{"id":631,"date":"2020-10-16T19:32:18","date_gmt":"2020-10-16T19:32:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ajhassoc.com\/?p=631"},"modified":"2020-10-16T19:32:20","modified_gmt":"2020-10-16T19:32:20","slug":"inequities-in-transportation-planning-a-southeast-wisconsin-case-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ajhassoc.com\/index.php\/2020\/10\/16\/inequities-in-transportation-planning-a-southeast-wisconsin-case-study\/","title":{"rendered":"Inequities in Transportation Planning, A Southeast Wisconsin Case Study"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n

We badly need to overhaul the composition of one particular regional planning agency in Wisconsin.  The recent protests over inequities in policing have also told us we have subtle institutional inequities throughout our governments.  The inequities cannot be starker than planning in southeast Wisconsin, where I have lived and worked for most of my life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Usually, at this point in an opinion piece the author inserts a disclaimer.  My relationship with the Southeast Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, SEWRPC, in spite of my close professional connection to many of the topics they work on, has been essentially nonexistent.  I have visited many MPOs around the country, sold software to and advised many more, but I have never so much as visited SEWRPC\u2019s offices or attended one of their meetings.  This has been SEWRPC\u2019s choice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am making the bold assumption that regional planning is relevant.  If regional planning is just a sham exercise done to maintain the flow of federal dollars, then no harm can be done by distortions to a fair planning process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I once met\u00a0a former\u00a0mayor of Milwaukee at an art gallery\u00a0while he was still mayor, and we began talking about regional planning.\u00a0 He\u00a0described\u00a0SEWRPC in derogatory\u00a0terms\u00a0so\u00a0ugly\u00a0I have never repeated them.\u00a0 Planners and engineers at other agencies\u00a0in the state have expressed\u00a0to me\u00a0extreme frustration with SEWRPC, particularly in its treatment of issues\u00a0in and around the City of Milwaukee.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Problems have persisted for decades because there is strong bias in how the planning board, \u201ccommission\u201d, is composed.  Commissioners are drawn from seven counties, each county getting exactly 3 seats on the Commission.  Commissioners are appointed by the governor and a county executive (our term for the mayor of a county).  The City of Milwaukee, with about 29% of the population of the region is guaranteed nothing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So\u00a0you may ask, how unrepresentative is SEWRPC?\u00a0\u00a0Representativeness can be measured in many ways, but I only need to cite a few statistics to show the severity of the problem.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Milwaukee County has\u00a046%\u00a0of the\u00a0people and gets\u00a0exactly\u00a01\/7th<\/sup>\u00a0of the\u00a0Commission\u00a0seats.\u00a0\u00a0Ozaukee\u00a0County has\u00a04% of\u00a0people and also gets\u00a0exactly\u00a01\/7th<\/sup>\u00a0of the seats.\u00a0 Milwaukee County has\u00a084% of the African-American population\u00a0of the region, while Ozaukee County has\u00a00.4% of the African-American population, each getting 1\/7th\u00a0of the seats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SEWRPC can be considered unusual, even in Wisconsin.\u00a0 Madison and Green Bay, the second and third largest cities, have localized\u00a0MPOs.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is no definitive way to tell whether plans coming from SEWRPC are biased.  An evaluation depends on a viewpoint.  From my conversations with SEWRPC employees over the years, I believe they believe they are being fair and professional. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Federal law does not require MPOs to be broadly representative, even though representativeness is mentioned frequently in the FAST Act, but, really, shouldn\u2019t extreme situations be addressed? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cM\u201d in MPO is \u201cmetropolitan\u201d.  The SEWRPC region, given its size, is heavily rural in character.  The Milwaukee urbanized area contains 67% of the region\u2019s population, but it occupies only 21% of the region\u2019s land area.  Occasionally there is chatter about decertifying SEWRPC as the MPO for the Milwaukee area.  We must renew that conversation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Someone would need to do a deep dive into SEWRPC\u2019s recommendations to find anything suspicious.  For example, many people think SEWRPC, over the years, has been overly fond of freeway expansion.  Freeway expansions in regions of the US have had profound effects on migration out of central cities.  And we know unfettered suburbanization has been associated with social, economic and environmental injustices.  SEWRPC has demonstrated blindness toward freeway impact issues.  For example, SEWRPC has resisted putting a land-use forecasting component into its suite of travel modelling tools.  If you cannot see the problem, you cannot do anything about it.  A true skeptic might call this lying by omission.  Fortunately, SEWRPC\u2019s freeway expansion plans have faced stiff political headwinds, resulting in shelving or delaying many proposals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is not particularly\u00a0helpful\u00a0having\u00a0a \u201cmetropolitan\u201d planning\u00a0commission\u00a0who\u00a0is\u00a0seriously\u00a0out-of-sync with\u00a0the\u00a0desires of\u00a0so many of\u00a0its residents.\u00a0 While political action has\u00a0countered\u00a0SEWPC\u2019s\u00a0rashest ideas, the situation is far from ideal.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alan Horowitz, Whitefish Bay, October 17, 2020<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We badly need to overhaul the composition of one particular regional planning agency in Wisconsin.  The recent protests over inequities in policing have also told us we have subtle institutional inequities throughout our governments.  The inequities cannot be starker than planning in southeast Wisconsin, where I have lived and worked for most of my life.  Usually, at this point in an opinion piece the author inserts a disclaimer.  My …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-environmental-impacts","category-planning-theory","anons"],"yoast_head":"\nInequities in Transportation Planning, A Southeast Wisconsin Case Study - 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