Due to circumstances entirely within the city of Milwaukee’s control, it can’t afford to fix potholes in city streets and it certainly won’t pay to repair the damage to at least 45 cars caused by those potholes so far this year. The circumstances are that, instead of fixing streets, the city decided to blow $123 million on a 2.1-mile streetcar line.
The Milwaukee streetcar trundles through the city at an average speed of 7.4 miles per hour. Flickr photo by David Wilson.
Nor will it have money for fixing potholes in the future. That’s because the Democratic National Convention is going to be held in Milwaukee next summer, and the city plans to blow another $28 million building a 0.4-mile extension of the streetcar line beyond the convention center — a convention center, by the way, whose expansion is costing the city $247 million to $277 million. Continue reading
