Tommy Washbush
A Madison Metro rapid transit bus surrounded by speech bubbles with question marks in them.
Madison is being very Madison these days.
With the new bus rapid transit system about to launch this fall, there’s been quite a bit of angst directed at the city and the mayor in particular. Letters to the editor are filled with the spirit of boondoggle. Though I haven’t seen anyone use that exact word, it’s laid thickly between the lines.
The Wisconsin State Journal invited readers to ask questions about BRT and they got so many that they printed the answers to no fewer than 40 of them last Sunday with more to come in the future.
Most of the questions were reasonable, but some carried a tone of suspicion. For example, “The city says BRT will not increase Metro’s operating budget. Does BRT increase borrowing costs for the city? If so, by how much?”
The answer is that, while about 80% of the cost of building the BRT will come from the federal government, there will be $6.5 million in new borrowing for city taxpayers to pay back.
Some mixed picky detail with paranoia. One reader asked about the red paint used to mark BRT lanes. Is the paint toxic, and, if so, will it slowly wash off the streets and further pollute Madison lakes?
The answer is that the paint does not wash off and Lake Mendota will not become a literal Red Sea. The Metro official who patiently navigated the questions did not add this, but I will: Oh for cryin’ out loud!
For a city that likes to think of itself as progressive we sure don’t like change much. This feels like the automated trash and recycling collection system that we implemented on my watch as mayor. You would think we were proposing a Myth of Sisyphus situation. The now common green and tan roller bins were portrayed as if they were massive boulders that would have to be rolled down driveways and then back up. What of the elderly?! Images of grandmothers trapped in gutters beneath plastic garbage bins sprang to mind. Oh, the humanity!
And, ya know what? It all worked out just fine. To my knowledge not a single Madisonian of any age has been crushed beneath their garbage bin.
And I’m confident that it’ll be the same for BRT. Sure, there will be some hiccups that have to be ironed out at the beginning, but I’d give it six months before everybody just starts taking it for granted.
It’s an unfortunate break for Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway that BRT will kick off just as the city is grappling with a $22 million deficit and a referendum to help fill the gap coming up in November. Because it’s new, BRT makes an easy target for those who want to say it should be cut before it begins. But the truth is that planning for BRT goes back to the last Soglin administration and the project has been in the construction phase for a couple of years. The federal money has been spent. The local money has been borrowed. The buses are here. It won’t add anything to operating expenses and paying back the capital costs is already programmed over the next decade. So stopping BRT now would be a waste of everything that’s gone into it while it would do nothing to ease the $22 million problem.
Look, folks, it’s fine to ask reasonable questions. But let’s not nitpick this thing to death. BRT will be a wonderful improvement to transit and to the life of the city. I’m looking forward to riding it myself.
Just like I couldn’t wait for my new trash bins.
Dave Cieslewicz is a Madison- and Upper Peninsula-based writer who served as mayor of Madison from 2003 to 2011. You can read more of his work at Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos.
