A Legal Victory Against Road Expansion in Wisconsin
We got an e-mail yesterday from network member James Rowen, who writes the Political Environment blog in Milwaukee. Rowen wanted to be sure we hadn't missed his recent posts on last week's ruling by U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman (we had -- so thanks for the heads-up).
Adelman's ruling could delay or halt the ongoing widening of Wisconsin's Highway 164, a project that's been carried out by state and federal transportation agencies over the last few years over much community protest. The judge found that the expansion had not been properly justified by the environmental impact study conducted in 2001. (Read more about the case here and here; download the full ruling here).
The legal challenge to the widening was brought by the Highway J Citizens Group, which Rowen describes as "homeowners, farmers, and
everyday rural and suburban folk." He writes:
It says a lot about the way that federal and state governments havebeen forcing highway expansion onto the land and the general publicthat citizens have had to resort to litigation to get officials tofollow the law, and to ensure an open process, when public funds,public hearings, public projects and public property are all in play.…
[I]t shouldn't have come to this: governors of both parties in Wisconsin have given their WisDOT administrators carte blancheto tear up the land, pave the tax base, spend billions, overbuildhighways, bypasses and freeways, and enrich contractors, with littleregard to the interests of everyday taxpayers and the landscape.
So is there any chance that this sorry state of affairs is going to change? A post by Gary Toth at Making Places, the Project for Public Spaces blog, offers some hope.
Toth writes:
On Thursday, September 24, ContextSensitiveSolutions.org, an FHWA website managed by Project for Public Spaces, hosted an online Forum on Livability for the US Department of Transportation (USDOT). Inthis forum, USDOT detailed several new programs related to a newPartnership for Sustainable Communities among USDOT, the USEnvironmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the US Department of Housingand Urban Development (HUD) that promise to reshape developmentpatterns around creating stronger community centers, more compact,mixed-use and walkable environments, and enhanced transportationoptions. At the same time, these programs would focus development in existing developed areas and protect farmland and open space.
We hope that we will look back on this initiativeas a watershed moment in the history of transportation in America -- areturn to the idea that transportation investment should be aboutlivability and community outcomes, not simply moving vehicles.
Other news from around the network: Bike Portland writes about the growing pedestrian advocacy movement in that city. City Walkabout posts on the importance of the stoop party in Pittsburgh. And Aaron Renn continues his analysis of the putative Pittsburgh renaissance over at New Geography.
Stay in touch
Sign up for our free newsletter
More from Streetsblog USA
Friday’s Headlines Got Served
Another day, another GOP lawsuit trying to overturn a Biden administration climate change rule.
Disabled People Are Dying in America’s Crosswalks — But We’re Not Counting Them
The data on traffic fatalities and injuries doesn’t account for their needs or even count them. Better data would enable better solutions.
LA: Automated Enforcement Coming Soon to a Bus Lane Near You
Metro is already installing on-bus cameras. Soon comes testing, outreach, then warning tickets. Wilshire/5th/6th and La Brea will be the first bus routes in the bus lane enforcement program.
Talking Headways Podcast: Charging Up Transportation
This week, we talk to the great Gabe Klein, executive director of President Biden's Joint Office of Energy and Transportation (and a former Streetsblog board member), about curbside electrification.
Why Does the Vision Zero Movement Stop At the Edge of the Road?
U.S. car crash deaths are nearly 10 percent higher if you count collisions that happen just outside the right of way. So why don't off-road deaths get more air time among advocates?
