BTW, Hans Wiesgerber III is on FB complaining about WTH Northridge shopping mall is still around and vacant as a property. I have to say I both agree with his rant and feel bad for him and Milwaukee. WTH, indeed.
I would imagine that trend is Nationwide due to the pandemic and remote work arrangements.
Wisconsin is getting better but it is still a basket case for tranist, bus systems and for that matter freeway / highway maintenence. In my observation, instead of speeding up freeway construction and giving incentives for ontime or rapid / high quality completion as is done in the Dallas area. Wisconsin defers the cost across years for highway improvements or new construction in what amounts to a program of deferred maintenence on transportation in favor of heavy spending in other areas.
Everytime I travel up there I comment on how long it takes to get a road improved or constructed and I hear the common refrain "Oh thats because of our short summers or severe winters" they have the public en masse reciting that refrain, they do not know any better because most of them were not alive during the Gov Patrick Lucy years and before when they did get freeways done fast. Not sure how and why that approach jumped the track as they say but it did.
There is an impact on the states economy of deferring maintenence over years vs getting it done ASAP as well as the overall project costs are more expensive..........one of the reasons I left the state. It's that and the atrocious to non-existent urban planning. Look how many times they had to reconstruct Bluemound Road through Brookfield as an example. The whole horrible experiment with one-way streets in Waukesha. The list is long and growing one.
There are a few bright spots. I think the subsidy for freight short lines, especially towards Wisconsin and Southern has paid dividends for the state and maintained rail competitiveness in the state to an extent. Never thought I would live to see the day of a light rail vehicle on Milwaukee Streets or an Intermodal Passenger station in Milwaukee. Both took well over half a Century from first conception but better late than never.
I like Dallas better. Who knew that Dallas and Forth Worth of all places would embrace rail passenger trainsit as well as bus transit as much as they have. The DFW system needs some fine tuning as it was built on the cheap and 20 years ahead of time but that fine tuning is slowly comming along and at some future date our transit system in Dallas will be a marvel for the convienence and the passengers it carries.
I'm not so sure about the personal safety of private vehicles when you consider the number of shooting incidents that have occurred on freeways and expressways over the last few years.
How can you buck the preference for the convenience and personal safety of private vehicles?
https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2022/04/11/transportation-wpf-transportation-study/?fbclid=IwAR1Bxtl7M9nbgYhiWXC6ykwm3fuBPrANwhThx0OQHVXWN3hDJf15wOWsz9I
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