By Gary Wickert

The Milwaukee Streetcar playfully referred to as “The Hop” is owned by the city of Milwaukee but operated by a very chic French-based international private-sector company which operates public transport in 17 countries. In the face of extreme criticism and conservative prognostications of low ridership and skyrocketing costs, the Hop began operation in November of 2018. It putters around a very modest 2.1 mile-line which connects an intermodal station used primarily by prostitutes and hobos and bears an expensive paint job which counsels Milwaukeeans to “mask up.” Two years later, the Hop faces—wait for it—low ridership and skyrocketing costs. Public sector mass transit junkies were lured by the pied piper siren song of federal funds. But those funds have now run dry, and the Hop is facing a $3.2 million budget shortfall which the city must now steal from the city’s parking-centric transportation fund to keep the silly thing alive. Much more than simply the little train that could not—the Hop has become a metaphor for failed liberal policies across the planet.

The Hop saga would be funny if it were not all so prevalent in today’s ultra-Progressive and self-destructive urban cesspools. It is symptomatic of the liberals’ love affair for all things on rails. Their infatuation with high-speed rail and trolley systems is exceeded only by their rampant and illogical idealism. Perhaps driven by a religious belief that the planet is going to burst into flames imminently and trains will prevent it; perhaps as the result of a gene buried deep within their chromosomes which forces them to think about humanity solely in terms of its collective nature. They love it when we are all doing the same thing; all brought down to the same common denominator…whether wearing masks or sitting in the classless seating arrangement aboard a train with few or no riders.

The damn-the-arithmetic-full-speed-ahead approach to the Milwaukee trolley was but one example of liberal ignorance winding up in the historical dumpster of idealism. The California high-speed rail project is the mother of all examples. In 2008, the Democratic machine in California persuaded a narrow majority of state voters to provide $9.95 billion in bond seed money for what was initially promised to be a $33 billion high-speed rail network linking Northern and Southern California, with operations beginning in 2020. But when a plan was finally released, it ominously warned that the ballot promise that the train would not need future subsidies turned out to be a big of a lie as anthropogenic global warming or systemic racism. Democratic lawmakers and promised that the train would attract so many riders that it would actually turn a profit. But it turned out that profit is not only something the radical left despises; it is something they know absolutely nothing about.

The $33 billion project became an $80 billion project. The 2008 bond act has an explicit ban on subsidies, promising that “the planned passenger train service to be provided by the authority, or pursuant to its authority, will not require operating subsidy.” Two years after the silly train was supposed to be completed, the state the state was forced to whittle it down to a single-track, 171-mile route from Bakersfield to Merced — at a staggering cost of $22.8 billion. And even this looks like it may not be able to be completed. Governors Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom have inhaled deeply, blindly forging on with a project that is just a fraction of its original scope. The liberals in the federal government rushed to the rescue. Rep. Jim Costa, D-Calif., sponsored the High-Speed Rail Corridor Development Act. This bill would allow printing of $32 billion in more money we do not have to complete even the mini-bullet train. It was an addendum to the $1.9 trillion pandemic stimulus bill that the White House is trying to disguise as an “infrastructure” measure. It turns out the American Rescue Plan is simply a rescue operation for failed liberal pipe dreams.

Back in Milwaukee, right-thinking conservatives have started campaigning against the black hole known as the Hop. A Facebook account entitled “Stop the Milwaukee Streetcar” are replete with evidence of how it is a waste of Milwaukee residents’ precious and limited property tax dollars. It seems that about 30 years ago Milwaukee got a big pot of federal money for a bus-only highway. The only problem was, Milwaukee did not want a bus-only highway. The next 25 years were spent trying to figure out how to spend this federal money. The Milwaukee Streetcar was the answer. To justify their fanatical devotion to the Hop, Milwaukee’s mayor said that “The federal government is paying a lot of dollars for this.” The liberal logic here—as always—was completely backwards. Instead of seeing where the need was and then responding to the need, government deduced that if it built a trolley which required tearing up narrow streets which were already narrowed by winter snow, the businesses would build along the trolley route. Not understanding profit or business in the least, what the left did not understand is that a silly trolley running in front of a building does not make it a great place to put a business.

The strings tied to the federal money also determined the silly route on which the trolley was eventually built. Decades ago, the federal government also gave Milwaukee money for construction of a downtown transit center. Milwaukee County later decided to tear down the transit center, only it would have required they repay $8 million to the federal government, unless there was an ongoing transportation function tied to that land. So, they decided to build the track to a dead end at the transit center. The streetcar was disfavored by 70% of Milwaukee residents, but government knew better. The local paper held a competition wherein reporters on the Hop raced the length of the Hop’s route using multiple other forms of transportation (including bicycles), and the Hop finished last.

The Hop is one of the biggest wastes of taxpayer dollars in Wisconsin history. But streetcars are the new fad in urban planning. The notion that it would increase job access and mobility for city residents showcased a gross misunderstanding of how transit works at best; and more likely, a deliberate misrepresentation to Milwaukee voters. So here it sits; with no riders, no income, and a subsidy which must be borne by Milwaukee taxpayers who do not use it.

The fact is that streetcars running in mixed traffic have been proven time and time again to have no impact on mobility and job access when they parallel existing bus routes. The boondoggle was designed for expansion, does not attract Millennials, does not even make a scratch in the needs of minorities or the transit-dependent, and has not and won’t boost economic development. But its proponents were well-intentioned; and they were spending federal dollars. America has a crack-like addiction to federal subsidy money because the illusion is that it is free money. It is not. The federal government spends billions of dollars annually on unnecessary urban rail systems. Without federal subsidies, cities and local governments would make better choices for their local transit needs. High-speed rail loses money and services only a very small number of intercity passengers. It reminds me of the wise words of the man who wrote the U.S. Constitution:

“Having considered the bill this day presented to me entitled ‘An act to set apart and pledge certain funds for internal improvements,’ and which sets apart and pledges funds ‘for constructing roads and canals, and improving the navigation of water courses’ . . . I am constrained by the insuperable difficulty I feel in reconciling the bill with the Constitution of the United States to return it with that objection to the House of Representatives. The legislative powers vested in Congress are specified and enumerated in the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution, and it does not appear that the power proposed to be exercised by the bill is among the enumerated powers.”

James Madison, March 3, 1817. Veto of federal transportation spending.