John Norquist, Mayor of Milwaukee, provided a refreshingvision for cities in the next century in a speech at Cooper Union lastnight. Adamant in his objection to urban highways, he pointed to a slideof a massive spaghetti-like interchange — the largest public works projectin Wisconsin — and stated, "you would not hold a parade, have a marathon,make a postcard or even film a car advertisement there."

Using three images of downtown Milwaukee, he explainedhow highways destroy neighborhoods. The first picture showed the area beforethe Second World War when buildings filled the grid pattern of streets.In the second slide, a highway slices through downtown neighborhoods andin the final one the buildings for blocks around the highway have all beentorn down. The contrasts were similar to before and after images of highwayconstruction in Brooklyn or the Bronx. Mayor Norquist’s highway example— the Park East — is the one he recently succeeded in securing federalfunding and local and state support for eliminating. A similar campaignis underway in the Bronx, where community groups and elected officialshave called on the New York State Department of Transportation to studyelimination of the Sheridan Expressway in an upcoming EIS (see MTR #199).

When asked if sprawl and car use weren’t the preferencesof most people, he stated that it was a "shotgun marriage" and that governmentshould give people real choices between cars and transit. He pointed todedicated transit-ways that allow buses to be competitive with cars asa practical policy that allows people to leave their cars at home, bringingto mind efforts by the Tri-State Campaign and others to secure a bus-onlylane on the Gowanus Expressway (MTR #229). He criticized the languageused about transportation: "we say we invest in roads but subsidize transit."