Browsing: Transporation

Data centers chug electricity like undergrads drink beer, and the advent of artificial intelligence — which uses, we’re told, about 10 times the electricity as conventional searches — makes power demand soar.

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.

Ridership on Milwaukee’s $128 million fare-free streetcar improved in 2023, when the annual number was 30% higher than 2022. But the monthly average number of riders over the last 12 months, 41,700, is still about 34% below the pre-pandemic average.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, there has been an increase in the percentage of cars on the road that are all-electric. This number, however, remains minuscule in comparison to the number of vehicles with internal combustion engines.

In Wisconsin, over the past few decades, the number of fatal car crashes due to alcohol-induced driving has decreased.

Wisconsin has, in state Sen. Rob Hutton, a mad-eyed optimist, for the Brookfield Republican imagines that this is the time, after decades of trying, that Wisconsin could repeal its minimum markup law… He might be right.

The annual ridership on the existing Amtrak “Hiawatha” service between Milwaukee and Chicago had been rising slowly prior to the pandemic, rising about 18% over the 10-year period up to 2019, when ridership hit a peak of 873,537.

Legislative leaders say costly project not needed or wanted Wisconsin officials in the Evers administration, supported by politicians in many…

Congressman Bryan Steil is still waiting to hear back from U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg about his request to please make it clear Milwaukee does not have to run “The Hop” streetcar through a closed construction site on Sundays — and Sundays only — during the winter in order to meet the requirements of a federal grant.

The Hop’s monthly ridership in 2023 to date has averaged 42,867 passenger trips. The figure for the Milwaukee County Transit System, the largest bus system in Wisconsin, is 1,591,560.

Despite all of the millions of dollars, time spent and inconveniences imposed, it’s nearly impossible to determine if Wisconsin’s emission testing program meaningfully decreases exhaust emissions that form ozone and damage air quality.

Milwaukee city officials are going to run their streetcars, part of the $128 million Hop, through a closed construction site on Sundays, and Sundays only, throughout the winter in order to satisfy the requirements of a federal grant.

The city of Milwaukee announced it is building a new line for the $128 million streetcar known as The Hop. Unanswered anywhere in the strangely incurious media is why the city would open that line now.

Minimum markup laws hurt consumers by making goods more costly. Wisconsin should repeal its antiquated minimum markup law, as Badger Institute has advocated for decades.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos on Wednesday renewed a call for Wisconsin to adopt tolling as a way to pay for state infrastructure projects.  An alternative is needed, he said, as increased fuel efficiency and an increase in electric cars on the road are contributing to declining gas tax revenues.

In recent years, Wisconsin has been transferring money from the general fund into the transportation fund. And for many years, every projection has shown that gas tax revenue likely has peaked and henceforth will decline as cars get better mileage and as more electric vehicles hit the road.

The motor vehicle fuel tax, long the mainstay for highway funding in Wisconsin, is becoming unsustainable as a revenue source due to increased vehicle mileage and popularity of vehicles that use no fuel. Now is the time to consider a replacement.

Why would a citizenry want its government to require, by law, higher prices? At anytime, it’s a good question but, as veteran journalist Ken Wysocky points out, at a time of raging inflation, it takes on a new urgency.

It’s campaign season, so the only numbers that seem to matter to the mainstream media are the ones in polls.