If you haven't heard any talk recently about Madison possibly implementing a streetcar system for downtown transportation, then you certainly haven't been hanging around mayoral candidates Ray Allen and Peter MuAoz.
It seems these two challengers to incumbent Mayor Dave Cieslewicz consider the idea of trolleys roaming the streets of Madison to be the single biggest threat to our community's future vitality, and have accordingly structured their campaigns to protect us from such a disastrous policy mistake. Maybe you were thinking economic development, public safety, affordable housing or poverty issues would be important in choosing our next mayor? Nope. Just trolleys.
What's been largely ignored throughout this very public discussion is the fact that neither MuAoz nor Allen have offered anything in terms of an alternative vision for solving our community's transportation problems. It is very common in campaigns such as this for candidates who have no vision or ideas of their own to simply make efforts at turning the election into a referendum on the performance and legislative record of the incumbent.
The interesting twist with this ongoing mayor's race is that MuAoz and Allen aren't attacking what Cieslewicz has done, but one thing that he's merely talked about doing. Make no mistake about it, the streetcar plan is very much in the infant stages of development necessary for any policy initiative that is bold in cost and scale.
In fact, I may have just overstated its progress by labeling it a ""plan."" The committee studying the issue is due to put out a report this summer.
It does seem quite evident that most voters consider the streetcar idea to be an investment in public works with a high price tag and benefits generally indistinguishable from what is already offered by the Madison Metro bus service. Because of that, I'm pretty confident it'll never happen. That's why we elect representatives and appoint committees to sort out which ideas are worthy of public commitment. With many cities like Memphis, San Jose and Kenosha building new streetcar lines and reporting positive results, it's hard to chastise the mayor, or any city leader, for giving the idea basic consideration.
Listen, there are plenty of reasons to vote against Mayor Cieslewicz—his attempts to suck the fun out of Halloween and the downtown bar scene, and his total failure to provide real leadership during the minimum wage and paid sick days campaigns are a couple that immediately come to mind—but there are plenty of reasons to support him as well.
During his four-year term Mayor Cieslewicz has been a part of numerous progressive policies at the city level: He joined Ald. Brenda Konkel, District 2, to fight for a bold inclusionary zoning ordinance to create affordable housing, he championed the smoking ban, he has actively implemented measures to clean up our lakes and increase recycling, he was an outspoken proponent of civil rights for gays and lesbians and he built the first public swimming pool in Madison history.
If we're going to make this election a referendum on Dave Cieslewicz, let's cast our up or down votes based on what he's done, and not based on an early idea of something he might possibly do in the future if all the funding and discussion somehow works out just right.
Let's also demand more of candidates than single-issue pandering to the AM radio crowd. There is some history of candidates treating students like stupid voters, thinking that the only issue we care about is alcohol policy. This year, it looks like the challengers are also treating the rest of the electorate equally as stupid. Some might call this progress.
