Support for the KRM line between Milwaukee and Chicago has been growing for years and is starting to expand beyond political parties and traditional “conservative vs. liberal” boundaries.

Three prominent Southeastern Wisconsin business leaders – Tim Sheehey, Todd Battle and Roger Caron – write about the need to move forward on the KRM line in today’s Racine Journal Times:

Our organizations are responsible for increasing the economic vitality of the surrounding community, and while each city faces unique challenges, we share a common goal of fostering business development, job creation and capital investment.

None of our cities is unique in its work to support the efficient and continued operation of transit systems at a time when state and federal funds for transit are stagnant. We all agree that frequent, reliable transit is critical to ensuring that all residents can access jobs. Conversely, reliable transit is critical in assuring businesses that they are accessible by employees.

Timothy Sheehy represents the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, Roger Caron represents Racine Area Manufacturers and Commerce and Todd Battle is with the Kenosha Area Business Alliance.

The business community is on board in support of mass transit and they’re a welcome passenger in the push for economic development, connecting workers to jobs and connecting Milwaukee to the global marketplace.

I’m so old I can remember when the Phoenix light rail system was held up by anti-rail zealots as a prime example of how light rail in a city designed for cars would be a massive, monumental and cataclysmic failure.

Guess not.

So much for the notion of light rail’s novelty wearing off.

The average passenger count for weekdays in February, the second month of the cross-Valley line’s revenue operations, jumped 15 percent from January and was well over projections for the first year.

Almost 35,300 people rode trains on the average weekday, Metro announced Thursday. That figure exceeded Metro’s target of 26,000 by more than one-third. – MSNBC

Not only is their new light rail system – which I should point out, is located in an area that’s hardly considered “liberal” – meeting expectations, it’s exceeding them.

I also recall reading a lot about how anti-rail conservatives in Arizona were predicting nothing but doom and gloom for their “choo-choo train” and that no one would ride it even if it was ever completed. They were wrong again.

It’s the same thing we’ve been hearing from the same types of people here in Milwaukee. I believe that like Phoenix, a new commuter rail or streetcar option in Milwaukee will be met with much the same success as Phoenix.

And everywhere else it’s been deployed for that matter.

I’ve been pointing out the success stories of commuter and light rail in city after city for almost a year now and not once during that time have I heard of, nor has anyone sent me (which believe me, they would) the counters to those stories during that time. Just lots of, “Well it sure has heck won’t work here!” speculation and scare tactics.

Good job Phoenix, and congratulations on your success.

Because County Executive Walker’s stonewalling and unwillingness to work with anyone on the $92 million in transit money we had coming from the Federal government, Milwaukee County now will only get 40% of the money.

As recently as last year, Mayor Barrett was offering to split the money with the County and Walker 50/50. Walker refused, stomed his feet, and said he wanted all of the money for his project! His project , ironically, was to replace the aging County bus fleet that he’d starved of funding for years so he could claim he was “holding the line on taxes”.

So how’s that for leadership folks? I know the usual suspects will be patting him on the back and saying he stuck to his principles, but at the end of the day Milwaukee County has $10 million fewer dollars because our top elected official refused to even consider a compromise or what was best for his constituents. It was all about him, and that’s not leadership by any stretch of the word.

So yeah, of course he’s “upset” and “lashing out”. His political stunt backfired. Again. And when you’re just about to (finally) announce your candidacy for Governor, that’s kind of bad timing.

Beyond how this affects Walker though, I think it’s important to focus on the real issue here: Milwaukee County now has less money to work with as a result of the decisions of our County Executive.

That’s shameful.

For several reasons, not least of which was the embarassment that after 17 years we couldn’t agree on how to spend $100 million, I’m happy that some resolution has come to the saga of how to spend federal tax money from the early 90’s.

Ending a 17-year-long dispute, Congress has thrown its support behind a modern streetcar system in downtown Milwaukee.

With local officials deadlocked over how to spend $91.5 million in long-idle federal transit aid, Sen. Herb Kohl and Rep. David Obey quietly inserted a provision in the massive federal budget bill to hand 60% of the money to the city for a downtown rail line and 40% to Milwaukee County for buses. President Barack Obama signed the budget into law last week.

That’s a victory for Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who has championed a downtown streetcar loop, and a defeat for County Executive Scott Walker, who has fought the idea. Kohl and Obey, both Wisconsin Democrats, acted at the urging of Barrett, their former congressional colleague. – jsonline.com

Great news for Milwaukee, I’m very excited about the potential for progress to our mass transit system here in the City and County.

The number of people utilizing mass transit continues to swell:

Despite job losses and falling gasoline prices, record numbers of Americans rode subways, buses and commuter rail last year, boosting public transportation ridership to its highest level in 52 years, according to a survey to be released today by the American Public Transportation Association.

Advocates say the ridership figures show growing support for public transportation. They hope to use that support to push for federal funding beyond the $8.4 billion in stimulus money set aside for transit. More investment in transit not only helps the economy, advocacy groups say, but also helps the environment and fosters energy independence. – Washington Post

Yet just this morning on my local AM radio station I heard a lot of mocking rhetoric that “NO ONE WILL RIDE IT@!$!” if and when we get improved mass transit here in Southeastern Wisconsin.

So on one hand you have professional talk show hosts who oppose mass transit and claim no one will ride it, and on the other hand you have record numbers of Americans who apparently aren’t listening to local AM talk radio shows.

At any rate, a positive sign for mass transit. It’s encouraging to see that the record number of mass transit users we saw during the high gas prices last Summer wasn’t a temporary thing, and that once people tried mass transit, they appear to be sticking with it.

The Wauwatosa Common Council voted to reject the recommendations of a Regional Transit Authority by a vote of 7-6 tonight after a good 70 minutes of debate.

The entire argument against any kind of regional transit from Alderman who oppose the RTA was based on so much misinformation, scare tactics and flat out falsehoods that I was shocked some of these people were able to get elected in the first place.

At the end of the day though, they won out, at least in Wauwatosa.

On a side note, Ald. Dennis McBride was impressive in his advocacy of the RTA tonight and although I’ve heard from acquaintances in Tosa that he’s a wonderful public servant, I hadn’t seen it in person until tonight.

Since the City of Wauwatosa is light years ahead of other local government entities in terms of technology and puts video of it’s meetings on Google within a year of the meeting, I’ll be able to splice together some highlights and lowlights shortly.

Good for the Wauwatosa Common Council. They’re going to be the first community in Milwaukee County to vote on acceptance of the Governor’s proposed Regional Transit Authority plan that would let individual municipalities vote to levy a half a percent sales tax in order to support a Regional Transit Authority.

Clearly the residents of Tosa see the benefits of having an efficient and modern mass transit system, and hopefully their elected officials will act on it in today’s meeting.

Right wing AM radio has been urging people to contact their Alderman in Tosa to express their opposition to mass transit. Judging from the agenda, nine people have actually done so. If you have a moment today stop by and show your support at 76th and North in Tosa.