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What’s at stake?

The very fabric of our communities and our daily lives. An RTA would create urgently needed access to over a million jobs, creation of tens of thousands new jobs, revitalization of neighborhoods and business districts, and a regional transit network that is crucial to attracting businesses, jobs, talent, and customers. The future of our economy, community, and quality of life are riding on the creation of a permanent RTA in SE Wisconsin.

We need an RTA now to create jobs and a stronger economy by empowering communities to provide regional coordination and adequate stable funding for modern cost-effective transportation systems that build wealth and get people efficiently connected to jobs, school, and entertainment.

The RTA is our best (and possibly last) chance to avoid bankruptcy of our bus systems, build KRM Commuter Rail, and bring a major infusion of federal, state, and local dollars, both public and private, to our cities and neighborhoods. Plus, the RTA can give us property tax relief! (Click here for details.)

Without an RTA in 2009, transit services will be slashed and people will be cut off from jobs, workers and employers alike will be hard hit, and businesses, jobs and federal dollars will continue to go elsewhere while we fall further behind. KRM Commuter Rail and its accessibility and economic benefits will be sidelined. Our current transit structure and funding source can no longer support our region’s transit needs.

A Regional Transit Authority is needed now to create:

• Affordable, reliable regional connections to:

• Over 1 million jobs
• Valuable metro Milwaukee and Chicago economic corridor
• A customer base of 2 million people located near proposed and existing stations
• Bi-state economic corridor of economic, education, cultural, and entertainment opportunities

• Thousands of new transit accessible jobs from building the system, from new development, and by attracting new businesses to the area
• Urban revitalization, development, and tax base. Across the country, where rail and good transit are implemented, economic development has followed. Without a good regional transit system we are at a severe disadvantage in attracting businesses, jobs, talent, and private investment to Racine
• Lower cost of living and more disposable income that builds wealth and supports our local economy. BY using transit regularly families can save thousands of dollars per year. We must have alternatives to spikes in the cost of fuel!
• The structure needed to access major federal investments in improving transit and spurring economic growth.
• Property tax relief. By removing transit from the property tax, and instituting a smarter way to fund our infrastructure with a sales tax where 20% to 30% is generated by visitors.
• An RTA is needed now save our bus systems, implement KRM, and provide regional connections that build wealth and get people efficiently connected to jobs, school, and fun!

Transit is a fundamental component of our economy, and our systems are falling dangerously close to bankruptcy. We urgently need the jobs and economic development that the RTA will make possible. Without the RTA and a dedicated funding source, KRM Commuter Rail Project is dead in it’s tracks, and our bus systems will be forced to slash services and cut people off from jobs and opportunity.

All of the transit systems in SE Wisconsin and many in the state are in financial decline because of flat state, federal, and local revenues and increasing costs. A dedicated funding source is urgently needed now. This is a regional issue. We are all impacted when the transit systems in the region decline or die.

Our region continues to lose out on Federal funds because we lack an RTA to provide the necessary structure or a dedicated local funding match for transit improvements such as KRM.

The Governor's RTA proposal does not impose an RTA or any taxes. It empowers our communities to decide this issue for themselves.

A regional approach must be taken in order to link people to jobs. And, we must have a reliable and cost-efficient transit system.  As we have seen through recent route cuts and fare increases, our transit systems are not sustainable under their current local funding source, the property tax.  A dedicated sales tax for transit is a necessary investment to maintain bus transit, invest and expand on improvements to the bus system and to create new opportunities such as the KRM that will reap dramatic economic rewards (learn more). A dedicated sales tax for transit is the smartest solution for southeastern Wisconsin.