ACLU TELLS GOVERNOR DOYLE:“PROTECT OUR NEIGHBORHOODS; DON’T WIDEN MILWAUKEE HIGHWAYS”

March 2, 2006

Milwaukee, WI -- Last week, the Milwaukee School Board voted 8 to 1 to oppose 19 miles of highway expansion in Milwaukee. In doing so, the School Board joined the City of Milwaukee, the Milwaukee County Board, and dozens of citizens’ groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin, that don’t want highways widened in our front yards.

Yesterday, however, a Wisconsin Department of Transportation representative told a Southeast Regional Planning Commission advisory committee that WisDOT wants to keep those expanded highways in our region’s transportation plan.  It’s time for Wisconsinites to ask Governor Doyle to stop spending money on bigger highways in Milwaukee.

Widening the highways in Milwaukee will add at least $268 million to road building costs - and our state is already in a budget crisis. We can’t find money for our children’s’ schools - we don’t need to spend that kind of money on highways. And adding highway lanes will tear down homes and businesses; reduce Milwaukee’s tax base; bring traffic closer to our homes, workplaces and schools; worsen noise and air pollution in neighborhoods; and make it harder to control sewer overflows. While suburbanites may be able to get downtown a few minutes faster, Milwaukee neighborhoods will suffer. We need environmental justice: Milwaukee shouldn’t bear the burden of WisDOT’s expansion plans.

Now is the time for individual citizens to weigh in on this issue.  The state shouldn’t spend more years and more millions of dollars paying consultants to do more studies about adding more highway lanes that Milwaukee doesn’t want.  CALL OR EMAIL GOVERNOR DOYLE NOW, AND ASK HIM TO TELL WISDOT TO STOP SPENDING MONEY PLANNING TO ADD HIGHWAY LANES IN THE CITY OF MILWAUKEE.  (Tel. (608) 266-1212; fax (608) 267-8983; email: governor@wisconsin.gov )

Tell him the State can’t afford the cost; the local economy can’t afford the disruption; local residents’ health can’t afford the noise and air pollution; and that more freeway lanes are bad for the environment.

----30---

Letter in .pdf