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

[Ken and Tracie]

Good counterpoints, Robert. I want people to think about what's best rather 
than cheer the return of electric traction to Milwaukee. We don't need any 
flops to give the Wendell Cox crowd any nails to drive into light rail's 
coffin.

My family always preferred the old vibrant Downtown of the 1950s and '60s as 
well as the once successful business area centered around 27th & Fond du 
Lac. And we lived across the street from Capitol Court! And we were all mass 
transit users.

I believe a major reason both Northridge and Capitol Court died was because 
of Milwaukee's age old distrust and contempt between Whites and 
African-Americans.  That is not a very eloquent way to put it, but the 
Whites tend to be a blockbuster's delight once African-Americans move into 
formerly all White areas. Many Milwaukee African-Americans do not wish to 
make the remaining Whites  feel welcome.

I am from a racially blended family and I lived in Milwaukee for the first 
twenty five years of my life. The hatred and mistrust between these two 
groups was, and often is,  horrible.

I now live in a racially diverse Las Vegas suburb and have seen so much 
social progress. Las Vegas was once known as "the Mississippi of the West." 
Whenever I visit Milwaukee, it's still the same old nonsense. Racism will 
never go away completely, but Milwaukee area politicians seem to thrive on 
fanning the flames.

I bring the above up because it is social component few people wish to 
discuss. In Los Angeles, expansion of the light rail network was opposed by 
some so-called "Black activists" who claimed extensions into White areas 
whose residents are more prone to driving themselves wastes funds that could 
be put to better use by putting more buses on the streets for racial 
minorities who don't drive. But I thought the problem in L.A. was that 
everybody drives.

I know the Downtown Streetcar Circulator in Portland is a success. I wish 
Milwaukee the best. I also felt this could be a "foot in the door" line, but 
I was hoping for a more of a private right of way line between residential 
neighborhoods and where the residents work and shop.

So let's have a healthy debate!

Let's ask present day Milwaukeeans where they believe the starter line 
should be built and why.

K.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robert Madison" <rmadisonwi at gmail.com>
To: <milwaukee-electric at lists.dementia.org>
Sent: Sunday, March 15, 2009 10:22 AM
Subject: [milwaukee-electric] Re: Milwaukee streetcar engineering to begin 
this fall.


> Ken and Tracie wrote:
>> I don't mean to offend anybody, but I find this proposed Milwaukee 
>> streetcar
>> line disappointing
>>
>> This line appears to serve NO purpose! Why not just visit Kenosha or East
>> Troy to ride
>> streetcars?
>>
>> This is a waste of money. Girdling the essentially irrelevant Downtown 
>> with
>> a car line that goes nowhere?
>>
>> Do I support a light rail line between potential riders and a popular
>> destination? Makes sense to me. Light rail from the suburbs to an active
>> business district, university, arena, stadium and/or mall? Absolutely! 
>> But
>> circling the outer perimeter of what is no longer a vibrant center of
>> consumerism or civic activity? Ridiculous!
>>
>> Riders may prefer rail to rubber, but I believe a one seat ride trumps 
>> all.
>> What are the planners going to do? Force transfers to the streetcars and
>> perhaps alienate bus riders?
>>
>> The charm and ambience of a streetcar may be the tipping point for fans 
>> like
>> us, but to John Q. Public, an enclosed mall during winter wins every 
>> time.
>>
>> Starter lines ought be like the ones built in Portland, San Diego or
>> Calgary.
>>
>> K.
>>
>
> It depends on what else they have planned for the area.  The current
> economic downturn notwithstanding, the edges of downtown were starting
> to convert more to mixed-use development (residential/commercial).
>
> I moved out of Milwaukee in 2006, but still keep my finger on the local
> pulse every now and then.  When I left, they were still debating what to
> do with the old Pabst Brewery site, and how to use all the land
> reclaimed from the destruction of that useless Park-East freeway.  If
> they can actually get some good development (and I'll admit, I don't
> know what the current status of any of those projects are, perhaps
> someone can let me know what's happened recently), then this streetcar
> line will be a great centerpiece to the revitalization of the area.
> Right before I left Milwaukee, I lived at State & Cass, which would be
> just a block away from the proposed route.  I was going to UWM at the
> time, and, granted, this service wouldn't go there (but you can't get
> everything, at least not right away), but it would have been very
> convenient for my trips into the main part of downtown.
>
> The bigger shame is that they didn't tear down I-794, like some had
> proposed (including, I believe, former mayor Norquist).  Then they could
> have reclaimed even more valuable land, and perhaps run the streetcar
> right down the middle of the new right of way.
>
> Passenger rail is going to take a more important role in the future of
> the region, and Milwaukee's Amtrak Station is separated from downtown by
> that monstrosity that they just rebuilt.  The streetcar link will
> certainly be more inviting to the public coming from the train station
> than walking underneath the freeway.
>
> I think this is the right move, for several reasons.  First, it finally
> breaks the "no-rail" barrier that has infected Milwaukee's thinking for
> decades.  It circumvents Scott Walker, who is only pretending to support
> the express bus service because he realizes it's the only way he could
> have avoided having rail (where was his support for the bus service from
> 2002 until 2007 or so?).  It's not just Walker personally, but the
> entire political establishment in the region which seems hell bent on
> screwing the city and preventing any good transit from ever being
> built.  When people see how nice the ride is, they'll want expansion.
>
> Another reason I think this is a good idea is that it gives Milwaukee
> some sort of footing for what might happen in the future.  As energy
> costs escalate, oil supplies dwindle, and the whole unsustainable
> economic system that encourages long-distance commuting continues to
> fall, cities will need to physically shrink in order to survive.  We
> seriously can't afford all of the infrastructure that we have in this
> country, and what will have to happen is that we will have to choose
> between having good quality infrastructure that is limited in the area
> it serves, or overextending our resources by trying to serve every
> possible corner.
>
> This will be made much easier as mixed-use development continues to
> expand, which means that people's worlds can shrink, and they won't need
> to travel very far to get to where they need to go.  Instead of having
> the light rail serve the suburbs, the goal ought to be to encourage
> people to leave the suburbs and return to the city.
>
> If there is a part of your note that I will agree with, it's that the
> line ought to be expanded (or, at least, make provisions for expansion)
> to UWM and Marquette.  Expanding northeast to UWM would serve more of
> the most densely populated part of the city.  Going west to Marquette
> would not only serve that school, but also provide a link to the other
> part of downtown.  I don't think it's worth it to serve an "arena,
> stadium, and/or mall," unless those facilities just happen to be along
> the route (which the Bradley Center is, for whatever life that place has
> left).
>
> One of my biggest complaints about the initial Milwaukee Conenctor
> routing was that it basically dead-ended at Miller Park, which is used
> all of 81 times per year.  The rest of the time, the
> trains/cars/buses/trams/whatever would be going there empty.  There's
> nothing else nearby to attract ridership, because the stadium is pretty
> much in the middle of nowhere, surrounded on two sides by freeways, and
> (IIRC) on one side by a cemetery, and one side by the VA grounds (and
> that's after you walk through the ginormous parking lots to get there).
> Shopping malls haven't exactly been a great story of economic success,
> either.  Northridge, Capitol Court, Southgate, etc. all died in the
> 1990s (or, in the case of Northridge, I believe early 2000s) despite
> being conveniently located and having pretty good transit access as
> well.  Last time I was there, there wasn't much left of Grand Avenue (in
> the middle of downtown, and along the proposed streetcar route).
> Everything else is way out in the suburbs, where it would be very
> expensive to build a line to serve them.
>
> Bayshore was just rebuilt to be super car-friendly and very
> transit-unfriendly.  None of the other shopping malls in the area seem
> to want to be particularly transit-friendly either.
>
> Long story short, I think this streetcar line will be fine, provided the
> development at the north end of the route gets done properly.
>