WEAL

Winter Campaign Take Action Message #2.  We Can Stop the Bypass!  But we need your letter!  It's so important!  Please pass this e-mail on to others!

Dear West Waukesha Bypass Opponent,

Have you been reading the newspapers recently?  The State DOT is running out of money.  Politicians and DOT officials have now admitted that there isn't enough money to maintain Wisconsin's deteriorating transportation infrastructure and to build new highways.  Governor Walker has tasked his Transportation Secretary to make recommendations on where the needed money might come from.  Initially all the press was about raising more taxes, now we are reading articles recommending that the DOT evaluate all planned NEW highway expansion projects and cancel or delay projects that are not critical.  We must convince Secretary Gottlieb that the West Waukesha Bypass project should be one of the projects that is canceled!  

So Action Message #2 is to encourage Secretary Gottlieb to do two things;

1. include as part of his transportation funding recommendations that non-urgent highway expansion projects be canceled
   
2. recommend that the West Waukesha Bypass project be one of the projects considered for cancellation 
   

E-Mail Secretary Mark Gottlieb and the cc the Transportation Investment Management at the e-mails listed below.  Please take this action by February 7, 2013.

E-mail to all three e-mail addresses;    sec.exec@dot.wi.gov and cc bop.dtim@dot.wi.gov 

Write your own letter or use the sample letter below.  Copy and paste this entire letter into your e-mail.  Make sure to sign it with your full name and address.  Put it in your own words and add any key points you might like to make.  

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Dear Secretary Gottlieb,

I'm writing to comment on the transportation funding problems we are facing in Wisconsin.  As I understand it, there is just not be enough tax money coming in to pay for highway expansion, safety, and maintenance projects.  As you develop recommendations on how to deal with these funding problems, I encourage you to look at a multifaceted plan.  Specifically, I do not believe the answer is to tax our way out of this problem, we need to look for ways to save money as well.  Before new taxes are recommended, I ask that currently proposed highway expansion projects be evaluated, scaled back and/or canceled.  This is the only solution that makes sense.  And it is the only solution that the people of Wisconsin will accept.

An example of an unnecessary highway expansion project is the West Waukesha Bypass.  This project as an example of wasteful highway dollars.  Canceling this one project would save state and local governments over $65+ million dollars.  There are many problems with this Bypass project.  One of the biggest problems is that the expansion project is no longer a Bypass, as even planners admit.  It is a huge highway expansion project through neighborhoods, past schools, through farmland and an important Waukesha environmental corridor.  It is being built because it's been on the maps for over 50 years.  The project is based on obsolete traffic count projections and erroneous accident statistics.  It brings noise, water and air pollution to resident's front doors.  Even the community it will run through, the Town of Waukesha, is on record as supporting a "no build"  option.  As another example of the flawed planning process, simpler, cheaper, and even safer viable alternatives were not considered during the planning process because the project is being built to Bypass specifications (4-lane), even though as mentioned earlier, planners admit it is no longer a Bypass. 

I support a sustainable transportation funding plan that includes not only new sources of revenue but a stronger focus on improvement and maintenance with less of a focus on large new highway expansion projects.  There will never be enough money to do both!