Madison Area Bus Ways

Madison's Mayor recently released her proposed capital budget for next year (2022). Often about a fifth of the total budget, it is that part of the budget where large-scale infrastructure-like items get listed. This year's capital budget of perhaps $355 million is more than twice as large as the capital budget for the previous year and not quite twice the estimated size of the budget in the following year (for 2023). According to one local news article , one reason for its unusual size is "the $166 million price tag for the first phase of BRT [Bus Rapid Transit] ..." The article also observed near the end that "The city's annual debt costs have risen from 12% of the general fund budget in 2011 to roughly 17% in the current year and about the same in 2023."  This caused me to pause, not because I do not have serious questions about the financing of the Bus Rapid Transit scheme here in Madison (I do), but because those questions pertain to day-to-day ope...