Milwaukee Mayor Makes a Leap

While Milwaukee has been making plans for Commuter rail and figuring out how to fund it to Chicago, the Mayor has been coming up with a plan to spend money that the FTA still owes the city. It includes a streetcar loop and a connection to express buses and the new commuter rail line. In the article though, the County Executive is calling it a trojan horse for light rail.

Barrett envisions a city where trains, buses, streetcars, parking facilities and pedestrian corridors would work together in a "comprehensive and affordable" way to provide improved transit for workers and city visitors. But the plan sparked conflict with Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker, who called it "really just a Trojan horse for light rail" and "a drain on the limited resources we have available to support the bus system."Barrett shot back by pointing to Walker's six years of cutting Milwaukee County Transit System service and raising fares, saying, "It sounds to me like his mission is to kill Milwaukee County transit," not protect it.

The comments from Walker are more bs straight from the O'Toole and Cox camp. If you don't have resources, then create them. People can't just keep getting away with everything for free, including roads. But perhaps we should even the playing field before arguing that free market forces are at work when we can see from the previous post that they most certainly won't. I would be glad to see this be a trojan horse for light rail and other modes. The trojan horse against rail was let loose years ago, why not fight back?

Update from the Comments...More on this Topic from Brewcityzen.