Wednesday, June 23
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
CONTACTS:  Andrea Broaddus, 608-251-2804
                      Rob Kennedy, 608-251-9164
 

MADISON – State environmentalists responded to changes in the 1999-2001 transportation budget made by the Assembly Republican Caucus, which they called a decision to "rank pork over planning and people’s needs."  Other decisions related to land use result in a budget that put the state’s farmland, natural areas, and environmental quality at risk, and decrease mobility for the estimated 40% of the population who do not drive.

"I was prepared for the Caucus to do some bad things, but I am amazed at their cavalier disregard for rational planning, land preservation, and local transportation needs, especially in urban communities," said Rob Kennedy, Transportation Policy Specialist with Citizens for a Better Environment.

"Instead of Smart Growth, we have Pork Growth," said Andrea Broaddus of the New Transportation Alliance.  "It seems the Caucus has gone out of their way to eliminate the state’s ability to plan growth, and the ability of local communities to control how they grow.  They have consistently taken out measures rewarding planning and local control, and inserted projects resulting from political connections."

"The same budget motion that increased road-building and added another major highway project also wiped out the Smart Growth Land Use Planning Initiative" said Dave Cieslewicz of 1,000 Friends of Wisconsin.  "If we fail to plan for growth, wider roads will be congested again soon after they are built."

The groups listed these Caucus decisions as the most harmful to the environment:

• Cutting transit support in half while allowing an effective 15% increase for state highways, including new federal funds added in December of 1998.

• Smothering local control by eliminating a community’s right to build whatever mode of transportation it wants to, even light rail in Milwaukee. 

• Removing provisions for the Smart Growth Initiative, which would have established state planning goals, linked local decisions to plans, provided state aid for local planning efforts, and established a "smart growth dividend" to reward communities that rein in sprawl.

• Enumerating two new highway projects, USH 41, and STH 23, bypassing the Transportation Projects Commission.

• Gutting $80 million for the State Stewardship Fund.

• Eliminating the legislature’s ability to review the DOT’s 20-year highway plan that generates billions in extra taxes.

• Damaging the state’s Farmland Preservation Program by eliminating the "35 acre rule" which prohibits development more dense than one house per 35 acres in agricultural areas.

• Eliminating the DOT’s ability to use federal transportation dollars for sprawl mitigation.

"The caucus appears to be trying to drive a wedge between cities and towns who had found common ground in their needs for increased transit assistance and local road funds," said Rob Kennedy.