Common Ground
A homeowner in Waukesha for 20 years, Steve is president of the Waukesha Dog Parks Organization and enjoys motorcycling, fishing and staying on top of politics.
High Speed Rail Doesn't Fix Roads
It’s amazing how news goes from hot to cold. Heard much about high speed rail lately?
I’ve been doing a lot of motorcycling lately. I bought a new motorcycle that is more fun to ride than my Honda GoldWing and gets around 10 mpg better. But that is another story. The tie-in to high-speed rail is much. After all, people have to get to the railroad station, right?
My new motorcycle is lighter than my GoldWing and the tires are a little smaller. Both of these make any irregularity in the road feel harsher. I’ve written about the condition of Waukesha roads. The city is doing what they can with the money that they have. However, in that last sentence, much is said. Read on.
Two sections of roads in my work commute and in my pleasure riding route stand out in my memory. One is in Milwaukee. 70th street between I94 and the West Allis city limits where it suddenly gets better. That section of road is so bad, you have to swerve around the dips, bumps and pot-holes or risk losing control of the motorcycle. It gets lots of traffic so you’d think that it would be a higher priority. We know money is very tight in Milwaukee.
The next less than memorable section of road is our very own Northview road. This has long been the start of my local motorcycle ride route along highway G to E and around Ottawa. This road has also deteriorated to the point of being hazardous in places.
My point is that these and all roads will continue to be needed no matter if railroads, busses, trolley’s and street cars are slammed down our collective throats to our wallets. If we cannot afford to maintain them now, how can we when we have to subsidize mass transit?
The state wants to tap into the Transportation Fund to be used for general revenue items. We can’t let this happen! The Federal Government did the same thing with the Social Security and Medicare funds. We now know that was a mistake but those responsible have either died off or retired to luxurious lives funded by the spoils of political plundering.
Our gas taxes and registration money must go for roads and not for rails, or other unrelated projects!
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