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Metro is going through its annual reorganization tonight, again doing a two-step in which it is tries to rectify past mistakes while cutting further into bone elsewhere. Metro is showing vision with enhancements to the #6 run, reinstating what used to be the #10-11 circulator, and providing better bus service to the airport, but it also continues to cut service elsewhere in a slow and gruesome “death by a thousand cuts.” For the most part, capped resources are shifted rather than augmented. There may be a faster demise of public transit in Milwaukee than in Madison because of the local situations there and here, but all of Wisconsin’s larger urban transit systems are dying. Although good public transit is essential for economic development and our quality of life, Wisconsin’s infrastructure and transportation tax system are broken. We need Regional Transit Authorities that provides a dedicated source of funding for transit, and we need it to give priority to improving and expanding our bus system. All MidWestern states except Wisconsin now enable Regional Transit Authorities. We need a State representative who acts on the belief that decent public transit is a matter of social justice, economic viability, public health and environmental sustainability. We need labor and business to make clear that public transit can not only benefit individual households but can also provide good-paying local jobs and can help the economy grow.
Even if improvements in management and marketing could enhance Metro, there is no question that many of the cuts are the forced consequence of inadequate State funding and the need for a regional transit system. In the last number of years, we have seen the State’s share of Metro’s budget drop from 44% to 36% and the downward trend is set to continue. It is as if the myriad advantages of public transit have gone unrecognized, even by business leaders and legislators who otherwise demonstrate a cogent grasp of economic, environmental and social justice principles. That has to change. We need a source of dedicated funding that can be used to improve and expand our bus system. The State needs to enable the existence of Regional Transit Authorities with taxing power. |