While Wisconsin’s mainstream media degenerate into covering the dispute between Assembly and Senate Republicans over whether the Zoo interchange should be delayed, I checked in with Senator Fitzgerald’s office to see what pieces are still at play in the transportation puzzle:
- The project delays being discussed are for projects funded exclusively by bonding. This generally means highway projects, not bike, ped, or transit.
- A general rollback of bike, pedestrian, and transit funding is still being considered, but not a definite at this point. Same goes for the Governor’s proposal to eliminate the Complete Streets program and Transportation alternatives funding.
- Some scaling back of smaller future highway expansion projects is being discussed.
- There has been some talk about reforming the enumeration process to limit the number of projects in the pipeline, but nothing serious. Concerns about giving WISDOT planning time, and ability to have projects ready when money is available seem to override those of creating a constituency by adding a project to the list.
