Contact: Andrea Broaddus, New Transportation Alliance, 608-251-2804
                 David Cieslewicz, 1,000 Friends of Wisconsin, 608-259-1000
                 Brett Hulsey, Dane County Supervisor, 608-238-6070
                Caryl Terrell, Sierra Club, 608-256-0565
                Rich Bogovich, Wisconsin’s Environmental Decade, 608-251-7020

MADISON – Gov. Thompson’s Department of Transportation (DOT) today released it’s new draft, 20-year State Highway Plan (SHP), which immediately fell under heavy criticism from environmental and transportation advocates. The plan calls for almost 3,000 new lane miles and increases highway spending between now and 2020 by more than $6.5 billion over 97-99 budget levels, to $20 billion.  The Major Highway Program, $57 million in 1988, will increase to nearly 11 times higher by 2020, to $614 million.  Most of the spending is for highway expansions.

"What we can count on from this plan is higher taxes, more trucks and more sprawl development," said Andrea Broaddus, Campaign Director for the New Transportation Alliance.   "How are we going to pay to maintain all these new highways?  Our local roads and bridges are in desperate need of repairs.  Let’s fix what we have first."

The State Highway Plan accounts for over half of DOT’s overall budget, and under this plan, would leave even less left over for local roads, highway and bridge repair, elderly and disabled assistance, rail, transit, and bicycle and pedestrian safety.  The draft SHP presumes to use almost all of the state’s TEA-21 federal funds, $2.3 billion over the next 6 years, on state highways instead of on other needs.  Much of this money is specifically intended for multimodal projects, or those that increase mobility in multiple modes of travel.

Broaddus continued, "We’re calling on WisDOT to scale back this mega-highway expansion and free up funding for improvements in transit, rail, local roads, elderly and disabled transportation, and bicycle and walker safety.  How are non-drivers supposed to get around?  Road builders and developers will love these highway expansions, but they won’t help your grandmother get to the grocery store, your teenage son to soccer practice, or former welfare recipients get to work."

The groups criticized the plan for failing to estimate secondary land use impacts, or sprawl, and called on DOT to develop ad implement comprehensive sprawl impact analysis before finalizing the SHP.  "This plan has too much concrete and not enough consideration for the Wisconsin landscape.  It’s the ‘Illinoising’ of Wisconsin," said Dave Cieslewicz, Executive Director of the citizens’ land use group, 1,000 Friends of Wisconsin.

"The plan would sacrifice nearly 39 square miles, including 1,000 acres of wetlands, to new highway lane miles.  That’s the size of Horicon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge buried under concrete," said Caryl Terrell, Legislative Coordinator for the Sierra Club.  "The SHP gives cursory consideration to water runoff pollution, but ignores the destruction of farmland and wildlife habitat which typically follow highway expansion."

The plan was also criticized for failing to account for increased traffic and maintenance costs to counties and local communities.  The draft plan says that 61% of all injury crashes occur on local, urban, and county roads, yet includes no funding for safety improvements on these roads.

"This plan means more trucks and traffic on local roads, with no money left over to fill potholes and keep streets safe for bikers and walkers," said Brett Hulsey, Dane County Supervisor.  "Local roads are forced to take the extra traffic generated by these highways, but about 80% of local road repair will come from local property taxes. The Governor and DOT need to give local governments a fair share before we move forward with this plan to pave Wisconsin."

"We have a state bike plan that is getting dusty on a shelf while these highways get built," said Mike Barrett of the Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin.  "More traffic and more car-dependency means danger for bicyclists."

The draft SHP projects a 14% decrease in total air pollution emissions, based on technological improvements and less congestion.  The environmentalists criticized this projection as unrealistic, misleading, and incomplete, neglecting to include greenhouse gases and particulate matter (PM) emissions.  Diesel trucks are a significant source of PM, and commercial truck traffic is projected to double by 2020.

"It’s nonsensical to project that air emissions will decrease under this plan," said Rich Bogovich, Climate Change Policy Specialist for Wisconsin’s Environmental Decade.  "Air pollution emissions increase as highway capacity increases.  This plan means more smog and ozone red alert days, and more hospital visits from children and others who suffer from asthma and respiratory disease on those days."

Other concerns with the draft State Highway Plan include:  Ignores induced traffic:  The SHP makes no attempt to model newly generated (induced) traffic, which can account for 60-90% the new traffic on an expanded highway;  Costs taxpayers several times:  in state gas taxes for future highway repairs, in local taxes as more local road repair funds come from property taxes, as does sprawl development along new highways; Extra lanes don’t relieve congestion:  The draft SHP assumes that adding highway capacity reduces congestion, but studies of urban areas that have followed this strategy show that highway expansion has given virtually no reduction in congestion.

The New Transportation Alliance, the Sierra Club, the Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin, Citizens for a Better Environment, and Wisconsin’s Environmental Decade called on WisDOT to:

1) Scale back highway expansion plans and freeze enumeration of approved highway projects to free up funding and provide property tax relief.
2) Provide comparable plans for improving funding for local roads, transit, elderly and disabled transportation, and bicycle and pedestrian projects, and updating and implementing existing plans such as the Translinks 21 Multimodal Plan.
3) Develop and implement comprehensive sprawl impact analysis statutes before finalizing the SHP.
4) Prioritize maintenance over expansion by spending 50% of the overall state transportation budget on road repair and safety improvements paying improvement of existing infrastructure, and focusing resources where there are the most people.
5) Provide a full and adequate pollution analysis, including the health impacts of ozone and nitrogen oxides (NOx), asthma and cancer-related particulate emissions, and costs associated with greenhouse gas emissions.
6) Fund rail infrastructure and high speed rail, to reduce long-haul commercial shipping by trucks, and promote inter-modal rail to truck connections.
7) Include maintenance cost estimates for local governments.