Comments on: Wisconsin Offers Up Proposal for Rail Expansion

By: Eric G.

Eric G. — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 23:32:54 +0000

Good comments and discussion. I struggled with improving transit in Madison as a student and unfortunately had to leave for better job prospects. It still has a special place in my heart. Too bad Madison is just far enough off the “path” to make through service problematic. For trains originating and ending in Madison it would make the most sense to do that at Monona Terrace or W. Washington Ave. like the old days. As the commenter above noted – you need a one seat ride from campus without a long cab/bus trip to the airport. Neighborhood opposition will require low speeds in the city and will thwart any elevated options. A tunnel would be best, but its’ doubtful if such a small city warrants that expense. The federal money for HSR would be best spent for true High Speed at 220mph on the Minneapolis-Milwaukee-Chicago route that serves areas with over 1 mil population, then Madison, Eau Claire and Green Bay/Fox Valley should be connected into it with 90 or 110mph and direct routed interoperable trains. For Madison, connections from Downtown to Milwaukee and a N-S line parallel to I-90 from IL to the Wis.Dells make a lot of sense. If businesses in the Dells were smart they would be advocating a commuter rail link from the Dane County Airport to the Dells and south through the Rock Valley to Janesville, Beloit and Rockford, IL. One train a day at bad times (Empire Builder) is currently a huge disservice to the tourism potential there.
Sadly, Madison has been lost in a pipe dream of E-W commuter rail (Transport 2020) that has inhibited any real action on improving transit in the city for the last 20 years. I love light rail and commuter rail and wish it was workable there, but what a city the size of Madison can and should realistically do now is to upgrade its excellent bus network with a few affordable BRT lines to take people around town quickly, like Eugene, OR. — and have speedy trains to get outside of the city!

By: Kyle G.

Kyle G. — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:40:20 +0000

While I agree that bringing a train from Milwaukee to the Isthmus, then heading back out to the Eastside on the way to Minneapolis would be a time-consuming affair, I think the ridership potential between Madison-Milwaukee/Chicago is far higher than Minneapolis-Milwaukee/Chicago. Under this accelerail (“not quite HSR”) proposal, Madison and the UW campus will be a FAR larger source of ridership than Minneapolis. The only way to make Minneapolis-Chicago a route that requires high frequency is to have true HSR service on that corridor. If that were ever built, I could imagine an HSR station like Lyon-Satolas near the airport on the Eastside.

Therefore, I think the service concept is flawed if they’re going to extend every train from Milwaukee to Minneapolis. I could see something like an hourly service from Milwaukee to Madison in a decade with service every 2-3 hours to Minneapolis. In that case it would make more sense to run the train to the Isthmus first.

By: anon.

anon. — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 04:19:04 +0000

Madison does have terrible geography for good rail service along this corridor.

The solution I’ve seen proposed is to leave the high-speed station outside of town at the airport — the extra time to go downtown and back, plus reversing the direction of the train, would be deadly for the Minneapolis-Chicago service — but also build Dane County Commuter Rail.
http://www.co.dane.wi.us/rail/railmap.htm

This would mean that the trip from downtown would be a matter of changing trains at the airport station. A two-seat train ride would probably trump a one-seat bus ride. Especially if the commuter train was faster than a bus or taxi, which it should be if designed properly.

By: Kyle G.

Kyle G. — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:01:47 +0000

I’m concerned about the Madison terminus of the proposed service. As a student at UW-Madison a decade ago, I dreamed of being able to walk from campus to catch a train to Chicago and Milwaukee. The proposed alignment has the service stopping on the far east side of Madison at Truax Field (Dane County airport). This terminus would require a 20-minute bus or taxi ride from the downtown isthmus. The 1h07m running time being touted between Madison and Milwaukee would really be more like 1h30m from downtown Madison to Milwaukee’s Amtrak station if everything ran perfectly. In reality, it’s probably closer to a 2h trip considering transit from downtown Madison to the station and 10-15 minutes of transfer time.

The Madison-Milwaukee and Madison-Chicago routes are already served by two high-frequency, high-quality bus services (Badger and Van Galder last I checked), which depart from the Memorial Union on campus. If travelers have a choice of walking to the Union to catch a direct bus versus taking a city bus or taxi to a distant eastside station to transfer to an “accelerail” or “TIN-HSR” train service, they may just decide to stick with the bus.

Granted, it will be difficult to thread passenger service all the way downtown – lots of grade crossings and slow speeds – but there are two fantastic potential station sites once you get there. The existing station on West Washington Ave (former C&NW, I believe) backs up to the Kohl Center arena and Southeast Dorms (probably over 3,000 student beds) and could serve as the terminus. Another downtown station could be built underneath the Monona Terrace conference center, 2-3 blocks from the capitol in the heart of downtown. These two stations are located where the potential ridership is going to come from. Again, reaching downtown will be slow and require the creation of many Quiet Zones, but a one-seat train ride would trump a one-seat bus ride.

By: Adam

Adam — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 03:08:13 +0000

There’s no specific news story or big roll-out but I believe that North Carolina is also going to request tin-hsr funds.

The big ticket item is double-tracking the line from Greensboro to Goldsboro ($650 mn). About half of that mileage would be for the high speed line.

LINK