Braving cold December air, a diverse cross section of Milwaukee County residents filled Veterans Memorial Park in West Allis to support prompt legislative action on a Regional Transit Authority for southeast Wisconsin, including a sub-RTA in Milwaukee, with authority to adopt the half cent sales tax supported in a county-wide referendum over a year ago. Many expressed frustration that the advisory referendum had not been promptly enacted by the legislature, while Governor James Doyle had vetoed the partial measure included in the state budget.
Milwaukee County Supervisor Chris Larson reported that one house of the legislature may not even vote on the revised transit bill now awaiting action, unless public pressure makes it a priority for elected representatives. Larson noted that worst-case elimination of bus service had been averted in the current county budget only because President Barack Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 provided funds for new buses and fare boxes. This secured a one-year respite, but he predicted huge cuts in service next year if a dedicated funding source is not approved. Larson also noted that Milwaukee – which currently funds transit through the ever-unpopular property tax levy – is the last urban area in the United States not to provide an alternate source of dedicated transit funding.
The program was MC'ed by Penny Sikora, legislative director of Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 998, who said he grew up near the Fond du Lac bus yard, thinking of the buses as his “green limousine.” Sikora repeatedly reminded the overflow crowd to “make the call” to each and every state representative and senator to get the new RTA bill passed. Representatives Tamara Grigsby, Pedro Colon, and Josh Zepnik, together with Senator Lena Taylor have been pressing to get a bill introduced and promptly moved through the legislature. Although not mentioned by name during the rally, Milwaukee area Senator Jim Sullivan, and Representatives David Cullen, Peggy Krusick, and Tony Staskunas, are widely understood to be sitting on the fence. Milwaukee County Supervisor John Weishan, whose 16th District surrounds Veterans Memorial Park, and overlaps with Rep. Staskunas's district, was an active presence at the rally.
Tom Rave, executive director of Gateway to Milwaukee, promoting business and residential development around Mitchell International Airport, recounted groups of investors who declined to invest in Milwaukee County, specifically because it had no regional transit system. Rave lamented that “the human beings who serve as our legislative representatives” have turned the transit bill into a “political football,” rather than acting promptly on an overdue necessity for economic development. He also noted that we all pay money to the federal government, which is to be used for our benefit, and we could be getting a good deal more money for transit if the state had a long-term plan to make use of the dollars.
Jeff Van Konigsveld, president of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 430, in Racine, turned out to express solidarity with Milwaukee County's efforts, and development of an integrated regional transit network, which he affirmed is fundamental to a sustainable economy in both counties. He was seconded by American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 882 president, Kurt Zunker, who asked everyone to call upon state legislators to live up to the state's motto, “Forward!”
The transit funding crisis also impacts paratransit for Milwaukee County citizens with disabilities, who have been threatened the past two years' during budget deliberations with elimination of service in areas more than a three-quarters of a mile from fixed-system MCTS bus routes. Joy Combs, who uses both the MCTS buses and paratransit services, spoke movingly of being unable to get to work or to handle routine medical appointments and food shopping in her wheelchair, without a transit system. She was followed by Jeannette Tries, a fully ambulatory transit passenger, who recounted that at one time she had part-time jobs in Chicago and at West Allis Memorial Hospital. Since MCTS Route 53 was cut, it takes her nine miles to take the bus from her home in Bayview to work in West Allis, while she could get to her job in Chicago, via Amtrak and the elevated rail system, in two hours.
Stablizing the current bus system is only the most immediate priority for a Regional Transit Agency and Milwaukee sub-RTA. The legislation will provide a real chance to begin express bus corridors, and light rail systems. Additional rallies are being planned to keep the long-delayed transit plan on the front burner for area legislators. Passage of a bill by January would still leave several months lead time before significant financing actual flows into the bus system, and provides the property tax relief county voters approved in November 2008.
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