Everyone wants to be able to get around a city easily.  It’s simple in stuff.  Cities need bike lanes, roads, side walks, taxis, rail, trolleys, buses and other forms of transit to move people from here to there.  

I love my car.  I love driving. And, as you’ll note in my record, I like driving fast.  I blame my Dad for this. Regardless of my love for automobiles, I embrace and support increased mass transit opportunity for our state.

Simply put, once we park we need easier and more efficient ways to get around.  Especially in greater Downtown.  Debate on transportation shouldn’t be a cars vs. everything else battle.  

So, let’s consider this.  We want to spend $1.7 billion on a taxpayer funded rebuild and expansion of the Zoo Interchange.  $1.7 billion.  It’s crazy.  But, no one is batting an eye.

Yes, the Zoo Interchange needs work.  Trucks and cars have beat it down over the years.  

A recent ruling, though, by federal Judge Lynn Adelman finding that the state Department of Transportation’s Environmental Impact Statement supporting the Zoo Interchange is deficient and violates federal law may just send a strong message that highway building and road expansions in southeastern Wisconsin at the expense of public transit and other projects should at least be better analyzed.  $1.7 billion.  Wow. That could build a needed Downtown arena, fund several schools, pay for the Streetcar and repair roads.

Ald. Robert J. Bauman said yesterday that Judge Adelman’s decision "is a strong endorsement that southeastern Wisconsin’s transportation needs must be reflected in balanced investments in local roads, freeways and transit which serve the economic and social needs of all citizens and all areas of the region."

Bauman is recommending the DOT immediately consider a new alternative. That alternative would spend $370 million to reconstruct I-94 from 25^th St. to 70^th St. and allocate the savings between this option and the expansion option –…

Graduation is this weekend for many Milwaukee area schools.  Bill Cosby will be at my alma mater, Marquette University, for its ceremony on Sunday.

I’ve cited this before, but the Milwaukee region has one of the highest college students-per-capita ratios in the United States. Local colleges, universities and technical schools enroll more than 100,000 students in any given year, including 60,000 in undergraduate programs, 15,000 in graduate programs and 25,000 in associate degree and vocational diploma programs.  Milwaukee’s a college town.

And, college educated people in their 20s and 30s are moving to cities.  From 2006 to 2011, major metro areas grew their college populations 17 percent.  Milwaukee, according to this story, grew 45.3 percent.  This makes it a leader, behind only San Antonio.  Sure, you can argue we had further to grow.  But, growth is growth.

A new USA Today analysis details the metro areas that saw spikes in population of people ages 20 to 30 with a bachelor's degree.  All major metros are listed.  

Also important in the graduation game is getting our area’s current students to graduate.  Remember this study?  One percent means $1 billion.  

Keep it up and step it up, Milwaukee.  We can and must continue to do better.  

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Oddly, though, I rarely see people sitting in these chairs.  Maybe because they're simply not comfortable or maybe they are more lawn ornament than sitting device.

What's the deal with Adirondack chairs, anyway?   

A company in Lake Geneva makes a patented solar illuminating Adirondack chair, there's a coffee table book about these chairs and while they seem more Madison than Milwaukee they're popping up everywhere now that the weather is turning.  

Who knows?  Maybe I'm just not a buy patio furniture kind of guy but I really want to know what the appeal of these things are?  

Kudos to Allison Miller who, via Facebook, posted this awesome animated video of Milwaukee "super hero" Milverine.

As a class project, she used Adobe Illustrator to create a day in the life, of sorts, of the Milwaukee man affectionately known as Milverine.

John Hamann is his real name, by the way.  

The song in the video is from Woodkid.