Mastodawn

@shadownetworks The way I look at it, a car is an unnecessary luxury. Some people really like them. I would rather put the money into paying off debt.

@joe a car is a necessity, for employment, for many.

@shadownetworks If you live in a city with functional public transportation, it isn't. Anyways, with the $1.7 billion investment that #Milwaukee is making into 3.5 miles of i94, I would expect at least a 5% return, right?

@joe you mean the mismanaged MCTS that had two heads retire for mismanagement? Yeah, we don’t have a good enough public transit structure… and that investment? IS FOR CARS.

@shadownetworks Folks keep complaining about how USPS and Amrak aren't "making a profit" and need to be shut down. Nobody would be crazy enough to say that a failing auto industry should get a $1.7 billion bailout if all three are infrastructure, right? Just take the profits from i94 and plow them into MCTS?

@joe first off, that’s not how budgets work (and you know that). Second, you assume people don’t need transit to school for their kids or are close enough to their employer. A good example would be working as an Amazon driver would require public transit from MKE to Kenosha, which doesn’t exist (next best is carpooling). If one is limited to public transit, they are also bound to whatever wages they can make within a reliable transit distance and during normal operational hours. Bartenders, late second shift, early first shift work… would all have a hard time with public transit. You’re assuming parents don’t need to leave work mid-day to pickup a sick child from school. While public transit is convenient, energy saving, and ideal… the US public transportation infrastructure isn’t built to provide equitable employment to those who aren’t drivers or have a vehicle.

@shadownetworks If Amazon isn't willing to pay their workers enough to live in Kenosha, that sounds like a problem. Maybe the government should come in with a "minimum wage" they have to pay to support that?

I don't know about you but growing up, I lived close enough to grade school for my parents to walk me to school every day and in high school, I just took the MCTS.

I agree that the bus running from 4:30 AM to 12:30 AM is limiting for bar folk but it's pretty standard.

@joe you mean when students had to attend their local schools or pay to go to private schools, before school vouchers? And when the income of a single parent could afford a home and car? When daycare wasn’t its own $300-500/wk expense?

@shadownetworks A high school at 76th and Bluemound is local to Glendale?

@shadownetworks My original point was just that a new car is a massive luxury, and it is extra so in this economy. It isn't exactly necessary.

@joe also I94 and roadways provide commerce pathways. To shift money from much needed expansion of federal interstate, into non-commerce transportation wouldn’t fix the underlying issue.