by Raphie Torralba
Lately, I’ve been following several bills introduced in the Wisconsin State legislature. They each have potential to inform improvements and action toward sustainability and equity in our transportation system. At the same time, there are clear areas that would benefit from refinement.
SB 824 / AB 830 – required inclusions added to the long-range statewide transportation plan
Senate Bill 824, introduced early this year, provides that the WisDOT statewide long-range transportation plan should include a vision for the following additional components:
- Low-carbon public transit
- Electrification of the transportation sector
- Cost-effective charging infrastructure
- Incentives to develop equitable, clean transportation options
- Transportation solutions for underserved areas of the state
These inclusions present an opportunity for WisDOT to impact climate, mobility, and equity goals in accordance with each other. The expectations are vague, however, and it is unclear what implementation, and follow-through will look like for all road users, especially in the context of the existing plan. In general, existing goals and objectives in the plan would be clearer if they also included specific metrics to describe and achieve equity and related targets. Speaking of the added inclusions in particular, they don’t explicitly aim to address safety and are likely to maintain car-centric status quo without established practices or mechanisms for integrated work between the relevant implementing branches at WisDOT. Read the existing plan here: Connect 2050
SB 660 / AB 654 – WisDOT Public Awareness campaign to target aggressive driving behaviors
Introduced Nov. 14, 2025, Senate Bill 660 / Assembly Bill 654 would require WisDOT to conduct a public information campaign intended to reduce various aggressive driving behaviors, prioritizing engagement in municipalities with the highest incidences, as determined by WisDOT. While the bill aims to promote safety for road users, it’s instead a misallocation of state dollars to a hackneyed approach that is deemed generally ineffective on its own.
There is great value in public awareness, but research findings are mixed in determining a correlation between public campaigns for aggressive driving behavior and actual behavior change. One general conclusion that researchers find is media campaigns can change knowledge and attitudes, but show little evidence that they significantly change behaviors, especially without additional approaches to impacting behavior1.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are various other speed intervention approaches which are proven to be effective in reducing aggressive driving behaviors2. This includes setting of speed limits in accord with Safe System Principles and building and/or modifying roads with traffic calming features that reduce speed. WHO also reports that speed limit enforcement (traffic cameras or traffic patrol) is proven effective, but only if it is also implemented with necessary support systems including “enabling legislation, accurate vehicle and driver license databases, efficient infringement processing systems and rigorous enforcement of the visibility of vehicle registration plates as well as a variety of other enablers”. That detail is an important note in any discussion on the bill proposed to pilot the implementation of traffic cameras in Milwaukee (SB 375 / AB 371).
All said, there are opportunities for the state to invest in proven traffic calming for speed intervention. Under Senate Bill 433, introduced Sept 19, 2025, WisDOT must develop and administer a local traffic calming grant program and award grants to political subdivisions and Indian tribes or bands for infrastructure projects designed to reduce the speed of vehicular traffic. The bill provides $60,000,000 for the program. Relatedly, reallocating some road maintenance spending toward efficient public transit and respective infrastructure is an approach to reducing traffic congestion, a common stressor for aggressive driving.
Speaking of investing in transit: Senate Bill 754, introduced Dec. 12, 2025, proposes the creation of Regional Transit Authorities (RTAs) in federally defined metropolitan planning areas (i.e. where Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) already exist) and authorizes the creation of permissive RTAs in metropolitan statistical areas.
After discussion among advocates, there’s agreement that SB754 was ambitiously written and reflected equity concerns. Ultimately, we want our legislators to discuss legalization of RTAs and for policy and funding streams to reflect what will truly create accessible and sustainable transit in Wisconsin communities. As conversations around RTAs continue, the voice of local transit advocates and planners will be key in refining policy to ensure equitable impact and effective regional transportation coordination across Wisconsin’s diverse regions.
To continue following these and other bills with us, sign up for our e-news or start a conversation with raphie@1kfriends.org. You can also click through the links in this blog post to check out the sponsors and the full bill text on the Wisconsin State Legislature website.
Sources and additional reading: