CITY-COUNTY ADVISORY BOARD ON CLIMATE AND ECONOMIC EQUITY

200 E. Wells Street City of Milwaukee Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53202 Meeting Minutes CITY-COUNTY TASK FORCE ON CLIMATE AND ECONOMIC EQUITY Ald. Nik Kovac and Marcelia Nicholson, Co-Chairs Pam Fendt, Linda Frank, Julie Kerksick, Ted Kraig, Janet Meissner Pritchard, Supreme Moore Omokunde, Pamela Ritger, Erick Shambarger, and Rafael Smith Staff Assistant: Linda Elmer, lelmer@milwaukee.gov, 414-286-2231 Legislative Liason: Luke Knapp, luke.knapp@milwaukee.gov, 414-286-8637 Google documents for this body can be found at : http://bit.ly/CCTFCEE Tuesday, March 30, 2021 11:00 AM Virtual Transportation and Mobility Work Group https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88371242342 1. Call To Order (Time) 11:04 A.M. 2. Roll Call Present: Matt Donath, James Davies, Jennifer Evans, Akira Mabon, Celia Jackson, Kevin Muhs, Michael Anderson, Tanya Fonseca, Susanna Cain, Michael Anderson, Marissa Meyer, Jeff Stone, Ted Kraig, Mitch Harris 3. Review and Approval of Minutes Correction to the minutes: James wasn’t present. 4. Remaining Introductions (anyone not present at past meetings) 5. Statement on I-94 Expansion Won’t make March 30 deadline because would come from full Task Force, but still can make statement to share. Recommended statement from this group that would go to full Task Force. DWD doing a statement, has many tangential projects that improve City of Milwaukee Page 1 CITY-COUNTY TASK FORCE ON Meeting Minutes March 30, 2021 CLIMATE AND ECONOMIC EQUITY mobility, multiple modes, equity etc. List of potential programs they’re discussing. Cross streets near construction area. Expanding the Hop. Adding EV charging stations. Adding bike paths and walk ways. We don’t have exact list yet. In line with what our group is looking at. If rebuild happening all these other things should be done to mitigate the effects. Proposed Task Force statement would say reconstruction fine but no expansion of lanes and footprint. Celia says struggling with City being a bit ambivalent. But we will make an independent statement with a stronger stand against increasing lanes and footprint. Most elected officials have made statements against expansion. All present okay with such a statement. Question of requiring Environmental Impact Statement. Dennis feels that delay in doing it isn’t that long. Believes that many considerations need to be made that weren’t taken up with the prior EIS. Would start in about a year otherwise. Question of what a new gubernatorial administration would do if delayed past next election. Kevin believes construction not likely before 2023 in any case. But activities would start as soon as all reviews are approved. With current administration at least included in the discussions. James feels that there is process issue. Relying on 15 year old data if go with prior EIS. Jeff been involved with these projects directly. Concerned about delays with infrastructure getting very aged. Opportunity now to get Federal funding. Money not used will go to other places and not go to transit and other priorities here. We only have so many transportation corridors and can use additional capacity for bus lines, etc. A mix of transportation options what needed and we should optimize them rather than be in either/or world. Part of the proposed reconstruction also relates to important safety improvements. Matt says we agree that we want the project to happen but in a different way. One other issue is making sure the project uses the Residential Preference Program (RPP) for people who have been out of the workforce for a period of time. Another reason want to see the project sooner rather than later. Can be problems tracking the work and the meeting of requirements, but for DPW project easier to do than some others. Common Council does an annual report Matt can share. Strong consensus to oppose expansion to eight lanes Vote on demanding a new EIS – 9 support, 5 abstain or against Matt will work on a statement incorporating the discussion and using other statements that others have made. Will share it out and it will go to full Task Force. 6. Update on ICLEI Modeling Met with ICLEI staff yesterday to discuss depth of modeling. Two dials for transportation: VMT and fuel use. Semi limited on what they can model in depth from a strategy standpoint. But can give impacts for “10% VMT reduction” as an example. ICLEI acknowledges transportation the hardest to move the needle. Need to find some combination of strategies. For VMT SEWRPC provided the data. Assumptions cautious on fuel use and fuel economy due to EPA obligations on Clean Air Act goals. Can look at Milwaukee County vehicle registration to see EV uptake and crosscheck the data. State should be able to track as well with different fees for different kinds of vehicles. Also would be good to look at passenger VMT. Some detail provided in ICLEI greenhouse gas inventory. ICLEI will be coming back with some targets based on what other cities have done and accomplished. They have tons of data. 7. Presentation: SEWRPC on Vision 2050 (Kevin Muhs) SEWRPC facts – seven counties, advisory regional planning commission by state City of Milwaukee Page 2 CITY-COUNTY TASK FORCE ON Meeting Minutes March 30, 2021 CLIMATE AND ECONOMIC EQUITY statute and Federal planning organization which is an official designation. These conflict at times because by state is strictly advisory but at Federal level no transportation project moves forward without being in the regional plan. Can’t make people implement a project but can block one if it’s not in the long term plan. All regionally significant projects must be in plan. Plan completed 2016. By law must be updated every four years. Update was in 2020. Looked at Milwaukee relative to rest of country. Slow growth relative to peers. Some peers shrinking and we are not. Significant racial disparities. Among the worst compared to the 28 peers. Also unbalanced transportation system. Low levels of congestion compared to peers. Almost all transit local while peers have rapid and regional that more time competitive. We’ve been shrinking transit while almost all peers growing theirs. Average growth of transit is 14% over last 20 years. Land use where start. SWERPC plans along with transportation. In Wisconsin almost entirely local decision. Causes big divergences with regional planning. Focusing new urban development in urban centers the most efficient. Recommend increasing density. Allows for more walking and biking which highly efficient. Major challenge is strong disconnect between where people live and work. Recommend preserving environmental corridors. This is one of our region’s main success stories. We have preserved quite a bit since 1960s. Helps much with storm water management as well as habitat benefits. Bicycle recommendations – expand on-street, off-street networks and enhanced bike facilities (protected lanes or off-street paths within roadway). All maps clickable on website. Currently have a decent bike path network now, though some gaps. Looked at expansion through arterials that connect municipalities. We must look at reasonably expected revenues by Federal rule. We must delineate what funded by existing sources (what can expect to get). Substantial gaps. For transit have $250 million less pe year than what needed to meet recommendations. $400 million gap for streets and highways. If we don’t change our funding levels for transit it will further shrink. Map of jobs that reachable by transit shows more and more jobs not reachable by transit. Highway system built in ‘60s and ‘70s and reaching end of design life. Recommend transit first designs and better access to job centers. Need to make transit travel time more competitive and have greater frequency. Expanded service to job locations also critical. More jobs moving outside of transit service area. Long range plan is for I-94 to expand. Plan calls for bringing existing streets and highways back into good repair. Calls for 8% expansion of streets/highways. Many recommendations on improving safety. Not taking position on I-43 expansion because greater impacts on communities. For I-94 SEWRP not contradict planning that already occurring. Supporting expansion to reduce congestion and improve safety. More vehicles on freeway means fewer accidents. Revenue sources to close the funding gap in the report. Include dedicated sales tax, etc. Detailed equity analyses done with the planning. Goal is to reduce exiting long standing disparities. Fiscally constrained scenario will cause disparate impacts if not increase funding for public transit. Due to vehicle availability. Looked at access to jobs, educational institutions, food resources, etc. Bottom line is City of Milwaukee Page 3 CITY-COUNTY TASK FORCE ON Meeting Minutes March 30, 2021 CLIMATE AND ECONOMIC EQUITY that trend line is much worse than now if not provide the funding for the full plan. Kevin will submit the slides. Summary documents on website. https://www.vision2050sewis.org/report 8. Sub Group Breakouts and Report Back Brainstorming spreadsheet https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12cmtBPkD3qm5VvHRDWmDljKxvIyU_y5RnRoa 6oR5txM/edit?usp=sharing Evaluation template https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xmYaiY8lmx-mPm0hwHd2ARd-69OpcNH4/view? usp=sharing VIII. Sub Group Breakouts and Report Back – No time today. People should confer between meetings and share any notes. Brainstorming spreadsheet https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12cmtBPkD3qm5VvHRDWmDljKxvIyU_y5Rn Roa6oR5txM/edit?usp=sharing Evaluation template https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xmYaiY8lmx-mPm0hwHd2ARd-69OpcNH4/view? usp=sharing 9. Public Questions or Comments – Up to 2 minutes per speaker 10. Next Meeting Date April 13, 11:00am – Matt may not be able to join. 11. Adjourn (Time) 12:28pm Minutes provided by Ted Kraig. City of Milwaukee Page 4