Much like the heart attack victim who discovers the hard way that a daily double bacon-cheeseburger was bad for his health, right-wing WI GOP Gov. and slow-learner Scott Walker has a sudden awareness that there's less driving going on - who knew?? - to justify spending borrowed billions on all those miles of new highway lanes he'd been enthusiastically approving:
In 2014:
Walker pointed to trends and technology that could change road use when asked whether he expects the state to decrease the scope of some projects.
"I think it’s a combination of looking at whether or not the project can be done more effectively and efficiently, but also just looking at trends," Walker said.
Officials should factor driverless cars, changing work patterns, millennials eschewing driving and the popularity of rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft into future projections, he said.Oh, please, Governor. This is common sense, old, old news. Get yourself some Google alerts:
In 2016:
The road-builders make a lot more profit laying concrete than they earn filling potholes and repairing existing roads, so our infrastructure continues to deteriorate while Walker and WisDOT are throwing billions into the SE WI 'freeway' system - - as seniors and millenials drive less.In 2015:
And now Walker wants fresh borrowing - - while he played a key role in kicking off $6.5 billion in SE WI 'free'way' expansion and rebuilding when there was no financial plan on the table or approved to fund it!
You give WisDOT more money, and it will keep letting contracts and over-building an already over-built system when fewer millenials and seniors will be driving and the transit they prefer is being ignored.
It will be interesting, in the long run, to determine if the billion or so dollars being spent to rebuild the [Zoo] interchange produce equivalent benefits - - or whether other phenomena, like induced demand, or the fall-off of driving by aging boomers and/or driving-disinterested millenials come into play to influence the equation.In 2013:
The average Wisconsinite now drives about as much in a year as he or she did in the middle of President Bill Clinton’s administration, and total vehicle travel has fallen by 3 percent since 2004.
Just last week, WISPIRG Foundation released a separate report, A New Direction, which found that the average number of miles driven by Americans has declined eight years in a row and the slowdown in driving is likely to continue. One reason could be a generational driving shift: As baby boomers leave the workforce they are driving less, while the millenials joining the workforce are more driving-averse, and more likely to commute by public transportation.In 2008:
Wisconsin is still dedicated to unsustainable highway building - - not merely road repairs and upkeep - - but to 127 miles of new lanes on its Southeastern regional freeway system, at a projected cost of $6.5 billion.
And to significant projects across the state that push development farther from cities, through farm land and wetlands.
Yet, we know that people are driving less, that the expectation and need for modern transit is growing, that people are indicating a preference for relocating closer to their jobs, that air quality standards are getting tougher, that high fuel and shipping costs are even re-igniting an interest in local food production - - all suggesting that sprawl development enabled through highway expansion that eats up land and produces more driving, dirty air and fuel burn...is...slowing...down.
