"Stop The Train!"

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WhoozOn1st

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Scott Walker, a Republican running to be governor of Wisconsin, is airing a TV commercial in which he vows that if elected he'll prevent high(er) speed rail between Milwaukee and Madison. The plan was awarded an $810 million federal grant, but on the commercial's website Walker says - in an "Open Letter to President Obama" - that he will "put a stop to this boondoggle the day I take office."

Wisconsin candidate's new TV ad: "We'll stop this train"

The commercial: Stop the Train! (NoTrain.com)

"'Wisconsin's hardworking families who are going to have to pick up the tab,' Walker says in the ad, decrying the projected operating subsidies. 'They are going to have to spend up to $10 million a year just to keep a train running they may never ride.'"

A natural extension of this logic would be that the citizens of Wisconsin should not have to contribute the many millions of dollars more required to build and maintain highways, roads, streets, and bridges they may never drive on.
 
All these people should be put on a ship and sunk.
Ah why make the fish sick :unsure: Just don't vote for them. :)

Aloha
I dunno, Madison doesnt seem like a city that can be justified in being a terminus for a high spped trains. High speed trains should only be placed in areas where it will be in higher demand, 99 percent of the times that places are all big cities.
 
It has been frustrating, working on returning passenger service to Madison, while improving it between Chicago and Saint Paul. The opponents, who seem to come out of the woodwork ( and were never around when Republican Tommy Thompson originally proposed something similar ) when this topic comes up, have characterized this Chicago to Saint Paul via Madison and Milwaukee service, as rail just between Madison and Milwaukee. It is quite the inaccurate representation. See the link, and read some of the comments:

"Train money should be rejected, Walker says"

Why are some conservatives so adamantly opposed to investments in passenger rail ? Could it be that the opposition exists only because it has been proposed by the Obama Administration, in one of his smarter moves ?
 
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As I've said many times in the past, both here and elsewhere, anti-rail is a religion in Wisconsin, and many politicians are members of that church. This predates Obama's election. These same idiots have fought against light rail in Milwaukee for decades.
 
All these people should be put on a ship and sunk.
Ah why make the fish sick :unsure: Just don't vote for them. :)

Aloha
I dunno, Madison doesnt seem like a city that can be justified in being a terminus for a high spped trains. High speed trains should only be placed in areas where it will be in higher demand, 99 percent of the times that places are all big cities.
Currently one of the most successful new services that Amtrak has is the Downeaster. It terminates in Portland, Maine population of 63,011. Of course the other end of the line is Boston with a population of 590,763.

Compare that to Madison with a population of 223,389 and at the other end of the line we have Chicago with a population of 2,833,321. And stuck in the middle of the run, is the rather large city of Milwaukee with 573,358 souls living there. The Downeaster has no large cities in the middle of its run.

So I can't imagine how it is that the Downeaster can be so successful with so few people and this service would fail with so many more people able to ride.
 
All these people should be put on a ship and sunk.
Ah why make the fish sick :unsure: Just don't vote for them. :)

Aloha
I dunno, Madison doesnt seem like a city that can be justified in being a terminus for a high spped trains. High speed trains should only be placed in areas where it will be in higher demand, 99 percent of the times that places are all big cities.
Let see, Madison is the state capitol and home to the largest university in the state. The line will connect to the largest city in the state and then go on to the third largest city in the country. How can it not be successful?
 
I dunno, Madison doesnt seem like a city that can be justified in being a terminus for a high spped trains. High speed trains should only be placed in areas where it will be in higher demand, 99 percent of the times that places are all big cities.
I'd say this is an ideal extension of higher speed rail. Extend a popular line (Chicago-Milwaukee Hiawatha) to a mid-size city (Madison: city 236,000; metro 570,000) as a first phase of an eventual extension on to the Twin Cities (metro 3.27 million). We're not talking about building a 220mph dedicated high speed line between Milwaukee and Madison, but rather extending 79-110mph higher speed line on to the next significant city (state capital and home to a very large university) along the eventual route to the Twin Cities.
 
Scott Walker, a Republican running to be governor of Wisconsin, is airing a TV commercial in which he vows that if elected he'll prevent high(er) speed rail between Milwaukee and Madison. The plan was awarded an $810 million federal grant, but on the commercial's website Walker says - in an "Open Letter to President Obama" - that he will "put a stop to this boondoggle the day I take office."

Wisconsin candidate's new TV ad: "We'll stop this train"

The commercial: Stop the Train! (NoTrain.com)

"'Wisconsin's hardworking families who are going to have to pick up the tab,' Walker says in the ad, decrying the projected operating subsidies. 'They are going to have to spend up to $10 million a year just to keep a train running they may never ride.'"

A natural extension of this logic would be that the citizens of Wisconsin should not have to contribute the many millions of dollars more required to build and maintain highways, roads, streets, and bridges they may never drive on.
Scott Walker has been horrible for Milwaukee County (he is currently county executive) and I am all too worried that he will soon be horrible for the entire state of Wisconsin. It is especially frustrating as Wisconsin has generally been one of the most supportive states for passenger rail in the Midwest over the last couple decades, under both Democratic and Republican governors. Tommy Thompson, a former Republican governor, strongly supported this very proposal in the 1990s.
 
Scott Walker has been horrible for Milwaukee County (he is currently county executive) and I am all too worried that he will soon be horrible for the entire state of Wisconsin. It is especially frustrating as Wisconsin has generally been one of the most supportive states for passenger rail in the Midwest over the last couple decades, under both Democratic and Republican governors. Tommy Thompson, a former Republican governor, strongly supported this very proposal in the 1990s.
What has got to be undrstood here, is that the major players in neither party really care anything at all about railroad passenger transportation of any kind. It is seen by both sides fo the aisle as somewhat of a make work jobs program that has most of the front line employees unionized. It is that aspect of the issue that they get hung up on. IF you or your party likes make-work programs, then you are for Amtrak, if you or your party are against make-work programs, then you are against it. Further thought is neither required, expected, or encouraged..

Remember, with the possible exception of Joe Biden when he was in congress, these people do not ride trains either to get from point A to point B or for the fun of it. That is why you get such idiotic sstatements as came from one of the California congress critters (I don't remember which one, and in my estimation it would be within the understanding levels or far more than one) stated, after the Metrolink collision that they were shocked to learn that passenger trains and freight trains ran in opposite directions on the same track.

When thought processes lead toward the idea that Democrats are pro-Amtrak and Republicans are anti-Amtrak, turn off the sound and watch the action. The biggest reverses that Amtrak has had in its history have been under Democratic administrations.
 
The people that say that trains are "bondoggles" (or something like that) are just ignorant. Do they not know that we pour much more money into other modes of transportation? Do they not know that highways are "bondoggles?"
 
Currently one of the most successful new services that Amtrak has is the Downeaster. It terminates in Portland, Maine population of 63,011. Of course the other end of the line is Boston with a population of 590,763.
These numbers are misleading. There are plenty of people who live within walking distance of the MBTA subway system who do not live within the Boston city limits and thus are not included in your 590,763.

Moreover, this claims the Boston population in 2009 is estimated at 645,169.
 
Currently one of the most successful new services that Amtrak has is the Downeaster. It terminates in Portland, Maine population of 63,011. Of course the other end of the line is Boston with a population of 590,763.
These numbers are misleading. There are plenty of people who live within walking distance of the MBTA subway system who do not live within the Boston city limits and thus are not included in your 590,763.

Moreover, this claims the Boston population in 2009 is estimated at 645,169.
In addition to what Ryan added, while I do agree that there are more people who live within range of a T subway, it's still less than Chicago. In fact, if I total up Suffolk and Middlesex Counties, it's about 1/2 the population of Chicago.

As for the number that I quoted, I note upon revisiting the page that it is the 2006 estimate. That said, my source is the US Census Bureau, a far more reliable source than Wike, which anyone can edit.
 
Why put rail where its not wanted? Pull the funding from Wisconsin pronto and give it to Oklahoma for Tulso to OKC. I can pretty much guarantee that they would be quite grateful for the bucks.
 
The people that say that trains are "bondoggles" (or something like that) are just ignorant. Do they not know that we pour much more money into other modes of transportation? Do they not know that highways are "bondoggles?"
They are all programed to say rail is not the answer. They are like robots. They say what they are programed to say.Just like a parrot. We should take all these Anti-Rail idots and strap them to the hood of a acela train in the rain and hail.
 
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Why put rail where its not wanted? Pull the funding from Wisconsin pronto and give it to Oklahoma for Tulso to OKC. I can pretty much guarantee that they would be quite grateful for the bucks.
The only problem with this is that almost nothing would be built if the noisey anti-s had their way. This is not winning the fight it is surrender. If carried to California, the California High Speed would probably end up going from Merced to Bakersfield and not go to the major population centers on either end. The worst of the noisey anti's are within the first 50 miles out of San Francisco. Yet, once opened this same area will be a major source of ridership. Give them 5 years, and if they are at all honest, these same antis will be wondering how they lived without it.
 
Why put rail where its not wanted? Pull the funding from Wisconsin pronto and give it to Oklahoma for Tulso to OKC. I can pretty much guarantee that they would be quite grateful for the bucks.
Somehow, I think there would also be plenty of people in Oklahoma complaining about the ongoing subsidies that your Oklahoma City - Tulsa trains would require. It is those subsidies that much of the hubbub in Wisconsin (and, I gather, Ohio as well) is all about.
 
This seems to be saying Wisconsin's population is well over 5 million. Even if we want to assume for the moment that the Amtrak service will have no value, are these politicians saying that saving less than $2 per year per Wisconsin resident is the one of the biggest things they hope to accomplish while in office? (And if a voter has a choice between taking the time to vote to save $2 per year, or skipping the trip to the polls and just spending the money, is it even worth their time to vote, even if they think that $2/year is a waste of money?)
 
I have to agree with Eric S, both on his assessment of Scott Walker as Milwaukee County Exec. and on the visceral attitude many people have about subsidies.

There is a widespread mistaken assumption that roads pay for themselves out of user fees, such as gas taxes, registration and tolls. There's outrage that mass transit and passenger rail require subsidy.

Although Walker is Milwaukee County Exec., I think he's playing more to the surrounding suburban counties, which tend to be very conservative Republican and very antipathetic to the City of Milwaukee and the needs of the urban center. Jobs have moved out to the suburbs, but suburban municipalities don't want the kind of mass transit that would bring workers out to jobs. In the 1990's, former governor Tommy Thompson, a famous backer of passenger rail, backed off supporting a light rail system, reading the politics of the area. In recent years, Walker has let Milwaukee County's bus system deteriorate.

The Wisconsin DOT has recently held workshops Oconomowoc and Brookfield to solicit public input on stations to be developed there. These meetings typically draw NIMBY's in the best of circumstances, and the DOT's staff handles them courteously and professionally. The Oconomowoc workshop must have been a doozy, for WI DOT soon dropped its plans for a station there. The mayor was "stunned" at the announcement after several months of political posturing.

Journal Sentinal story

Scott Walker held a rally underneath the crumbling Hoan Bridge, proclaiming that he'd use the ARRA money to fix highways. Did anyone realize the $800 Million can't be used for anything else, or that the estimated $10 Mil. operating subsidy is chump change that wouldn't even scratch the surface of repairs? Common wisdom says he'll move to the center once he wins the primary, but that would be so uncharacteristic of him.
 
Wisconsin DOT head Frank Busalacchi said that $300 Million of the $810 Million ARRA grant will be committed by the end of the year. Looks like they want to make it impossible to go back on this project, should Walker or Neumann become governor. Scott Walker says it's a bluff.

Journal Sentinel story

The nice people in Wisconsin government are learning how to get things done, bare-knuckle, Chicago style. I'd love to see what sort of poison pill provisions get written into the contracts. If I were a contractor looking at this, I'd make sure there were some before I'd schedule my workers, supplies and equipment.

EDIT: Trogdor's link in the previous post is the interview where Busalacchi made this announcement.
 
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The Wisconsin DOT has recently held workshops Oconomowoc and Brookfield to solicit public input on stations to be developed there. These meetings typically draw NIMBY's in the best of circumstances, and the DOT's staff handles them courteously and professionally. The Oconomowoc workshop must have been a doozy, for WI DOT soon dropped its plans for a station there. The mayor was "stunned" at the announcement after several months of political posturing.
Anybody who has ever dealt with this stuff knows that public meetings, workshops, or whatever you want to call them ALWAYS draw NIMBY's, and that many times their positions and attitudes are completely fact-free zones.
 
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