Transit

The Wisconsin Department of Transportation is set on widening Interstate 94, a highway that runs east-west through Milwaukee. The agency is so committed to this idea that it is proceeding, at great expense and over the objections of Milwaukee's mayor, with a project to double-deck a portion of the road through a relatively densely populated area. The money that WisDOT is prepared to shell out for this highway expansion could be better spent providing quality transit options along the corridor, the Wisconsin Public Interest Research says in a new report  [PDF].

Michigan state senators voted last week to approve a gas tax hike expected to net more than $1 billion annually to fix the state's notoriously potholed roads, reports the Free Press. The measure, if it passes the House intact, could also be good news for Detroit's woefully inadequate transit system.

It’s time to rev up the annual fight over parity between federal transit and parking benefits for commuters. Members of Congress hope this might finally be the year to get it done.

Whether Tuesday’s election left you feeling elated or devastated, there’s one happy story we can all rejoice in: Clayton County, Georgia, will finally get transit service.

On Friday, the Ohio Department of Transportation held a meeting ostensibly to gather feedback from transit riders in the Dayton and Cincinnati regions. But ODOT held the meeting in exurban Lebanon -- a hour's trip by car from Cincinnati and totally inaccessible by transit from either city.

Next week, voters in Maryland and Wisconsin may tell state officials to keep their greedy paws off transportation funds. Louisianans will consider whether to create an infrastructure bank to help finance projects. Texans will weigh the wisdom of raiding the state’s Rainy Day Fund for -- what else? -- highways. And Massachusetts activists who have been fighting to repeal the state’s automatic gas tax hikes will finally get their day of reckoning.

Planners of the new Tucson streetcar predicted that it would carry 3,600 passengers a day. Just three months after it opened, the figure is 4,700. Builders of the light rail between Minneapolis and St. Paul that started running in June foresaw 33,000 daily riders in 2015; the count has already passed 37,000.

If only our nation's spending priorities more closely tracked public opinion: A new poll [PDF] from ABC News and the Washington Post finds that when presented with the choice, Americans would rather spend transportation resources expanding transit than widening roads.

If you still have to juggle multiple farecards for the various transit systems in your area -- or if urgent maintenance issues in the city core are going unattended while the suburbs get a shiny new station -- the problem might run deeper than the incompetence everyone is grumbling about. The root of it all might be embedded in the very structure of the agencies that govern your transit system.