No Runny Eggs

Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker previously made his feelings on City of Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett’s desire for streetcars known via Owen and Charlie. Now, it’s my turn to get the (expanded) Walker e-mail:

Two weeks ago, I was part of a group that traveled from Milwaukee to visit transit operations in Portland and Denver. While the sizes of these cities are similar to Milwaukee, the demographics are much different. According to 2006 census estimates, Portland had a 1.5% population increase while Denver went up by 2.4%. Milwaukee, on the other hand, went down by 4%. These growing urban centers have much greater congestion problems than we do in Milwaukee.

The transit system in Portland is paid for largely through a payroll tax that funds the bus and light rail system.

The streetcar system opened in 2001. It cost $56.9 million and there were no federal funds used to start the system. The streetcars are subsidized by a combination of support from the Tri-Met system and aid from the City of Portland and local business owners. Most of the streetcar line runs in a fare-free zone.

In Denver, the bus and light rail systems are funded through a 1% sales tax on all of 7 counties and part of an eighth county in the metro Denver area. In addition, one of the most requested additions to the system is a Bus Rapid Transit line between Denver and Boulder.

Other systems were mentioned on the trip, including Tampa (which was featured in a publication handed out in Portland). Tampa has a 2.4 mile system that cost $63 million and was opened in 2002.

Last year the number of riders declined 10%. A $4.75 million endowment originally set up to operate the streetcar system for 10 years is losing $1 million per year. The City of Tampa is not willing to put any more money into the system.

Bus Rapid Transit is Best

While the systems in Portland and Denver were nice, Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) is still the best option for Milwaukee. BRT works well in other cities: Boston, Kansas City, Miami, Santa Monica, Cleveland, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, Eugene, Los Angeles, Oakland, etc. It is more cost effective, yet has many of the same attractions of a fixed rail system.

A report from the General Accounting Office (GAO) of the federal government compared light rail and BRT and found that BRT capital costs are as little as 2% of those of rail. The report on BRT (which uses Denver for part of its data) makes a strong case to “think rail, use buses.”

Furthermore, a 1998 lawsuit alleged that the Wisconsin Department of Transportation disproportionately funded freeways with federal funds while ignoring transit investments that would otherwise benefit minorities and low-income individuals. The BRT plan is the only option that directly benefits the areas referenced in the 1998 lawsuit.

Bus System Needs Help

The current bus system needs help. While the $91.5 million cannot be used to operate the bus system, it can be used to replace existing routes with new lines that improve and upgrade the bus system.

Conversely, the Mayor’s plan – which covers a 3-mile area in downtown Milwaukee - would use approximately half of the federal funds for a streetcar system. This system would ultimately compete with the bus system for state and federal funding.

All of the data shows that the people most dependent on transit live in the north and northwestern parts of the City of Milwaukee. These individuals would not directly benefit from a streetcar system, but would benefit from an improved and upgraded bus transit system.

The Mayor’s original plan does, however, propose using about half of the federal funds on BRT. I suggest that we take the parts of each plan where we are close to agreement and merge them together. My plan spends $59.5 million of the $91.5 million on BRT. We can combine our routes and debate about the remaining $32 million on another day. That would be a real compromise.

Future Vision for Mass Transit

Finally, I want to share with you a long-term vision for action needed to protect and improve the transit system in Milwaukee County:

· Lobby state government to capture the growth in the existing sales tax collected on motor vehicle related sales ($103.5 million statewide in 2009/2011 biennial budget) and apply it to transit (about half would go to Milwaukee County Transit System).
· Move forward with a pilot phase of Bus Rapid Transit plan that uses $59.5 million of the $91.5 million.
· Expand BRT throughout the major corridors of Milwaukee County over the next five to ten years.

As always, I look forward to your comments on this important matter. I thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts on the issue of mass transit.

Scott

Time for my two cents. Street-level rail does not make an ounce of sense. Unless you have a strip of land (which Milwaukee does NOT have), you take away at least one lane from the street, whether that is parking or driving. The fact that choo-choos automatically have the right of way screws up traffic further. The only way to change a route is to rip up the existing tracks and lay new tracks. The route that the Milk Carton wants is utterly stupid as the only thing it does is connect the Bradley Center and the perpetually-empty convention center with the perpetually-empty train station (never mind that they are all within walking distance of each other). The history of downtown-specific transit is one of utter failure.

I’m not exactly sold on buses either. Many of the MCTS buses do nothing but move air from one part of the county to the other. The one advantage they have over trains, be they trolleys, that commuter rail the lefties are also trying to jam down our throats despite the facts that Kenosha is more-aligned with Chicago than either Racine or Milwaukee and that Racine is pretty much its own little island, is that there is almost no effort or cost to change the routes to reflect changes.

Personally, I’d tell the feds to take that $91 million and buy back some of the Treasury bonds that Red China has.

The “geniuses” behind the KRM white elephant, er, commuter rail have a real wiener of an idea to finance this albatross: a 0.05% sales tax in Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha Counties to provide $8 million per year. Let’s see; assuming their numbers are right (and they’ve been previously blown up), they start the project $157 million in the hole (assuming no additonal fed funding; the 90% fed funding they want would still leave them $23.7 million short) and have to make up $10.9 million per year in the difference between fares and operating costs. Oops; last time I checked, you can’t do that on $8 million/year, and that’s assuming the Craps’ Department of Revenue coughs up all the money due this latest unelected taxing authority (something they have a problem with). Guess those “other funding options” will inevitably creep back into the mix.

What’s worse, they want to give the county boards authority to levy a 0.45% sales tax to “shift” the cost of running the buses off the property tax rolls. Seeing we have 14 tax-and-spend-and-tax-and-spend-and-spend-and-taxers on the 19-member Milwaukee County Board, there’s another $45 million or so in tax and spending increases. They will see to it that there is no property tax relief, as there are portraits of Thug Holloway to be made, pensions to be doled out, union Rip Van Winkles to be “employed”, and deputies to have sit on the freeways to generate even more revenue.

Well, not quite the same; the newest proposal for running choo-choos between Milwaukee and Kenosha has a few changes designed to screw Joe Taxpayer:

• It will no longer be a Metra train. That means those that want to take this choo-choo to Chicago would have to change trains at either Kenosha or Waukegan. It also means that the local choo-choo enthusiasts will have to build a new rail yard and facilities, and do their own maintenance, rather than leech off of Metra.
• Because of that, and because they’re throwing in a Bay View station (which would have to be built from scratch, just like the ones planned for Cudahy, South Milwaukee, Oak Creek, Caledonia and Somers), the build cost has increased from $152 million to $237 million. Even though they’re hoping for 90% funding from the feds, there’s only $80 million in the till from them for this project.
• Even the one “positive” of not leeching off of Metra, the scheduling of more round trips (14 versus 7 during the week, 7 versus 3 on weekends and holidays) turns into a nightmare. Between doing their own maintenance and running more choo-choos, they’re looking at a conservative estimate of recurring costs at $14.7 million per year. They’re hoping for $3.8 million in fares from the 1.43 million rides provided, each charged something less than $10 for a trip between Kenosha and Milwaukee (there’s so many problems with this math, but more on that in a moment).

Houston, we have a problem. We have a main ridership overestimate, a master caution light on the construction costs, multiple warnings and buzzers. Let’s start at the top:

• Construction costs - In 3 years, this estimate has gone up 55.9%. Even that number will prove to be not nearly high enough. Fire up Google Earth once and try to trace the route from the Kenosha train station to the Milwaukee one. Take note of two things: the single track for most of the distance and the lack of a direct path.

  First, the single track. That is an active freight line, serving the Oak Creek power plant. Can you say, “There will be delays driving down ridership.”? I knew you could. Notice that south of Kenosha, there are two tracks on the line. In the interest of fairness, however, I will note that the major structures to restore the line to a 2-track line (i.e. bridges) remain and (presumably) will not need to be rebuilt. Indeed, for 14 round trips per day to be reached, that second set of tracks will need to be laid down.

  Next, the lack of a direct path. The Union Pacific line curves west away from the Lake Parkway just north of St. Francis Ave (it, and a line that continues north, actually both curve together into the westbound line, but to get from one north-south line to the other, a train would need to back up). While it does appear that it connects to the Canadian Pacific line that Amtrak runs on under I-43/94, that is, IIRC, a grade-separated crossing with no connection. Since that almost-somewhat-not-quite-connected line that continues north from St. Francis does connect with the CP line and ultimately the Milwaukee station, it would be easy to build a couple hundred feet of new track to make that direct connection. Of course, that would require the train to cross two swing bridges in the Milwaukee harbor.

  Going back to the schedule, it’s going to be several trains. Logistics would demand that there be 4 trains on the tracks at any given time during the week, more if there is going to be a rush-hour burst.

• Ridership - These numbers just don’t add up. At 14 round trips per weekday and 7 per weekend day and holiday, that’s about 8,650 one-way choo-choo trips. To get to the claimed annual ridership of 1.43 million, each train, each direction, each day would have to have over 165 people on it. That’s not happening.

  Even worse, they’re only projecting $3.8 million per year from fares. I know they’re planning on charging something less than $10 for a trip between Kenosha and Milwaukee, but if their inflated 1.43 million ridership can be believed, they’re getting about $2.65 out of each rider. Hell, that doesn’t even get you from Kenosha to Winthrop Harbor or downtown Chicago to Evanston ($3.05) much less between Kenosha and downtown Chicago ($6.40). Let’s assume they’ll go with an average fare of $5 (Milwaukee is closer and less attractive than Chicago, after all, and rolling with $10 would fly more like a depleted uranium balloon than the lead balloon that a $5 round-trip will prove).

  First, just for grins, let’s rerun the annual fare take at their inflated ridership at an average fare of $5. Even that only gives them $7.15 million in fare money. Now, let’s rerun the ridership numbers at the annual fare intake of $3.8 million. Oops, that drops the number of rides to 760,000. Divide that by 8,650 choo-choo trips and there’s about 88 people on each and every train in each and every direction each and every day. Guess what? That’s not happening either, especially since the Milwaukee-to-Sturtevant-to-Chicago Amtrak Hiawatha line carries a hair more than 500,000 rides per year, and that goes from Milwaukee to Chicago about as quickly as this commuter line would go from Milwaukee to Kenosha.

• Recurring costs - Using the choo-choo lovers’ numbers, there would be an annual hole of $10.9 million to fill. Let’s get down to brass spikes and use the semi-realistic ridership numbers from above to start. Since essentially all of those rides are going to be round-trip, let’s knock the rides in half to 380,000 to reflect the actual number of people on the choo-choo in a year. That’s a taxpayer subsidy of $28.68 per round trip.

  As for paying for that $10.9 million, the dumbest idea is a TIF. First, that is designed to recoup the fixed costs of improvement with the increased taxes from the increased value of the property improved, not recurring costs. Second, I rather doubt there is more than $1 billion in improvements to be had from the introduction of a commuter rail line; hell, I doubt there is $1 in improvements that could be attributed to its introduction.

Grab ‘em ankles.