Mayor drops streetcar proposal

Madison WI - Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz officially dropped his streetcar proposal Monday. The proposal had drawn fire from many sources due to the expense as well as the effectiveness of the plan.

The Mayor said in a press release, "There is an old saying in politics; when you've dug yourself into a hole, the first thing you do is drop the shovel. So I have decided I will not continue to pursue the issue of streetcars in Madison. The issue is off the table."

I do have to applaud Mayor Cieslewicz for dropping the controversial plan and not being stubborn and continuing to push it through. With a proposed Regional Transit Authority being planned for the Madison area, it will be tough enough to ensure they can run what they have in place now without the headache of a transit project that was designed more for taxpayer supported development than for actual transportation.

The problem I had with the Mayor's plan was just stated, it was to be for development at the taxpayer's expense rather than for transportation. Considering that Madison's bus system needs help and the streetcar line was not aimed at actual transit service, the plan was more of a fiscal black hole than a benefit.

Once Madison gets the RTA in place, the bus service up to par and a more reliable source of funding the transit system in place, it can be brought up again. Until then, it's best to put the proposal on the shelf.

I would suggest that any future streetcar plan be focused around actual transportation needs rather than the hope of development along a line that goes nowhere.

For backing down from his streetcar plan as well as finally recognizing that you need the broad support from the community before undertaking such a major investment, I'll award Mayor Dave Cieslewicz a Laurel.

In Kenosha's tracks?

Kenosha WI / Madison WI - Madison WI Mayor David Cieslewicz and his partner in the pro-rail spin machine, Charlie Hales (streetcar consultant to Cieslewicz), are attempting to use Kenosha's streetcar system as proof that a streetcar system in Madison will work.

The article in the Madison Times had me laughing for quite some time. These 4 paragraphs are pure gold:

"It a boon to tourism," Cieslewicz said. "And tourism is one of the reasons for a streetcar here."

However, on a recent Monday, there wasn't a tourist in sight on Kenosha's downtown lakefront.

The weather was glorious. The sun was glinting off the water. The breeze was mild enough to keep the small crowd gathered at a transit transfer point comfortable in the 80-degree heat without messing up their hair.

But none of that crowd got on the streetcar. They were waiting for buses.

The article then goes into mentioning the empty streetcars that frequently run on Kenosha's tourist line. 50 riders a day is average for a weekend during tourist season. "There are fewer riders in the winter, when Brandup cuts back the hours of service so people don't see empty cars going by as often."



Cieslewicz and Hales then state that streetcars aren't about ridership. Excuse me? Not about ridership? That's one of the reasons Cieslewicz has frequently stated as to why he is trying to ram his streetcar proposal through, it will reduce the traffic congestion in Madison.

Cieslewicz wants his streetcar line for two reasons. One is that he thinks that in time, it will be a positive factor for his legacy and the second is development. Once again, no mention was made of the fact that the bulk of the development which will occur will occur on the taxpayer's dime. Grants, no-pay back loans, tax breaks and other taxpayer funded methods will be used to lure developers to build along the line. It can take 20 years or more before any real development occurs. As I have mentioned before, I'm still waiting for the promised development along the rails in my hometown.

I have to give Madison Mayor David Cieslewicz a Lance for this performance.

Another rail fight in Madison

Madison WI - The Wisconsin State Journal reports on the battle between two competing rail proposals. A commuter rail proposal that would connect Madison to outlaying communities and the streetcar proposal that is championed by Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz.

The problem is that both plans are taking the steam out of each other. Mayor Cieslewicz suggested that the proponents of the commuter rail plan cool it so his plan can go forward. While both sides agree that both types of rail need to be done, the order in how it is done is what they are fighting over.

The Dane County officials that are spearheading the "Transport 2020" plan for commuter rail responded to the Mayor's suggestion with a comment that "the mayor is out of sync with the broader community here". Mayor Cieslewicz was a part of the "Transport 2020" task force before throwing a temper tantrum and pulling out because the focus of the panel wasn't on his personal legacy streetcar line in Madison.

The fear of both sides is that competing projects will kill off both projects by making it too expensive to proceed. Neither side wants to budge and both projects continue to compete with each other for attention.

Putting aside the fact that Madison can't afford to run what it already has, I admit that the commuter rail proposal would be more beneficial and serve a much broader population (if done properly) than the streetcar proposal being done primarily for personal legacy reasons. The Mayor is so desperate for his personal legacy line that I truly expect this fight to become rather nasty as each side escalates tactics to get their proposals pushed forward.

Tax dollars spent to support tax hike

Milwaukee WI - The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports on a regional governmental transit authority using tax dollars to support a tax hike it claims it needs to institute a commuter rail operation between Milwaukee to Kenosha and Racine. The Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Transit Authority (RTA) is spending $496,000 of tax money in the attempt to woo support from the public to increase a tax for itself.

Three separate activists groups, Citizens for Responsible Government, Club for Growth Wisconsin and Americans For Prosperity's Wisconsin are fighting this use of public money to lobby the public for support of a tax hike on the already established rental car tax. These groups claim that the three-county government agency is wasting tax money and that the RTA has no legal authority to use the money for lobbying and publicity efforts.

What we actually have here is a government created transit authority looking for something to do. They've latched onto the commuter rail concept for that purpose but now they need to further dip into the taxpayer's pocket to fund it's dream. The current $2 rental tax is insufficient and the RTA wants to boost it another $13.

I question the expenditure breakdown that the RTA made available. 23% for lobbying efforts and the remainder went to research is the claim. From seeing the numbers on other lobbying groups and the amount of research they did, I tend to think the bulk of the money went to lobbying and the small remainder went to producing slick reports based off of previously done research. I also feel safe in saying that much of the research is probably on researching on how to market the tax hike plan to the public and politicians before the lobbying started.

This story does bring up a point that I see periodically in the news. That point is should public transit authorities, whether operational or administrative as the RTA is, be allowed to lobby the public or politicians with taxpayer money. I often see news reports where groups criticize a transit system for lobbying for a tax hike with taxpayer money.

Personally speaking, the transit system needs to get its side out there as to why they need a tax hike or new tax but this can be done through press releases and news conferences. Every city has transportation reporters that can bang the system's drum to get the word out. The expenditure to the system needs to be kept to a bare minimum however. No glossy brochures, no media ads, no gift buying for politicians.

If the transit system's plans are solid, a low cost press release will sell itself. The problem I see is that there are few solid plans out there these days. Most plans today are the visions of a few that want a legacy for themselves on the taxpayer's dime.

While commuter rail may be a good plan in concept, it obviously isn't selling itself on its merits so that makes me lean towards the side believing that the plan isn't really needed. If it was, it would sell without a big fuss. I've seen it happen enough to know it is true: The more you have to market something, the less it really is needed.

Transit politics in overdrive in Milwaukee - Pt 2

Milwaukee WI - The Milwaukee Small Business Times gives us the second round in the fighting over the proposed streetcar line for the city. This time, it is Milwaukee Alderman Robert Bauman (D) who responded to criticism of the streetcar proposal by Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker (R).

What Alderman Bauman fails to understand, while he kneels facing west and prays to the Holy See of Light Rail in Portland Oregon, is that Milwaukee can barely afford to run what it has now. He is so obsessed with getting an expensive toy for his city that he looks through a pair of rose colored glasses and sees nothing but positives.

Milwaukee's transit system is literally falling apart. The last thing the Milwaukee County Transit System (MCTS) needs is an expensive streetcar that they have to pay to operate when they are already having major problems. Bauman can't see that simple fact in his rush to jump on the rail bandwagon.

While I don't agree with Walker's statement that fewer people will need public transit if the economy is better, he is right in one repect on this. That is the fact that you need a better economy. Streetcars won't bring you that better economy.

Bauman can't seem to understand that simple point. He is determined to spend millions of taxpayer dollars on a rail line when he can't even cough up the money needed to run the transit services they already have in place.

Bauman sees the streetcar as the "saviour of the city" and refuses to even acknowledge that there will be many problems and it won't do as advertised. It won't clear the air, it won't reduce traffic congestion, it won't spur massive development and most importantly, it won't solve the transportation problems that the transit system is currently having.

On the contrary, it will have a negligible effect on air quality, traffic congestion will increase, development will only occur after the city makes costly sweetheart deals with developers that will cost the city billions of dollars and it will further overburden the existing transit system financially.

Bauman is your typical Democrat. He's chomping at the bit to spend millions of tax dollars on a transit project that will do nothing but cost the residents of Milwaukee millions of dollars more each year to operate. He can't see that you need to fix what you have already because that's too simple and won't cost as much.

Slapping a rail line down won't save the MCTS. It won't save the city. All it will do is break the back of the faltering MCTS and cost the city millions to keep the operation afloat. Most politicians don't seem to understand that expensive transit projects are a nails in the coffin for the existing transit system, especially when that transit system can't afford to operate what it already has.

This rail fight in Milwaukee is only going to become uglier as time goes on.

Transit politics in overdrive in Milwaukee

Milwaukee WI - The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel offers up a story that is all too common across America these days. It deals with the political fighting over public transit.

Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker is in opposition to a trolley proposal for the city and he's being attacked by other city politicians. The reason? Walker isn't rushing out to spend tax money on an unneeded transit project.

While I'm not fully up on all the dirt in this fight, I know enough of what is happening to see that Walker has a better understanding of how transit needs to be run than the politicians that are in favor of building a project that will siphon off money to run the bus system.

Considering the fact that Milwaukee is having a lot of problems with its bus operation, adding a fiscal black hole to the deal would only make things worse.

The politicians that support the trolley proposal need to take off their rose colored glasses. Milwaukee will not have massive development, cleaner air or less traffic congestion. Walker understands this point. He also understands that a trolley would ultimately hurt the bus system, county-wide.

Walker's detractors point out that he favored a fare hike and route cuts as well as opposed a transit sales tax. Let's look at a few key points.

First, Milwaukee's fare is $1.75 after the fare hike. That is rather mid-range for public transit in terms of fares. In addition, the fare hike only effected passes and strip tickets, not the base fare.

Second, as I have been preaching for decades, you can't run buses with few riders. If people don't ride a route, you can't hang on to it because 1 or 2 people do ride. Public transit is expensive to operate and you need to maintain some manner of ridership in decent numbers. Most systems use 8 riders per trip as a minimum and I'm sure, Milwaukee had some routes that couldn't meet that very generous number.

Finally, I am not 100% sure of the details behind the proposed transit sales tax but I am sure of this. It wouldn't have brought in the amount of cash that proponents claimed it would. These taxes never do and most likely, various advocacy groups for the poor were fighting it as it would spread the pain to everyone rather than to key groups.

The simple fact of the matter is this, Scott Walker understands the concept of public transit enough to know that a trolley line would hurt the bus system and the operation can't afford it, even if the transit sales tax was in place.

If you tax for rail, some should go to buses

Milwaukee WI - The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports on a symbolic vote by the Milwaukee Common Council which is sure to ruffle the feathers of pro-rail advocates.

In the strictly symbolic vote, the council wants part of any tax for the proposed Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee rail link to be reserved for the County's bus operation.

It's good to see some politicians starting to wake up to the fact that you can't just focus on rail when the bus system is faltering. All too often, the bus service is ignored in any rail proposal funding.

While the vote is meaningless in the long run, it does show that some out there are actually trying to look at the whole public transportation picture rather than just a narrow aspect of it.

The streetcar debate rages in Madison

Madison WI - This is a two piece article, all in one, regarding the streetcar proposal in Madison.

Two interesting articles were posted in the Madison Capital Times that I felt needed to have some additional comments made on them.

First, in a commentary for the Capital Times, writer Rob Zaleski gives an overview of Little Rock, Arkansas' trolley operation as food for thought regarding the streetcar proposal in Madison. A few items I disagree with based on past knowledge of how cities do things. Primary in my disagreement is where development is discussed.

A good part of the development occurs at the taxpayer's expense. Through grants, tax breaks to the developer and low interest loans (which are often not repaid), developers will come in to build. The issue is that the development is attributed to the rail line without any mention of what it actually cost the taxpayer to get the development there in the first place.

This tactic conveniently ignores the fact of why the development happened and is a good example of the spin used by the pro-rail crowd when trying to ram another rail line through. The dirty little secret is that the development would happen with or without the rail line as long as the developer received the taxpayer supported monetary incentives to build.

Beside the development issue, there was also mention of the "cheap" fares. While it is mentioned that the Little Rock trolley is hurting the bus system by not allowing it to expand to where it needs to, it omits the point that the "cheap" trolley fares are being subsidized by the much higher bus fares.

The high ridership of the trolley line is a direct result of the "cheap" fare for the rail line. To charge the full bus fare on the trolley route would deeply cut into the ridership numbers that the transit system and the city need to justify the trolley line.

The second part of this article deals with an article in the Capital Times that makes the claim that rail doesn't hurt the Portland bus operation.

Using FTA and APTA reports, the writer, Ward Lyles states that rail service has not effected the bus operation. He fails to mention that those numbers are highly massaged numbers and often are off by 30% or more. It's not just rounding up to the next highest 100 or even 1,000. TA's have a mathematical formula they use to calculate ridership which includes a fudge factor that is manually applied to get the numbers they want to see or in some cases, have to see.

Transit systems routinely massage ridership numbers and other data to generate what they and key officials want to see. We, the general public, will rarely get to see the true raw data used to generate the numbers that are reported to the government and to the APTA industry trade group. All we usually will ever see are the post massaged numbers with no explanation as to how they arrived at the numbers in question.

That's where the pro-rail crowd gets much of their power, from the government and industry approved final numbers that they love to wave around. If one were to actually look at the raw data before the transit systems massaged the numbers, one would find much of the success in many rail lines are grossly exaggerated.

City leaders and transit officials have to cover their butts when pushing for expensive projects like rail. In my home system, I have had internal reports of dropped ridership on the LRT line yet when the raw data is processed, it suddenly turns into an increase in ridership. They manually increase the raw ridership numbers to show an increase. The reason in my home system? To try and justify an unneeded rail extension that they ultimately can't afford to operate.

"But it will bring development and help the region's economy" they state. Wrong, the development is occurring because of the two stadiums. By the time all is said and done, the pro-rail crowd will be claiming the two stadiums were built because of the rail line. As far as helping the economy, the transit system can't afford what it has now and is planning a major hack and slash of service and jobs. How does cutting entire sections of the county off from transit and eliminating jobs help the economy?

The bottom line should be "can the system afford to operate what they so desperately want?" In many cases, the answer is no but through political spin and waving heavily massaged ridership reports around, city and transit officials, along with the pro-rail crowd, convince themselves they can make it work.

Madison streetcar plan can't find the wire

Madison WI - The first public meeting regarding the Madison streetcar proposal didn't go well for the proponents of the plan. The Capital Times story tells of the meeting, which was attended by 150 people, and about the only ones excited about the proposal were the politicians and plan consultants.

The headline of the news article stated that the reception of the streetcar proposal was lukewarm. From the text of the article, it sounded more like the reception was a bit chilly.

Most of the attendees at the meeting expressed the same view: "Wouldn't enhancing and improving bus service in the city be a better bang for the buck?"

As more and more of these frivolous plans are dreamed up, designed mostly to provide a legacy to politicians, people are beginning to finally question the need for them and why can't the existing transit service be improved system-wide.

When are politicians and transit systems going to wake up to the fact that people want clean, reliable and convenient transportation that takes them where they want to go when they need to be there? Streetcars and other expensive transit projects don't give the vast majority of the residents what they want. People want public transit to go back to the basics of providing service. They don't want frills when the service is sub-par.

Political follies, such as streetcars in Madison, show how out of touch with reality many politicians and transit systems really are. Until people question these plans, force the issue and let their elected officials know that these pipe dreams they come up with are unacceptable, they'll just continue to trot out more of these ridiculous plans to waste taxpayer money and create a legacy for themselves.

A Laurel goes out to the citizens of Madison Wisconsin for questioning this plan and not allowing it to gain any traction to move forward. Perhaps after a few more meetings, Mayor Cieslewicz and his staff will get the message that this proposal needs the pole pulled and the power shut off.

Madison wants on the streetcar bandwagon

Madison WI - Yet another city is trying to jump on the latest craze, the streetcar bandwagon.

Madison Wisconsin has recently proposed putting streetcars onto their downtown streets primarily for economic reasons. The University of Wisconsin's Badger Herald gives a very balanced look at this streetcar proposal.

The Mayor's office is touting the streetcar proposal as reducing pollution and being an economic tool, in short a win-win deal for the city. The Mayor sadly overlooked many things, as other cities do as well, when they dream up these schemes to stick their political hands into your wallet.

They just see the streetcars on the street making their town look quaint. They don't see the costs involved in making a streetcar line work. Politicians and rail proponents seem to have a blind spot when it comes to considering maintenance facilities, power costs, triple the maintenance costs (rail, vehicle and overhead), other associated costs as well as problems for such a line.

The Mayor, Dave Cieslewicz, and streetcar proponents are trying to claim there will be an economic boom, a reduction in automobile traffic, reduce pollution and it won't effect the existing bus system if it is built. And I'll be elected as the next President of the United States too.

The facts are that it won't create an economic boom and the effect the the number of vehicles in the downtown area won't change. The same number of vehicles that are currently travelling on the streets in downtown Madison will continue to travel on those streets and the same amount of air pollution will be present. More importantly is the fact that it will severely hurt the existing bus operation.

The streetcar proponents refuse to understand that it is much more costly to run a streetcar line. Where is the local transit system going to get the money to run both the bus system and which will amount to nothing more than a tourist line? The Madison Metro isn't swimming in money and to saddle the transit system with an expensive toy designed to create a legacy for Mayor Cieslewicz is foolish.

Here's what will happen if Madison builds this streetcar line. Taxes will go up, the Madison Metro will increase fares and cut service on the bus side, air pollution won't be reduced one bit, traffic will be a little more congested, the city will still be stagnant economically and the Mayor will get to place a brass plaque somewhere in the city touting him as bringing streetcars to Madison.

The city of Madison simply doesn't have the transit ridership to warrant any type of public transit rail line beside the Amtrak station. Even if it does attract tourists, it won't attract the number needed to make the line even remotely worthwhile.

Madison Metro has 223 buses* while TriMet in Portland Oregon, used frequently as an example in the article, has 825 buses (not counting LRV)*. The population of Madison is around 221,000 and population of Portland is around 529,000. A big difference between Portland and Madison. There is also a difference in mindset between the two cities with Portland being more transit conscious than Madison is.

Milwaukee's streetcar proposal is more realistic than one for Madison is. At least Milwaukee has better ridership numbers and a larger population than Madison.

It would be one thing if the Madison had excessively high bus ridership and the line was being placed in a high ridership corridor for actual transit ridership but it isn't. It's basically a downtown tourist line that will siphon off needed operating funds needed to run the bus system.

This streetcar proposal is simply a con job being played on the citizens of Madison so that Madison politicians can get hold of more of their money to spend and the Mayor can create a legacy for himself. A big Lance goes out to Mayor Dave Cieslewicz for pushing this unneeded project.

* From Metro Magazine's Top 100 Transit Bus Fleet rankings (in PDF format)

Milwaukee tries yet again to jump on a bandwagon

Milwaukee WI - Milwaukee Wisconsin once had one of the stand out transit operations in the United States. Today it's barely a shell of it's former glory. There are many reasons for this but most hinges on politics.

Over the past several years there have been numerous proposals to introduce some other form of transit to the Milwaukee area besides buses. These included heavy rail, light rail, trackless trolleys and now the latest, streetcars.

OnMilwaukee.com's web site has a story about the latest proposal, filled with the usual rail proponent verbiage about how trolleys will save the city.

Milwaukee is one of the cities which I often cite as being barely can handle bus operations anymore. It's glory days are gone but those in politics feel if you just spend more taxpayer money on expensive transit projects, people will flock back to the city.

Of all the proposals brought up over the years, none addressed the key point that the existing transit system has problems. The warning buzzer went off for me on this latest proposal when I read that Alderman Robert Bauman stated that they don't care about fares but view the project as an "economic development tool".

What this means in layman terms is this. The transit system will get saddled with the costs of building and running this line and the bus service can go to hell just as long as the trolley line can be run.

The Milwaukee Alderman, Robert Bauman, gets the Lance for going out of his way in trying to find some way to just waste taxpayer money instead of addressing the problems that need to be addressed with the transit system in Milwaukee.