What Were They Thinking?

by capper

I have already written about Scott Walker and the decimation he would create to the public transit system if he would have gotten his way. The County Board restored many of the cuts that he had made, as well as removed his massive increase of Transit Plus.

But the County Board, for whatever reasons, chose not to restore all of his routes. One of the routes they chose to leave off of the county budget was Route 11, which travels Vliet Street from Water Street to 47th Street. This makes no sense.

On 12th and Vliet is the Marcia Coggs building, which holds Economic Support Services, Disability Services, and most of the other social services that Milwaukee County provides. Most of the people that utilize these services are the poor, the physically disabled and the developmentally disabled. These same people are often reliant on public transit to get around, including to meetings with case workers who provide the social services for them.

On 17th and Vliet is the Martin Luther King Community Center (which Walker had also threatened to cut). This facility offers many community activities, including lectures, social events, educational sessions, community meetings and various charitable activities. One of the most notable is the donation of school supplies like backpacks, pens, pencils, paper and the such to neighborhood children who are in need of these items.

One would think that even if the County Board wouldn't or couldn't restore all of the routes that Walker had cut, they would at least have maintained the ones that were most needed.