[milwaukee-electric] Milwaukee will again be a Streetcar City.

[Louis Rugani]

Milwaukee streetcars will roll again for the first time since March of 1958.
The Milwaukee Common Council Tuesday morning approved its long-discussed two-mile downtown Milwaukee streetcar project. Mayor Tom Barrett said in praising the majority vote “It’s a step forward for economic development. It’s going to improve mass transit and put people work. Now is the time to push our sleeves and get to work on it,” Barrett said, adding a prediction that residents outside downtown "will want to extend to extend it to their neighborhood.”

Aldermen voted 10-5 to build the line, after a twenty-year hiatus where the streetcar project was discussed ad infinitum. Downtown Alderman Robert Bauman and east side Aldermen Nik Kovac said the streetcar project will create construction jobs, stimulate economic development along the streetcar route and improve mobility in the downtown area, Bauman saying "This will be a catalyst for real estate development. That’s been the experience of every other city that’s done this.”

Kenosha's two-mile system was the nation's first 21st-Century streetcar project, and Milwaukee officials were often seen downtown photographing the system and touring the shop facilities. Streetcars attract more riders than buses because passengers prefer to ride rails that point out the route, Bauman said.

$54.9 million in federal funds were allocated to Milwaukee in 1991 for mass transit but were never spent because local officials could never agree on what the money would be used for. Finally, Congress allocated those funds to be spent only for the downtown streetcar project. Milwaukee will provide $9.7 million, to come from the Cathedral Place tax incremental financing (TIF) district.

Bauman and Kovac argued that the federal funds could only be used for the streetcar project and would be sent to another city if the project was rejected by the council.

Five aldermen - Jim Bohl, Joe Davis, Robert Donovan, Michael Murphy and Joe Dudzik - voted in opposition to the streetcar project, saying they didn't understand future operating and maintenance costs. At one point Donovan proposed an amendment to have the project decided by a referendum, but that was shot down by a 12-3 vote. Kovac attacked Donovan's motionm saying that aldermen should vote on the project just the same as they vote for any public works project. 

“Do people expect us to come to them (in a referendum) every time we spend millions of dollars on a public works project?” Kovac said.

The streetcar route will run from the Amtrak Intermodal Station east on St. Paul Avenue, north on Broadway, east on Wells Street north on Van Buren Street (heading south it will use Jackson Street) and then east on Ogden Avenue to the Farwell Avenue intersection. 
Several business and civic officials wrote letters of support for the streetcar project.

For more information: www.milwaukeestreetcar.com

=Lou=

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The opposite of bravery is not cowardice, but conformity.       Robert Anthony