It’s telling that the compromised proposed state budget omitted funding for the Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee (KRM) commuter rail project.
WisPolitics reported that a move by State Rep. Jim Kreuser, (D-Kenosha) to restore the project to the draft budget in the conference committee was defeated in a party line vote, with all Democrats supporting it and all Republicans opposed.
One vote against came from Republican Senate leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau), whose district represents a portion of Waukesha County in southeastern Wisconsin.
The same region that would have been the primary beneficiary of the KRM.
So much for regional cooperation, and Republicans who allegedly support economic development and job growth that would occur along the KRM’s three-county regional corridor.
Once again, rail falls away as a priority in our highway-happy state, where $23 million in state funding is still committed for an interchange in Western Waukesha County to service a cancelled upscale shopping mall at Pabst Farms.
So a special-interest shopping destination that may or may not get built, in some incarnation of stores or businesses still remains funded – and got into planners’ hands out of sequence in the larger scheme of $6.5 billion in regional highway "improvements" and outright added-lane expansion.
But a regional rail system that has taken years to get on track to serve commuters in three counties that would spur sustainable development and help get congestion and air pollution off the I-94 corridor – well, that can wait for another budget cycle.
There’s only word for this continual distortion, this one-dimensional addiction to highway spending in a region where the air quality fails to meet clean air standards, and job development is a widely-acknowledged problem. Pathetic.
James Rowen is a writer, a former reporter and a former mayoral staffer in both Madison and Milwaukee. He is the author of The Political Environment blog.
