Richards Weekly Report - December 4, 2012

Rep. Jon Richards - Assembly District 19

December 4, 2012

Mass Transit Should Get Help in Next State Budget Dear Neighbor:

At a community forum last night I heard from many concerned neighbors about the ever-declining service for Milwaukee County Transit. One employer, who employs entry-level workers at a number of nursing homes in Milwaukee County, said that many of his employees need to have two jobs to make ends meet. These employees don’t have cars and need the bus to get to work. Bus service takes so long that people can’t get to work.

 Another speaker spoke about how many people working two jobs need to use the bus to get to one job near Bayshore Mall and to another in Wauwatosa and also factor in picking up their kids from daycare. It takes some of these employees three hours – one way – to get to work at one job.

 Funding mass transit is about jobs. But for all the rhetoric in legislature about creating jobs, we are failing the tens of thousands of people who rely on decent mass transit to get to work. 

In the last state budget, funding for mass transit was cut by $9.62 million, the first time in anyone’s memory that it was cut. The Department of Transportation’s budget request for next year locks in the decrease. If mass transit remains cut at its current level, that will mean for the two-year budget cycle, mass transit aid will be $15 million less than it was in Governor Doyle’s last two-year cycle. 

 And as the funding for mass transit go down, the price of all of the items needed to keep the buses rolling keeps going up. The result is a continuing slide in bus service around the state, but especially in Milwaukee. 

 Please join me in contacting the governor’s office and requesting more aid for mass transit in the next state budget. 

Sincerely, JON RICHARDS 
State Representative Assembly District 19