1000 Friends of Wisconsin
16 N. Carroll Street
Suite 810
Madison WI 53703
608-259-1000
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By Matthew Defour
Wisconsin State Journal
 Amtrack Station by Fred Bartol WATERTOWN – Responding to critics of a passenger rail line between Madison and Milwaukee – including the leading Republican candidates for governor who are vowing to stop the project – U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Thursday the plan is going forward.
“High-speed rail is happening and it’s here to stay,” LaHood said here in announcing the second installment of an $810 million federal grant for the project.
Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker and former U.S. Rep. Mark Neumann, who are seeking the GOP nomination for governor, have called the project a boondoggle and waste of taxpayer money.
Both have said they would halt the project if elected, despite the fact that by the time the new governor takes office, the state will have already spent between $60 million to $100 million on contracts, designs, locomotives and rail cars. That does not include money spent by the four cities along the route on train stations.
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By Joe Yovino
The Daily Reporter
Wisconsin could spend almost $100 million on a high-speed rail line between Milwaukee and Madison by early 2011. And that’s in addition to the more than $40 million on pre-build engineering work during the past five years.
In all, Wisconsin will receive $810 million in stimulus money to build up high-speed rail around the state. That seems like a lot of your cash going toward a project, and it got me thinking about how it compares to the most expensive construction undertakings of all time. After seeing this list from Construction Management School, $810 million seems pretty insignificant.
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 A true friend of Wisconsin’s farm community and Wisconsin’s environment, Secretary of the Depart of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, Rod Nilsestuen, drowned while swimming in Lake Superior on Wednesday, July 21. 1000 Friends of Wisconsin offers condolences to his family and friends.
Rod was on vacation, working for Habitat for Humanity in northern Michigan as he does every summer.
Gov. Jim Doyle called Nilsestuen “a warm, humorous and wonderful husband, father and friend. Under his incredible leadership Wisconsin has seen the greatest and most beneficial transformation of agriculture in generations.”
1000 Friends worked closely with Secretary Nilsestuen in the Working Lands Initiative. Rod was awarded a “Ten of the Best” award in 2007 for his for extraordinary effort to establish effective policies to promote agriculture in Wisconsin. Rod was also named “Policy Maker of the Year” award 2007 for land conservation leadership by Gathering Waters Conservancy.
By Mary Newsom
For Release Sunday, July 11, 2010
Citiwire.net
As local politicians across the country get scorched by voter anger over recession-induced budget cuts — laying off teachers, closing schools and libraries and slashing services — perhaps they’ll be more receptive than usual to some powerful and surprising tax revenue numbers.
So what follows is about fiscal prudence as much as it is about smart city planning.
Conventional wisdom, of course, says that to prop up the property tax base, a high-end shopping mall is just the ticket. But when Sarasota County, Fla., looked at where the county government gets the biggest bang for its property tax buck, it found some numbers that may surprise a lot of people.
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 More than four-in-five voters (82 percent) say that “the United States would benefit from an expanded and improved transportation system, such as rail and buses” and a solid majority (56 percent) “strongly agree” with that statement. This is a widely held view with overwhelming majorities of voters in every region of the country and in every type of community.
Read more about the 2010 Future of Transportation National Survey
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — State water experts want input on plans to improve water quality in lakes and rivers in 23 Wisconsin watersheds.
The Department of Natural Resources’ plans outline the conditions of each watershed, identify whether they’re impaired and can’t provide swimming, fishing and other opportunities and offer recommendations for improvement.
Water bodies include Rush and Bad Axe creeks in western Wisconsin; Willow River and Springbrook Creek in the north; Shawano Lake and the West Twin River in the northeast; and Bear Creek and the Galena River in the south.
The DNR will offer a webcast on the plans on July 13 and take comments through July 30.
 Map courtesy of the city of Madison By Paul Snyder
Madison’s shift toward owner-occupied housing in redeveloping the Allied Drive neighborhood threatens to drive out area residents who rely on rentals.
“Most people in this area have been renters all their lives, and having more rental units would make it more affordable to residents here,” said Barry Hayes, treasurer of Allied Dunn’s Marsh Neighborhood Association.
But the city now is starting the second phase of Allied Drive’s redevelopment, which focuses on building single-family homes and promoting owner occupancy, said Mark Olinger, executive director of Madison’s Community Development Authority.
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July 7th, 2010 – By Patti Wenzel
 Broadway Connection improvement - Courtesy City of Milwaukee. It’s been ten years since Milwaukee developed a comprehensive plan to update and uplift its downtown. Since then we have seen the revitalization of the Third Ward, the development of the River Walk, construction of the Intermodal Station and the razing of the Park East Freeway.
With those projects completed but many others left untouched, city planners have unveiled an updated 2010 downtown plan which addresses areas lacking according to downtown residents and workers, specifically retail, transit and employment.
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 Opinion by Tom Still, President of the Wisconsin technology Council
The Marquette interchange in Milwaukee cost more than $800 million to rebuild between 2004 and 2008, and few people seriously questioned whether that “subsidy” of Wisconsin’s highway transportation system would pay for itself many times over.
Milwaukee’s Zoo interchange, the mix-master for I-94, I-894 and Highway 45, could cost $2.3 billion to rebuild once work begins in 2012. Again, most people familiar with the volume of statewide commerce passing through that intersection can agree reconstruction is a much-needed investment.
But suggest a relatively tiny $7.5 million per year subsidy for a high-speed rail line that could redefine Wisconsin’s connections to Chicago and the Twin Cities, and the same folks who barely blink at billion-dollar concrete projects turn into raging fiscal hawks.
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livescience.com
The number of extreme hot summer days is increasing around the world with global warming, but sprawling cities are racking up these sweltering days faster than more compact cities are, a new study finds.
This finding could be important to city planners, particularly because heat waves are a killer worldwide (heat waves kill more U.S. residents than any other natural disaster) and the number of hot days is expected to increase as climate change ramps up.
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