MILWAUKEE PROFESSIONALS ASSOCIATION LLC Joins National Infrastructure Week to Highlight Urgent Need OF People of Color and Work Challenged participants in Milwaukee to call for the Investment in the Nation’s Aging Public Transportation Systems

MILWAUKEE PROFESSIONALS ASSOCIATION LLC Joins National Infrastructure Week to Highlight Urgent Need OF People of Color and Work Challenged participants in Milwaukee to call for the Investment in the Nation’s Aging Public Transportation Systems

May 23, 2016

Today, May 23 2016, Milwaukee Professionals Association LLC announced that they support the 2016 National Infrastructure Week (NIW), May 16 – 23, to bring broader attention to the needs of Milwaukeeans, the need for City of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County to investment in the infrastructure to advance access to public transportation instead of bait-n-switch claims to BRT-Bus Transit issues and bait-n-switch plans tied to mega funding from the Federal Transit Administration using rigged assessment not in-line with  the ridership and their dependency on public transportation.

“After decades of inadequate investment, the city of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County infrastructure that our CORE CONSTITUENTS and businesses rely on to grow and prosper is crumbling,” said Mary Glass, Chair/Chief Visionary Officer.  “Investment in our infrastructure, particularly in public transit, is a key ingredient to help African American, other People of Color and the Work Challenged people get to/from jobs, improve race relations, impact risky behavior borne out of Enduring Concentrated Poverty and to drive growth in our urban and rural communities with 21^st Century options for public transportation.”

The deep-dive focus of Milwaukee Professionals Association LLC in Milwaukee is on the appropriate customization and matching of Milwaukee County, Chris Abele-County Executive BRT-Bus Rapid Transit Alternative in a fast-tracked Small Starts application, August, 2016.  As well as the additional $20 million dollar beg (added to 14.2 million and $124 million given in 2015) by the City of Milwaukee, Tom Barrett-Mayor, for more millions for the luxury downtown streetcar through U.S. Department of Transportation’s TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) program.

“Both the city and county have linked with well-connected and WEALTHY cronies – elected-appointed-hired-donor for hire - to further add federal Transportation funding that DISCRIMINATE and DISENFRANCHISE the protected classes and provides for the haves,” said Glass.  The 7-mile East-West Corridor Feasibility Study by the county AS WELL AS the greedy Caucasian-focused Couture Streetcar FAIL to maximize opportunities to address the Infrastructure of public transportation in the city of Milwaukee (largest city in Wisconsin , ¾ population is People of Color and their census tracts with over 50% un- and under-employed ) -  and Milwaukee County site (city of Milwaukee) and the Inclusion of the target population mired in Enduring Concentrated Poverty.  TAXATION without REPRESENTATION.

 “Increasing investment in public transit is an important step to truly improving the condition of our nation’s transportation infrastructure and stabilizing the employment of families in Milwaukee,” said Glass.  “We will not have the transportation network our community and our nation needs until everyone has access to modern, safe, affordable and reliable public transportation is made available that can improve race relations, connects people to jobs, raise the standards in customer care, raise the MILWAUKEE COUNTY TRANSIT SYSTEM commerce and services, bringing neighborhoods and communities together more efficiently.”

Glass said, “We say create and stabilize our crumbling public transit connectivity with more top running buses on routes such as 279 & 6, Blue line, 27^th Street, Purple Line, keeping our buses seats and floors clean, correcting European fee box, ensure Go-Pass, correcting new payment process, improving bus operator conditions to include time for the bathroom and breaks,  while looking at multimodal that include ‘Straddled-bus’ for the future look of public transportation in the largest urban city IN Wisconsin and connecting neighbors.”

Nationwide, according to the latest data from 2013, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) says that more than 40 percent of buses and 25 percent of rail transit assets were in marginal or poor condition. The FTA also notes there is an $86 billion backlog in deferred maintenance and replacement needs.  

                                                                         

While passage of the federal FAST Act was a step in the right direction, estimates to meet current national public transportation demand will require a capital investment over six years by all levels of government in the amount of $43 billion annually, according to APTA and American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials’ Bottom Line Report.  Currently, the U.S. invests only $17.7 billion annually. 

National Infrastructure Week allows individual urban and rural areas to link with specifics in their areas during a national week of events, media coverage, education and advocacy efforts to elevate infrastructure as a critical issue impacting all Americans.  For more information, go to www.infrastructureweek.org.

  

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