Enough With the Roads!

This reporter in Madison seems to get it.

This is a highway-heavy road budget, as anti-green as it gets. And when I say anti-green, I'm not necessarily talking about the tree-hugging kind. This budget is bad for our economy. The emphasis on cul-de-sacs, cars and sprawl sets us up for broken budgets forever.

Already, Madison spends millions of dollars a year maintaining the overbuilt roads of yesteryear. If implemented, the mayor's budget would hardwire us to spiraling transportation costs for years to come.

The capital budget defines the urban landscape. Will ours be welcoming to pedestrians, bicyclists, transit riders and cars? Or just cars?

Madison Mayor Kills Streetcar Proposal

Mayor Dave was getting hammered on all sides for his streetcar proposal (mostly by people who don't like public transit anyways). I guess the lesson is to not make your idea the end all be all and educate everyone involved. There was no route picked and no one understood how they worked. A lot of folks stated "They aren't right for Madison". They don't really know that, they are just scared of change. Unfortunately the opponents of everything made the streetcar their glow point, hopefully other cities will learn from this. Some folks in Madison are outraged, and rightfully so. This is a mistake not just on Dave's part, but some of the blame could lie at the feet of Kathlene Falk. Perhaps someday County Executives who root for the suburbs and City Mayors (This means you too Milwaukee) can get along and build transit networks that help everyone, not just folks who were not smart enough to figure out that traffic to downtown is what happens when you sprawl. As Portland has shown, 9,000 riders a day , even with 12 minute headways, does a lot for circulation and city vitality.

The Madison Debates

Lately there has been a fervent debate in Madison Wisconsin over whether streetcars would be good for the urban environment there. In the Capital Times, Op-Eds for each side have been flying back and forth but most of the opposition is using the misinformation of Randal O'Toole and Wendell Cox (What great names for villains). The most recent one written by Ward Lyles of 1000 Friends of Wisconsin rebuffs the arguments made by local folks who don't know all the facts with data from the National Transit Database and professional anti-rail propaganda as stated by Randal O'Toole.

As a circulator system, streetcars are a great idea. They combine the stop spacing of buses with the economic development potential and ridership bump of semi-metro type light rail to which streetcars are related. They are not meant to go fast but rather act as pedestrian accelerators and meld with the urban environment. In Portland, the streetcar carries almost 9,000 folks a day and has helped to spur $2.8 billion in development. This development was not just because of the streetcar but as a part of the total planning package, the Pearl District and South Waterfront areas are becoming the most European like neighborhoods in the West.

In Madison like their sister city Austin, streetcars should only be part of the transportation solution as circulators connecting major destinations in the downtown. Cities such as Denver, Salt Lake City and Seattle are already way ahead of the game in thinking about transportation in bigger terms than just a single mode. All of them are building light rail, thinking about streetcars, and operate many different types of buses.

In some corridors streetcars work, in others light rail is more apt and in freeways with HOV lanes there might be an opportunity for express bus service but all of the modes are needed to beat dependence on the single occupancy automobile. This is something Madison, Austin and other towns need to be talking about if they want to have a transportation sea change like the previously mentioned members of the transit space race.