Walker flailing, and DC cash isn't enough to bail Wis out. The latest on road funding

This week featured an interesting zig-zag by our Fair Governor.

The first part was typical Walker idiocy.

Speaking to the Milwaukee Rotary Club and Milwaukee Press Club Tuesday, Walker called for a re-examination of Wisconsin’s transportation goals and questioned if current traffic projections are reliable. He notes his sons — both millennials — are more likely to take Uber or Lyft than drive their own cars. (Ummm, Uber and Lyft don’t really come out to the sticks, give reduced prices for the poor and elderly, and/or go on long-distance trips, Scotty).

Walker said he will lay out his transportation plan later this month, but believes the state can meet its needs without a “massive gas tax increase.”

The guv didn’t offer specifics.

But it was this second part of the story that was intriguing.

“There are some groups out there that want to spend billions and billions and billions of dollars on more, bigger, wider interchanges across the state,” Walker said. “I actually think we should do it fixing and maintaining our infrastructure. I don’t know that we need bigger and better and broader right now when we have a changing transportation system.”

Walker's comments generated applause from a typical adversary of Scotty's Koched-up policies - environmental groups like WISPIRG, the Sierra Club and 1000 Friends of Wisconsin. And for the record, I’m also OK with the idea of not expanding sprawl and choosing to improve the infrastructure instead of constantly widening freeways on expensive projects, unless congestion becomes unbearable.

I’d say “welcome to the party, Scotty!”, except that Walker is completely contradicting what he recently said at a big media event in the 920.

Just two weeks ago, Walker directed the Department of Transportation to study the expansion of I-41 to six lanes from the current four between Appleton and De Pere in the Fox Valley.

In addition to that oxy-moronity, Walker cut state aids for transit by 10% for 2012 and has kept it at that lower level for the 7 fiscal years since then, and also cut aids for "transportation alternatives" such as bicycling, causing the state to fall back in the pack for its access to bikes. So it's not like Walker is planning to move the costs of highway expansion into transportation alternatives- in fact, he is endangering those bus and biking systems.

It’s almost like Gov dropout has no clue about what to do with increasingly scarce DOT funding, and is just throwing stuff against the wall based on poll data and what he thinks the audience and/or voters want to hear at the time. Which makes this the backup theme song to the Walker '18 campaign (behind Garth Brooks/Bill Joel's "Shameless").

But perhaps Scotty will get a bit of bailout from his fellow Republicans in Washington, as this report by Wisconsin's Gannett papers shows.

Wisconsin is getting nearly $91 million in extra road money through a federal program — far more than it typically receives — at a time when highway funding has become a top issue in Gov. Scott Walker’s re-election bid.

The extra money will give the GOP governor a chance to move up some projects but is well short of enough to close a long-standing gap between funding available for roads and the cost of the work the state has identified that needs to be done in the coming years...

State officials expected to get $43.9 million through the program this year. That means they’re getting $46.9 million more than they thought they would.

The money could be put toward an array of projects, including Highway 20 in Racine County, I-94 in Waukesha County and I-39 in Dane County. The state Department of Transportation hasn’t finalized what projects will get the money, but plans to emphasize rehabilitation work, DOT spokesman Christian Schneider said.

(Side note: "DOT spokesman Christian Schneider???" ARE YOU F'ING KIDDING ME!!!)


Scotty now likes getting money from DC. What changed?

But as the article notes, while the $47 mil is a nice boost, it's barely half of the money that the Walker Administration took away from highway projects throughout the state to upgrade roads around the Foxconn plant in Racine County. A Foxconn plant that we now know won't be nearly as big an employment center as what was originally promised.

And while the state is getting $47 million, local governments in Wisconsin are losing almost the same amount, as a report from Channel 2 in Green Bay tells us. Basically, the State of Wisconsin is holding back $45 million of federal funds that are usually given to Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) in the state, and it's throwing the burdens onto the local taxpayers to finish the projects.

"Where is the money going? We have no idea," says Steve Grenier, Green Bay Public Works Director.

Local officials were recently informed about a change in federal funding when it comes to Service Transportation Block Grants. That's money that Municipal Planning Organizations (MPOs) request to complete transportation projects....

MPOs across the state are missing one year of federal funding. It was money they were depending on for upcoming project.

"Essentially what it boils down to, the way it's been explained to us, there's one year's of STBG funding that is no longer available to MPOs," Grenier says. "So if the numbers I've seen are accurate on a statewide basis, that comes out to about $45 million. And right now, you, no one knows where that $45 million is going? That is correct."

The reduction in funding is forcing these planning organizations to use local funds on certain projects, including the Gray Street reconstruction in Green Bay.

Then throw in the damage from Wisconsin's severe rainstorms and flooiding, and it adds to an already-high backlog of regular maintenance, which strains local budgets even worse. State Sen. Kathleen Vinehout uses an example from her district, where the Town of Maxville in Buffalo County has to borrow money to pave their roads, and they’ve had enough of the current situation where the Walker Administration and Wisconsin GOP pass the buck down to handcuffed local governments.

Maxville Township is not alone. Local governments are trying to cobble together a road budget because local road aid hasn’t kept up with inflation for years. According to a report released by the Department of Transportation (DOT) local road aid, in real dollars, dropped almost 4% from 2006 to 2019.

Many local units of government are tired of being told the lack of local road money would be fixed in the next budget – only to see, year after year, the local road aid budgets fall further behind. Locals are committed to keeping roads and bridges in good repair but cannot provide these services if the state does not deliver the funds….

In the fall of 2016, local governments passed 559 resolutions calling on state leaders to fix the road budget. According to the Transportation Development Association (TDA) over the past few months they received another “200 plus” local government resolutions.

Because of state imposed levy caps, local governments have little ability to raise property taxes to pay for roads. So, they are often stuck with the declining state support.

Side benefit of an Evers win- we'd get more Vinehout.

Vinehout adds that the numerous wheel taxes that have been put in place throughout Wisconsin in recent years also reflects the failures of Walker and WisGOP to give local governments the funding or flexibility to meet their many infrastructure needs, and “staying honest and acknowledging the problem” is what’s needed to come to a real solution.

But Scott Walker clearly doesn’t want to do that, because then it would throw the spotlight on the fact that he has chosen stunts and photo ops over actual governance and problem-solving. And now we’re supposed to believe that Walker will come up with some magic idea to solve these problems when he and WisGOP have had 7 ½ years to come up with the money and priorities that would have taken care of many of these Scottholes and backlogged needs? COME ON, MAN!