Upgrade plans screech to a halt

Bill's failure means transit ideas likely stalled for year

By LARRY SANDLER

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=727293

March 12, 2008

With Milwaukee County Transit System ridership at a historic low, legislation that could help fund Wisconsin bus and train systems appears dead for this year.

After failing to reach agreement on key details, lawmakers have given up on a bill to let local governments form regional transit authorities that would be funded by local sales taxes. Instead, the issue could be heading to a Legislative Council study committee for several months of debate.

That legislation also was seen as the best hope this year to fund the KRM Commuter Link. Planning for the $200 million commuter rail line from Milwaukee to Racine and Kenosha has stalled because local and state officials have been unable to agree on how to pay the local share of construction and operating costs.

And last week, the Journal Sentinel reported that a bureaucratic mix-up has frozen study of using $91.5 million in long-idle federal aid for streetcars, express buses or any other Milwaukee-area transit project.

Together, those developments mean that every effort to improve public transit in southeastern Wisconsin - or even to stabilize funding for existing transit systems - has ground to a halt, probably until after local and legislative elections.

Milwaukee County bus ridership last year fell 9%, to 42.5 million, the lowest level since the county took over the system in 1975. By contrast, national bus and train ridership hit a 50-year high of 10.3 billion, driven by rising gas prices and traffic congestion.

County officials have raised fares, cut service or both every year since 2000, moves that transit officials and regional planners have cited as major factors in the ridership decline. Fare-box revenue increased 4%, however, to $42.6 million, reflecting last year's 14% boost in weekly pass prices, from $14 to $16, transit spokeswoman Jacqueline Janz said.

The Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission has warned that a 35% service cut could be needed if new local or state funding isn't found by 2010.

As a different funding crisis looms for the Fox Cities' Valley Transit and other public bus systems face their own fiscal pressures, the Wisconsin Alliance of Cities has been pushing for regional transit authorities.

Sales tax option

The bill would provide for local sales taxes of up to 0.5% to replace property tax funding for buses, taking transit systems out of competition with other agencies for city and county levies. Transit advocates believed that measure also could offer a way to help pay for the KRM line and proposed Madison-area commuter trains.

But months of behind-the-scenes talks could not produce enough agreement to find more than a single sponsor for the legislation, according to lawmakers and others close to the issue.

Part of the dispute was over requiring referendums to impose sales taxes, said Rep. Robin Vos (R-Racine), the bill's sponsor, and Pete Beitzel, a vice president of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce. Such votes weren't part of the alliance's original proposal, but Vos and Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch (R-West Salem) insisted on them.

Nationwide, sales taxes are the most common way of funding major transit systems, and referendums are not unusual. In recent years, U.S. voters have approved 70% of ballot measures seeking new or increased taxes for transit upgrades, according to the American Public Transportation Association.

The alliance and some business leaders and elected officials agreed to the referendums, though others remained opposed, said Beitzel, Vos and Ed Huck, executive director of the Wisconsin Alliance of Cities.

Also problematic were provisions added by Vos, a longtime KRM opponent who introduced the bill after other sponsors dropped out, said Huck and Rep. Jeff Stone (R-Greendale).

Stone, a leading GOP voice on transportation, and Karl Ostby, chairman of the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Transit Authority, said attempts to let smaller communities veto or opt out of transit authorities could lead to a patchwork system. And setting minimum sizes for transit authorities would have blocked efforts to set up regional rural bus systems in the Ripon and Baraboo areas and to extend Chicago's Metra commuter trains to Janesville and Beloit, said Huck and Gary Goyke, a lobbyist for the Wisconsin Urban and Rural Transit Association.

Vos said he wanted to see truly regional systems in which larger communities could not dictate to smaller ones. But he said he would have negotiated on the details if everyone had agreed that voters should decide on taxes.

Even if the Legislative Council agrees to study the issue, the study's recommendations wouldn't be enacted before 2009. Beitzel and Stone said they were concerned about finding a solution before time runs out for the Milwaukee County bus system.