Racine's transit system has just become the most enlightened in the region.

Installing bike racks on the front of buses was all it took.

Groups like the Bike Federation of Wisconsin have long argued for racks on busses as a sensible way to encourage bus ridership in Milwaukee County. But county transit officials have given the lame excuse that buses wouldn't fit in the garage as easily if they had bike rack, even though advances in the technology make them fold up nicely.

Racine paid $545 each for the racks and $99 a pop for installation for a grand total of $22,000. That was the cost to outfit the entire fleet of 33 buses, with two spares. Racine used a federal grant to cover $18,000 and the city and local bike club chipped in the rest.

Tough Political Lesson for the Attorney General: Politicians should know not to make campaign promises if they can't control the outcome. Wisconsin Attorney General JB Van Hollen learned that last week when the state abandoned plans to expand the Milwaukee crime lab by 31 DNA analysts.

Bids to remodel an office building to accommodate the added help came in too high and the Department of Administration, which handles all things concerning building construction by the state, dropped the bidding process.

Van Hollen made adding analysts a key issue of his campaign to unseat incumbent Peg Lautenschlager, who was defeated in the primary, anyway. He portrayed it as an issue of mismanagement. Guess he didn't understand the complexities of trying to get things done on a state government level, a point made by Lautenschlager during the campaign.

Van Hollen did not issue a statement on the defeat, although his office pumped out press releases touting prosecutions for kiddie porn and sexual assault cases during the past two weeks.

The QT on Police OT: Milwaukee aldermen will get a taste of how the cost of police overtime has been managed for the second quarter of 2007. It seems that it took some time for the budget office to put together figures for the Common Council and a presentation this week will bring aldermen up to speed until mid-July of last year.

Through that time, police overtime was running at about $8.9 million, about $850,000 ahead of last year at the time.

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