Happy New Year, Milwaukee! We hope you’ve had some time to reflect on the past year and get a fresh start on the year ahead. 2023 certainly brought some highs and lows for our city, and by the looks of this week’s roundup, 2024 won’t be any different.
Planned Parenthood Unionizing
Let’s kick off 2024 with some good news. Planned Parenthood Wisconsin is unionizing! More than 100 workers are unionizing with the Wisconsin Federation of Nurses and Healthcare Professionals. The exact number of workers in the bargaining unit will be determined following a hearing with the National Labor Relations Board (Urban Milwaukee).
Great Lakes Ice Cover at Record Low
And now from a high to a low. Ice cover on the Great Lakes reached a record low on New Year’s Day, with ice coverage averaging a record 0.4%. Around 9% of the lakes are typically frozen by Jan. 1.
Researchers have previously found climate change is causing lakes around the world to heat up faster than the oceans. A 2015 study by more than 60 scientists found ice-covered lakes like Lake Superior are warming more rapidly than those without ice cover.
Less ice could have wide-ranging implications for things like tourism and recreation, such as ice fishing. It could also pose ecological impacts for species like whitefish that rely on ice to protect their eggs from winter storms. Researchers have also found less ice can result in more lake-effect snow. (WPR).
Wisconsin Behind Illinois, Minnesota in Solar Energy
In another climate change-related update, Wisconsin is doing a poor job implementing solar energy! Our state had the second-fewest solar installations among its neighboring states — trailing only Iowa.
There are a few legislative bills in the works that could help. One would allow developers that aren’t regulated utilities to build community solar projects. In Wisconsin, regulated utilities like WE Energies and cooperatives are the only entities allowed to provide energy to customers from solar gardens. Another policy change would allow for third-party financing for solar projects (WPR).
Alternatively, we could just get rid of private power entirely in Milwaukee and enact an energy utility that works for the people and not profit.
The Ups and Downs of MCTS 2023 Ridership
The good news: Milwaukee County Transit System (MCTS) is on track for a 9% year-over-year ridership increase.
The bad news: this number is still a far cry from the ridership MCTS had prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2019, MCTS recorded approximately 28.9 million rides.
The somewhere-in-the-middle news: riders have steadily returned in recent years after ridership plunged to its lowest level, 14.3 million, in 2021. The numbers for 2023 represent a 19% increase over ridership that year (Urban Milwaukee).
As it stands, MCTS is only receiving enough money to barely keep things moving. Here’s a novel idea – let’s push for MCTS to receive proper funding so that it not only becomes tolerable, but actually preferable to cars! Remember that whole climate change thing?
More Passenger Rail Might be Coming
Here’s a positive transit story for you – the long-anticipated Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee Commuter Rail Line might just happen. The 33-mile line would follow the lakefront from the Chicago-focused Metra station in Kenosha north to downtown Milwaukee, linking several south suburban communities with a 53-minute end-to-end trip.
“Studying and engineering is the work that is about to start,” said City Engineer Kevin Muhs to the City of Milwaukee Public Works Committee on Nov. 29.
Not everyone is hopeful about the project. “Probably in the category of wishful thinking,” said committee chair Alderman Robert Bauman. But hey, we can dream (Urban Milwaukee)!
UW-La Crosse Chancellor Fucks Around and Finds Out
The Universities of Wisconsin Board of Regents voted unanimously Wednesday to fire longtime UW-La Crosse Chancellor Joe Gow for his NSFW side-hustle: appearing in online porn videos with his wife.
The duo go by the moniker of “Sexy Happy Couple” on adult websites. On a social media account dubbed, “Sexy Healthy Cooking,” they direct users to their LoyalFans and OnlyFans accounts for “fully explicit scenes.” The UW Board of Regents finds Gow’s behavior “abhorrent. We find it “funny” (WPR).
