Browsing: Infrastructure

The number of active landlines in Wisconsin dwindled to just 312,000 in June of last year, a 91 percent decline from 3.6 million landlines as recently as 2002 and likely the lowest since before World War II.

Wisconsin transportation policy should begin with the people who use the system: where they want to go, how they want to get there and how those choices may change as new technologies become available.

A costly proposed commuter rail system between Kenosha, Racine and Milwaukee is back on the radar of municipal leaders, even as frequent service on high-end buses already serves commuters on the same route.

Since data centers are capital intensive, Wisconsin — a state that manufactures capital goods — is benefiting immensely.

Tax increment financing can raise existing residents’ property tax bills, at least the way the tool is used in Wisconsin.

Geography matters for what’s called “latency,” the small but often important amount of time it takes signals to travel from a user to whatever data center holds the information he’s using.

Millions of dollars have been spent on the aim to build 80 charging stations for electric vehicles at gas stations, hotels, and other venues across Wisconsin.

The City of Milwaukee is willing to pay a new marketing and communications officer for The Hop, its little-used $128 million streetcar, up to $108,000 per year plus benefits.

There’s more evidence in recent days that the federal government spends money in two ways — too quickly and too slowly.

One wonders what revolution in Wisconsinites’ preferences for where to live and to work will make commuter trains feasible in Milwaukee where they weren’t in Minneapolis.

With fewer passengers and mostly empty seats, it’s time to shut down the Hop, Milwaukee’s $128 million streetcar.

Despite a much ballyhooed second line added last April, ridership on Milwaukee’s financially challenged streetcar, the Hop, last year was still nearly 30% below that of pre-COVID 2019.

Port Washington’s announcement of another billion-dollar data center project in southeastern Wisconsin is focusing attention on the challenge of meeting the voracious energy needs of this new economic opportunity.

Small nuclear modular reactors are a big deal for Wisconsin, given our developing AI economy and Gov. Evers’ Clean Energy Plan.

Facing a $5 million bill to run the free streetcar known as The Hop next year, Alderman Scott Spiker wondered if a huge increase in handing out parking tickets is the funding answer.

Government overregulation is imperiling the start of a $1 billion plan to expand broadband service to the hardest-to-reach places in Wisconsin.

America’s energy grids are strained, and Michigan is reconsidering nuclear’s role in meeting consumer demand. Wisconsin, too, should take note.

Wisconsin will need to build 200,000 housing units by 2030 to accommodate all the people who want to live and work here. Sheboygan County is a microcosm of the problem — but on the forefront of a possible solution.

Wisconsin is handing out almost $79 million in federal funds to private businesses to build charging stations for electric vehicles at a make-or-break moment for both the EV and charging station industries.

At the national level, recent studies show that small businesses are not contracting with the federal government as frequently as in the past. And those that do are becoming more concentrated in a handful of congressional districts around Washington, where rent seeking is the norm.