Approves Milwaukee Streetcar
Mayor offers historic address to council committee on streetcar and it gains their approval. Only one person speaks in opposition.
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Mayor offers historic address to council committee on streetcar and it gains their approval. Only one person speaks in opposition. Back to the full article.
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Looks like a colossal waste of money, particularly when there are greater needs. Need to move Milwaukee forward but not on rails. It’s a money loser everywhere they’ve been installed.
Woot!
Thanks for the great detailed article!
Sounds really good and the route looks great. Hopefully the extensions get ironed out quick.
When they say, “The route would pass 100 percent of downtown hotels”, are they talking about after three phases? because the first phase on the map looks like it doesn’t come all that close to the Hilton, Aloft, or the Hyatt. In fact, it’s a couple of blocks from Intercontinental and the to-be-completed Kimpton in the Third Ward. Maybe the define passing a hotel as being with 6-8 blocks?
When all of the facts and figures come together, you can easily see why this is a good thing for Milwaukee. It also goes to show that Alderman Zielinski is completely out of step.
Great reporting.
It’s too bad that Alderman Zielinski is opposed to a modern transit system, economic development, and all the jobs that will come with — not to mention the positioning of the City as a more attractive, livable place for our best and brightest to live and work. I wonder what progressive Bay View will make of this in the next election cycle?
Hang in there fans of Milwaukee, in Cincinnati we have dealt with nearly the same thing you are experiencing, and in the end we fought, we won, and metropolitan Cincinnati will join other revolutionary Midwestern cities in supporting a better future for our kids. It looks like you too have a strong mayor to push this along, just like we did, Oklahoma City did, Atlanta, KC, Washington DC, New Orleans, Fort Lauderdale, Tuscon, Seattle, Portland, and countless others.
The fight is long. And intense. But the outcome is worth it. Don’t fall prey to the aggressive suburban pessimists. You deserve a thriving downtown, and the pessimists won’t appreciate that, anyways.
Well this is exciting! To see so many “hop on board” is really encouraging. Downright inspiring. Especially Ald. Wade – he’s got some cojones.
Ald Zielinski seemed, ironically, like one of those pathetic strawman bureaucrats in an Ayn Rand novel. Holding up the paper as an entire room of competent people ignored him was quite theatrical. I could almost hear him blubbering “B-but, Donovan said . . . it’s a trolley!”; consummate spineless politician is he.
Partypanther (#3), the hotel claim assumes the line up 4th Street (from St. Paul to Juneau) is built. If that (and the first phase) is completed, the streetcar would pass within one quarter mile (about 2 NS blocks or 4 EW blocks) of every downtown hotel.
One quarter mile is about the limit of what many people consider “within walking distance”.
You know what else is a money loser, G.R. Gray? Roads. Should we stop paving those as well?
Neither roads nor transit lose money. They both are a public cost that lead indirectly to an increase a region’s GDP (moving people and goods = $s). It’s the same with schools, hospitals, police and fire, which all are elements that increase GDP.