A REASONS TO BE CHEERFFUL/SOLUTIONS JOURNALISM NETWORK/WISCONSIN NEWS CONNCECTION COLLABORATION

Milwaukee is tied to a wave of freeway removals in the United States designed to reverse-engineer an era of car-centric urban planning. Supporters hope federal support will propel the momentum.

The Inflation Reduction Act includes $3 billion for not only improving roads, but also removing, replacing or retrofitting highways and freeways to improve connectivity in communities awarded grants. There's hope Milwaukee will see more of that work, much like the teardown of the city's Park East freeway.

Gregg May, transportation policy director with the group 1000 Friends of Wisconsin, said the 20-year-old project proved a lot of doubters wrong.

"There was a lot of hoopla then about what kind of traffic nightmares would come, how it could possibly destroy the downtown," he said. "And now, I think there's not anybody who would like to bring that highway spur back."

The move led to a mix of indoor and outdoor entertainment and community spaces, including the new Milwaukee Bucks arena. There's a push to carry out a similar effort for Interstate 794 within the city. Leaders believe it could provide space for housing, enhance connections between parks and trails, and reduce emissions.

Planning experts say the U.S. highway system was never meant to cut through dense urban neighborhoods. But in the process, these areas - often communities of color - were burdened by physical and social ills exacerbated by highway construction. May says that was the case in Milwaukee.

"To build this highway system," he said, "we completely took a sledgehammer to Bronzeville, which was the most prosperous and vibrant Black neighborhood in the state."

Large residential sections of the city were razed for big road projects that never came to fruition. While groups such as May's want to see more interstate removal, another highway project in Milwaukee has been announced, with transportation officials saying it could ease traffic and improve safety. But it faces pushback, with opponents favoring more pedestrian, transit and bike-friendly features.

This story was produced with original reporting from Edgar Mendez for Reasons to be Cheerful, an online news magazine.


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A new report has found some progress has been made to improve the nation's aging infrastructure, but a lot more needs to be done.

This week, the American Society of Civil Engineers released its 2025 Report Card for America's Infrastructure. It gives the nation an overall grade of "C," up from a "C-minus" in 2021.

Kristina Swallow, assistant city manager for the City of Tucson, credited the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, even as both have been targeted by the Trump administration. She said more improvements will require more funding.

"We feel it," Swallow pointed out. "If you get stuck in traffic or if you have somebody who is injured while they're riding their bike or walking to work, you know that the system isn't necessarily working the way it should be. We want to help make sure that when industry, local, state and federal governments invest in infrastructure, that they're doing it wisely."

The report showed just over half of Arizona roads are in either poor or fair condition. It noted $12 billion is needed to improve drinking water systems and $4 billion to upgrade wastewater systems in the state.

Swallow pointed out bridges are among the brighter spots in Arizona's scores, with fewer than 2% of the more than 8,500 bridges in the state in poor condition. She stressed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law was essential to support maintenance.

"While Arizona has generally, I think, some of the better bridges in the nation, that additional bridge investment on a national level really helped some of the other states address some of their poor and failing bridges," Swallow observed. "As well as start to look at some of the 'fair' bridges and bring them back up into good repair."

Community expansion and climate change have increased demand for repairs. Swallow added some voters have noticed and supported initiatives at the ballot box in recent years.

"In Tucson, they've voted three times to invest in roadway infrastructure, in connections and greenways and in parks," Swallow reported. "Because they recognize that the community members in Tucson need to have roads that meet their needs."

And even if current federal infrastructure funding were to remain the same, the report added there would still be a $3.7 trillion gap over the next decade.


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By Kathiann M. Kowalski for Canary Media.
Broadcast version by Mark Richardson for Ohio News Connection reporting for the Solutions Journalism Network-Public News Service Collaboration

One of the nation’s largest hydrogen-powered transit fleets is seeking to switch to a cleaner — and local — fuel source as part of a federally funded clean hydrogen hub.

The Stark Area Regional Transit Authority, or SARTA, provides about 5,000 daily rides to commuters in the Canton, Ohio, area. A decade after federal grants helped it purchase its first hydrogen fuel-cell buses, the authority now has 22 such vehicles, making it the country’s fourth-largest hydrogen-powered transit fleet.

The vehicles emit only water vapor and warm air as exhaust, reducing air pollution in the neighborhoods where they run. But producing and transporting hydrogen for the fuel cells can be a significant source of climate emissions, which is why SARTA is partnering with energy company Enbridge and the Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub, or ARCH2, on a plan to make the fuel on-site with solar power.

“So it will be green,” said Kirt Conrad, SARTA’s CEO, referring to the use of renewable energy to power the production of hydrogen by splitting water.

Currently, the transit agency imports hydrogen — made from natural gas without carbon capture — by truck from Canada. Such “gray” hydrogen emits about 11 tons of carbon dioxide per ton of hydrogen produced. President Donald Trump’s threatened tariffs against Canada could also affect the cost and supply of hydrogen available to SARTA, although specific impacts are still unclear.

SARTA had already worked with Dominion Energy on a compressed natural gas fueling station before Dominion’s Ohio utility company was acquired by Enbridge. When the Biden administration announced its regional clean hydrogen hub program in 2023, SARTA and the company joined others in Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania to pitch the ARCH2 hub. The hub was among seven selected by the Department of Energy in late 2023 and was awarded up to $925 million in funding last summer.

The plan is to install roughly 1,000 solar panels on about 10 acres of recently acquired land next to SARTA’s existing hydrogen fueling facility, said Conrad. That would generate up to 1 megawatt of electricity, powering an electrolysis facility that splits water into oxygen and hydrogen. Under the project’s current scope, the equipment would produce roughly 1 ton of hydrogen per day, enough to fuel 40 SARTA buses, Conrad added.

Details could change as the project progresses, according to Enbridge spokesperson Stephanie Moore. Enbridge would own the hydrogen production and storage equipment.

Conrad estimated that the whole project will cost around $15 million, about 70% of which would come from federal funding under the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law and other grants. It’s unclear, though, whether the Trump administration will renege on those commitments, even those which have already been formally obligated under contract.

“ARCH2 receives funding for this project through a contract issued through the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations,” Moore said. “We have received no information outlining any modifications to that contract and therefore will continue moving forward on this project as planned.”

If the project can be completed, it will double SARTA’s supply of hydrogen, lower costs and emissions, and improve the transit system’s resiliency, Conrad said, noting that the agency has experienced occasional fuel delivery problems. Plus, domestic hydrogen production can support U.S. energy independence goals, he said.

A desire to switch to cleaner fuels and the costs per mile compared with diesel buses convinced SARTA to start buying fuel-cell buses in 2014. Today, it has 17 large buses and 5 smaller paratransit vehicles that run on fuel cells, which split hydrogen into protons and electrons and send them along separate paths. The electrons provide an electric current, while the protons wind up combining with oxygen to make water.

California has had fuel-cell buses on the road for more than two decades, and other places that have embraced the vehicles in recent years include Philadelphia’s Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority and Maryland’s Montgomery County.

Sean O’Leary, a senior researcher for the Ohio River Valley Institute, said the planned project by SARTA and Enbridge would cut greenhouse gas emissions compared with current practices.

“Green hydrogen is … a lot better than gray,” O’Leary said. However, he’s skeptical whether fuel-cell buses are the vehicles he would choose today for transit systems to reduce emissions. “I would personally rather see them go to electric buses or even biodiesel, both of which would reduce emissions more and cost a … lot less.”

Conrad said SARTA would have liked to have started out using green hydrogen, but it wasn’t available in the marketplace a decade ago. Now that the technology has advanced, he thinks it’s time to make the switch to a cleaner source of hydrogen.

“Sometimes an industry just needs time to evolve. And I think that’s what we’re starting to see now,” Conrad said.

If all proceeds well, SARTA anticipates on-site hydrogen production could start as soon as 2028.


Kathiann M. Kowalski wrote this article for Canary Media.

As the U.S. Department of Transportation tries to end New York City's congestion pricing program, the move is getting some pushback from people who say the program is working.

In a letter rescinding federal support, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy called congestion pricing "a slap in the face" to working-class Americans and small business owners.

But Renae Reynolds, executive director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, said congestion pricing has been successful, despite a delayed launch.

"A 50% reduction in traffic entering into the Central Business District, which translates to a reduction in people's commute times," said Reynolds. "That is measurable. We have seen so much time saved in folks entering though the Lincoln Tunnel."

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority filed a lawsuit against the DOT to keep congestion pricing around. Other experts have said they can't see a legal reason for the DOT to prevail, but it remains to be seen.

The program is also designed to improve air quality around the city, since less car and truck traffic leaves cleaner air to breathe. And it's generating income.

Eric A. Goldstein, senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said those funds will be spent on improving public transportation - which can further improve air quality.

"When you have an effective public transportation program, you are reducing pollution," said Goldstein, "because you're getting people out of cars and motor vehicles, and you're keeping them out of those vehicles for their daily commutes."

Not having the money from congestion pricing would mean New York State has to fully fund the MTA's next capital project plan.

That's another reason Rachael Fauss, senior policy analyst with Reinvent Albany, said ending the program would affect the entire state.

"There are vendors that contract with the MTA in every single congressional district in New York State," said Fauss. "There's massive rail car manufacturing, bus manufacturing in upstate New York, and those businesses would be also losing out on contracts they would get with the MTA for its capital program."