Metro Jacksonville

QuoteLess than half a year after rejecting federal funds to build a high-speed rail connecting Milwaukee to Madison, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker is now asking for at least $150 million from the feds to upgrade an existing Milwaukee-to-Chicago passenger line.

Wait, what?

Ironic, considering Walker had staked his political career on opposition to the Midwest High Speed Rail Initiative, even launching a campaign website www.notrain.com towards his high-minded goal. In spite the $810 million that the federal government had offered the state, Walker had originally refused the project because he said it was a “a waste of taxpayer money.”

Now, Walker wants federal funds to buy two train sets and eight locomotives, build a maintenance facility in Milwaukee as well as renovate the train shed at the downtown Milwaukee Amtrak-Greyhound station for Amtrak’s Hiawatha line connecting Milwaukee-to-Chicago. Walker claims that the new upgrades will lower operating costs, reduce trip times from 90 minutes to one hour and increase ticket revenue. In a further twist, the money for the grant will actually come from the $2.4 billion in high-speed rail funds that Florida just rejected.

But it gets better: even the locomotives, train sets and maintenance base would have ALL been covered by the original grant.

Hypocrisy? Political posturing? Of course not.

When asked about the reversal in his position, Walker told the the Journal Sentinel that he had always supported improvements to the Hiawatha line.

“This is not inconsistent with the position I took in the past,” he said.

Milwaukee Alderman Robert Bauman called Walker’s apparent mind switch “rank hypocrisy”, and we couldn’t agree more!

Especially considering the $810 million would have expanded public transportation to new parts of the state AND paid for all the upgrades Walker wants. Bauman told AP Wisconsin “kicked in the face of the federal government” by rejecting the dollars as an example of government run amok.

“Now we here we’re applying for the same federal stimulus money, the exact same source of money, and somehow this is wonderful and good and this is going to promote the economic fortunes of southeastern Wisconsin”.

QuoteWere the plan to go forward, a lot of work would need to be done. New locomotives and passenger cars would be purchased; the tracks would need upgrading; areas near the tracks need landscaping (e.g. - diverting gulches); pedestrian crossing or two would be built above the tracks; and so on. The study estimated the cost of the project at $316 million and of course the cost has gone up in the past 5 years.

At the time the study was drafted, total annual ridership was forecasted to be 872,000 riders in 2010. This included everyone riding a train between Milwaukee and Madison, including those taking a train between Minneapolis/St. Paul and Chicago. It was also estimated that 67% of the total ridership would be diverted from automobiles. There would be six daily round-trips to start which would become ten when the line would be connected to St. Paul. A trip would probably take a little more than an hour with speeds ranging from 20-110 mph.