Brady Street, which boasts some of the best street life in Milwaukee, has flourished thanks in part to the defeat of a nearby freeway spur and the redevelopment that followed. Photo: Steve Filmanowicz.

In the second part of our interview (read the first part here), Norquist discusses these victories and setbacks, and how federal policy can help cities and towns do the right thing.

Ben Fried: Expanding the transit system in Milwaukee has been a very long, protracted process. You wanted to build light rail. What sort of resistance did you meet from other public officials?

Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Buffalo, Detroit, Cleveland -- the regional planning commissions they have really aren’t looking out for city interests, they're looking out for the exurban interests.

It’s frustrating, because Milwaukee was always ranked by the Federal Transit Administration as one of the best places to put in a light rail, because it was built around the street car system. There was over 350 miles of street car in Milwaukee at the end of the war, 200 miles of inner urban. We had a really, really good transit system and by 1958 it was all gone. But the land use patterns were all built around street car lines. Now I think my successor, Tom Barrett, has got himself some clout with this. They put an earmark in the budget bill that just passed that gave him control of a nice big chunk of money, so he might be able to get that street car going.

BF: So the dispute between you and the county executives, is that emblematic, would you say, of the basic problem with MPOs?

JN: It depends on who runs the MPO. New York and Chicago have their MPOs under control. We have enough clout in Chicago that the local regional planning commission -- CMAP -- they're not going to turn around and screw Chicago. Chicago has a lot of representation on CMAP’s board. In New York, basically New York runs its own regional system -- sometimes the metro system has too much interference from the state, but basically New York City can call its own shot when it comes to planning. And that’s not true in a lot of cities. Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Buffalo, Detroit, Cleveland, the regional planning commissions they have really aren’t looking out for city interests, they're looking out for the exurban interests.

BF: We’ve got a potential freeway teardown project here in New York, the Sheridan Expressway, it was number two on CNU’s list of the top teardown candidates. Could you walk us through what you had to go through with your freeway teardown in Milwaukee -- who did you have to win over to achieve that?

JN: The Sheridan is ready to go. It has a nice low traffic count, so it’s hard to argue that it’s really necessary. But what did I go through? Well, the first thing was, it’s so counterintuitive to do these things that the first reaction was from very reasonable people -- ordinary citizens, the traffic engineers, neighborhood people, even very progressive people -- “You want to do what? You want to tear that -- what?” You know, it doesn’t compute, it sounds like a wacky thing to do. You have to have patience and spend a lot of time in meetings letting people beat the living hell out of you. And then you get to a certain point where people say, “Hey, wait, I think I understand what you mean. You’re saying the freeway’s a blighting influence.” And you just go through all the arguments against it, but the biggest argument for it is it just makes the place function a lot better and add more value and be a place where people actually want to be.

In the mid and late 70s a whole bunch of legislators were elected who were against freeways, people who organized and went door to door. If we hadn’t won those battles Milwaukee would have been devastated.

So you go through all these value calculation fights, and then finally you need to play your political cards. In Milwaukee the anti-freeway movement began in early 70s, and in the mid and late 70s a whole bunch of legislators were elected who were against freeways, people who organized and went door to door, they won the battles. If we hadn’t won those battles Milwaukee would have been devastated, but we’ve killed about half the freeways they had planned on building. And that saved the city really from being in a very similar situation to what Detroit is in right now.

BF: Are some of the freeway projects the Wisconsin DOT is planning now, are those in metro Milwaukee?

JN: We have several on there, they're all unnecessary, they're all dead weight loss. It’s really disgusting and it shows you how hard it is to get them to look at it in a different way. The I-94 widening -- it’s already six lanes, they want to make it eight lanes from Milwaukee down to the Illinois border. And they want to do a new interchange, called the “Zoo Interchange,” which will cost close to $1 billion. A lot of these stimulus projects are completely unnecessary and they don’t make sense. To route your grade-separated traffic through the most expensive real estate in the state of Wisconsin? It’s insane. They don't do it in Europe. They have freeways, but they're between cities, not in cities. They go around the outer edge with belt lines, but they don’t jam up through the most built-up places, because it just concentrates traffic and creates more congestion at the nodes.

A lot of these stimulus projects are completely unnecessary and they don’t make sense. To route your grade-separated traffic through the most expensive real estate in the state of Wisconsin? It’s insane.

Look at it not just from a big city standpoint, look at it from a medium- or small-sized city standpoint. Let’s say you were in New York wine country and you come to Ithaca. In the old days, instead of a bypass they’d have a truck route around the outer edge of the street grid. You might go a little bit faster, 35 miles an hour instead of 25, but it’s a little longer distance, so it’s pretty much an equal choice whether you drive through the middle of town or you go on the outer edge. And if you're driving a truck and you're going on through-traffic you take the truck route.

Well, now they don’t even have that option anymore, all they have is a Mercedes-Benz test track, a highly-banked, grade-separated freeway that routes all the traffic around the city and then you get the inevitable death of any retail in the middle. You end up with antique shops and empty buildings. And then you get the big boxes out on the beltway.

These small towns, they don’t need beltways. Give them another option and they might choose it. If they still want to build a beltway and they want to help pay for it, fine, but the feds should give them the kind of options that allow urban real estate development, job development, walkability, connectivity, all these things. Higher economic performance, higher environmental performance. Those are all possible when you create a wide variety of choices, instead of just going right to grade separation. That’s basically saying, "We only fund through-traffic -- if you want to go a long distance, we’re into funding it."

The feds don’t look at it in terms of the economics. Traditionally, there’s three purposes for a road: movement, economic and social interaction. Those are the three things that traditionally a thoroughfare in an urban area did for thousands of years. That’s what it was. And then in the last 60 years it’s all dumbed down to just one thing -- vehicle movement -- and the other stuff doesn’t matter. Well that’s really stupid. The federal government collects a lot of taxes from hardworking people in the United States, and they shouldn’t just think that the only purpose of investment in transportation is through-traffic.

Wisconsin's Jeff Frings is an avid bike rider. He's also a photographer for Milwaukee's Fox 6, which may be why this report is among the most fair and balanced we've seen on cyclists' right to the road.

Like many if not most cyclists, Frings has had his share of run-ins with space-hogging drivers. Unlike most, Frings's bike is equipped with front- and rear-facing cameras. As you'll see, this has given him an edge when making his case following a close call -- his footage resulted in a ticket for one motorist -- but it's still not enough when law enforcement officials are ignorant of, or are unwilling to enforce, traffic laws.

Summer Streets may be getting most of the attention lately, but New York isn't the only US city opening its streets to public use. On a recent visit to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Streetfilms contributor Nick Whitaker captured two car-free events happening at once.

First, the Brady Street Festival, which has roots going back to the 1970s, was recently revived. Brady Street Festival is a car-free event featuring delicious fare from award winning Wisconsin cheese makers and organic seasonal treats, live music, crafts, beer, and a camel ride!

A short distance away is the Downer Ave Race, celebrating its 40th anniversary. Bicycle racers have chosen it frequently as one of the top races in the U.S., according to VeloNews. More than 12,000 people attend the race each year to enjoy the music, food, and fun that make this event a great neighborhood party that lasts long after the races are over.