Milwaukee is this growing amoeba.  Or at least, it is trying to be an amoeba, but failing.  And failing through infrastructure. 

This comes as a shock since so much of Milwaukee is trying to focus on growth of the region.  There’s the Milwaukee 7, their website Choose Milwaukee, and the Fresh Coast.  All the focus is trying to get more business, more value to the Milwaukee shores.  I really like living in this place, all in all.  I support amoebic growth of reclaiming Walker’s Point and the 5th Ward.  Which is why this sudden backtracking really irritates me.

How, do you say, is this happening?  By cutting the bus routes.

There have been articles about it - sure.  The Journal Sentinel has published the propose route cuts…in a tiny map off to the side of the online article.  I wonder if it was in the actual paper. 

These cuts are a bad move.  I live in an area that is south of downtown that is a growing, thriving area for young business people.  Members of this community contribute a lot to the beauty and growth of Milwaukee as a great place to live. 

A drive to my work downtown would be relatively short - 10-15 minutes at most.

But why drive when there are buses?  By keeping my car in the garage, I am decreasing pollution, traffic build-up, the line in the Starbucks drive thru, and supporting the city I live in.  I am decreasing road rage, and the ever-growing Parking Rage - that fury you feel when you either find it impossible to park downtown, OR have to pay Festival parking prices when you are parking for work.

The city has seen fit to cut almost every route that goes to my neighborhood.  In three months, it is proposed that every member of my community pick up a car and find a place to part downtown because those buses will be cut.  Buses that serve all the major businesses downtown.  Buses that are in part subsidized by the businesses downtown. 

Milwaukee is trying to remove some of the ways that commerce functions - through the access made available by public transportation.  What business is going to want to move in if nobody can get to it?  Crippling its public transportation system is not the way to bring in new growth.

There are some people standing up to this silliness.  Members of the Bayview community have undertaken to “protest” by gathering as many people as possible to ride the buses at a certain time.  They’ve attracted the attention of policy-makers, which is a great step towards making a difference.  To find out more information about these Bus Cut Protests, go to the following webpage.

 http://www.milwaukeerenaissance.com/BusesAreGreen/HomePage