When I first moved to Milwaukee, I was really pleased to learn that I could take the bus to work, to downtown, and even to some of the suburbs. I have a car, but I think it’s important to support mass transit. The bus is greener, it’s generally affordable, and it makes parking a non-issue. Mostly, it’s stress-free.
My experience with riding the bus was mixed. My primary route was often late, even in good weather. I could take just one bus to work, but the routes into downtown required changing and in some cases, involved more of a walk than I wanted. And of course, the contestant stop and go made the bus ride slow. True, I was spared parking hassles, but there was a trade off. I have since learned that I had a pretty experience compared with riders coming from the suburbs, which is a shame.
I’m recalling my bus experience because I just got around to reading a report from UW Milwaukee’s Center for Economic Development. The report looks specifically at how proposed cuts to MCTS would affect access to employment. The numbers are bad, no surprise. Some routes would be reduced while others would be eliminated. The short version is this: 997 employers and approximately 13,553 jobs would no longer be accessible by bus. The full report with an explanation of those numbers can be found here.
I don’t know how many people take the bus to work. I don’t know how many people use the routes that could be eliminated or reduced. What I do know is that making it harder for people to get to jobs (or schools, or grocery stores, or health care providers) is a bad deal. The bus system is far from perfect, but there are people who rely on it every day. There are also many people who would probably use the bus more often if service was improved. Heck, even the business community is in favor of at least keeping MCTS funding at its current level.
But the bus system does not appear to be a priority for the current administration. Much like high speed rail, the opportunity to grow something good is going to be lost.
Cutting transit, cutting education, and cutting programs that serve lower-income residents fall into the same short-sighted approach to dealing with budget problems. Once these things are gone, or so severely depleted they might as well be, it will be that much harder to rebuild them.
There has to be a place where the greater good and the bottom line can live together.
