[milwaukee-electric] Milwaukee streetcar engineering to begin this fall.

[mrcooby]

Preliminary engineering can begin this year for the plan to build a downtown Milwaukee streetcar system because a U.S. spending bill dedicated $54.9 million to the project.

The money will come from $91.5 million in federal money for transportation projects in Milwaukee County. Scott Walker, Milwaukee County executive, criticized the decision to spend any money on the streetcar rail system, saying the federal cash should go toward new high-speed bus routes. 

The federal budget bill signed last week dedicates the remaining $36.6 million to Milwaukee County buses. The federal decision wipes out a 1999 agreement between former Milwaukee County Executive Tom Ament, former Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist and former Gov. Tommy Thompson that said the $91.5 million would not be spent unless all three executive offices agreed on the project.

Patrick Curley, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett's chief of staff, said the mayor lobbied Wisconsin's Congressional delegates to dedicate the money because of local disagreements over how it should be spent. He said the federal money will cover a good portion of the streetcar system's construction costs, but he said he will not know how much more money will be necessary until the preliminary engineering work is complete.

"We are now on firm ground," Curley said. "We are out of the quagmire and standing on terra firma."

The proposed streetcar would run in a square made up of St. Paul Avenue, Fourth Street, Juneau Avenue and Van Buren Street.

Walker said the streetcar system will need $3 million in state transit money each year for operating costs, and the money will come out of the county bus system's share of state money. He said the federal move means he cannot derail the streetcar project.

"At this point, we won't have any role at all, period," he said. "It's completely wiped out by this federal action."

Walker said he will use the county's $36.6 million cut of the federal money to run a bus line from the Milwaukee County Grounds in Wauwatosa, along Wisconsin Avenue to Prospect Avenue and north to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee campus. He said the new bus line will connect the proposed UW-Milwaukee engineering campus in Wauwatosa to the main university campus.

Curley said the city should tap into the proposed Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Transit Authority, which could levy a sales tax, to support the streetcar system. 

"We would like to be part of the RTA," he said. "This should be no different from any other system."

===from Lou Rugani