Opponents say it won’t. Let’s examine the data.
Opponents say it won’t. Let’s examine the data. Back to the full article.
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Glad you mentioned this as it is direct evidence against the naysayers’ false choice argument about city priorities. The city has worked hard to cultivate the 30th St corridor at the same time they’ve been working on the streetcar.
This will help the inner city because it’ll increase densities, spark development and improve property values. Remember, the state takes all our income tax revenue, all our sales tax revenue and a chunk of our property tax revenue, while returning less and less back to Milwaukee. Much of this added revenue that the streetcar will help generate will go to help the inner city.
Milwaukee needs to increase its tax base because its being strangled. WCD, Mary Glass, Joe Davis and Bob Donavan need to get out of the way. None of these individuals have Milwaukee’s best interests in mind. Joe Davis wants to run for mayor and sees this issue as a way to build his campaign chest, WCD wants to destroy Milwaukee for political reasons, Mary Glass is ONLY interested in herself and has been strong arming the black community for years and Bob Donovan…. well I’m not sure what his story is.
It’s time to build.
“@ Bruce Thompson: Just a point of clarification regarding the source of the Federal funds for the Streetcar project. The $54.9 million in Interstate Cost Estimate (ICE) funds are part of larger $288.8 million dollar grant made in 1991 by the Federal government as part of the ISTEA transportion bill. Rather than being the result of the cancellation of the Park East freeway, these funds were provided for the last remaining piece of the interstate freeway system in Southeastern Wisconsin that was unbuilt at the time–a two-lane bus rapid transit (BRT) busway in the I-94 east-west corridor. That busway project was officially designated as an unbuilt part of the interstate highway system, because it was recommended by the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission in its 1990 regional transportation plan for Southeastern Wisconsin completed in 1966, and Milwaukee County conducted and completed preliminary engineering on the busway in 1971, but chose not to move forward with the busway.
By 1999, $47.8 million of the $288.8 million had been pulled back by USDOT. In 1999, Mayor Norquist, Governor Thompson, County Executive Ament agreed that the remaining $241 million would be divided in the following way: $51 million for the Sixth Street Viaduct reconstruction, $21.3 million to tear down the Park East freeway spur and construct replacement surface streets, $2.0 million for a walkway at Lakeshore State Park, and $75.2 million for the Marquette Interchange. The remaining $91.5 was designated for a transit project that would be agreed upon by the Mayor and County Executive of Milwaukee.
A decade later, in 2009, Congress assigned 60 percent ($54.9 million) of the remaining $91.5 million to the “Milwaukee Downtown Connector Streetcar project” and 40 percent to a Milwaukee County for bus improvements. This money was used to purchase new buses for MCTS, and only the $54.9 million of the original $289 million is left to be spent.
The Washington DC Streetcar is already in trouble.
What makes Milwaukee different?
http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/DCs-Planned-37-Mile-Street-Car-System-in-Jeopardy-290843881.html
Ah, Milwaukee is not Washington, DC, for one. That’s a big difference. Janice you need a new hobby.
@Bruce Thompson,
Would you share the article discussing the West Coast companies that found Milwaukee county to be the only county that fit with expansion plans?
I would love to share that with some real estate friends and colleagues.
John G.,
It was not an article; rather an email exchange. Here is what Mr. McDermott wrote:
Regarding the target audience – corporations considering relocation decisions is part of, but not the entire target audience. While we work with many companies relocating operations outright, many more of our projects are with companies expanding into new locations. In the white collar sector, access to labor is paramount. It is somewhat rare for established, successful companies to completely pull up stakes due to the massive disruption it has on its employees. Instead, we find companies are looking for new locations with an atmosphere similar to their current home city. Quite often we see successful West Coast companies looking for that “little bit of San Francisco” in the lower-cost and less competitive Midwest. Cities that boast large populations of educated and urban-centric millennials tend to do well in our location screening.