Let’s assume for a moment that with the election results Tuesday, the overturning of the high-speed rail project was inevitable.
Let’s also call it not a decision made on its merits by Scott Walker, but part of his ongoing hostility to public transit. The Journal Sentinel’s Jason Stein and Larry Sandler noted that the project would have created 4,732 jobs at its peak, many of them private sector design and construction jobs.
Tony Galli notes the layoff notices are already coming.
The JS noted (indirectly) that Scott Walker and Republicans have been widely overstating the operating costs for months. Shock. The newspaper reported that if the federal government treats the new line the same way it did the Milwaukee to Chicago portion, 90 percent of the operating costs would have been covered.
That means the train would cost the state $750,000 a year to operate, not the $7.5 million Scott Walker has been claiming. Too bad there wasn’t like, a truth-o-meter or something to keep an eye on these kinds of distortions made during the campaign that were designed to please corporate special interests such as the road builders.
Anyway, back to Tuesday night. Some have been puzzled by the state’s decision to temporarily halt the project this week.
But with the project suspended now, we’re going to have a little final discussion about rail between now and January, before Scott Walker takes office. And everyone who’s watching the headlines is now reminded this isn’t some abstract project, but that there are real jobs at stake.
That’s little comfort, but frankly, there’s little room to maneuver.
Or look at it this way: After campaigning for months against high-speed rail, Scott Walker lost control of the issue less than a week after the election. If anything’s been clear so far, it’s that he has no plan for keeping those jobs in Wisconsin.
Finally, get ready for a some conflict from Republicans over Scott Walker’s fantasy that the money could somehow be “redirected” by Congress to be spent on roads. Ron Johnson, who seems to have made no promises to the state’s road builders, wants it to be used to reduce the debt instead.
Johnson’s probably not alone. Sean Duffy and Reid Ribble have said precious little about the issue. Maybe that’s because they know, like Tom Barrett, that if the money isn’t spent here on rail, it’s going to rail projects in Florida, Illinois or New York.
Welcome to the blog! It’s great to have you!
You’re spot-on that it’s too bad there wasn’t a truth-o-meter to call Scott Walker out on his wildly inaccurate claim about the operating costs of the passenger line from Madison to Milwaukee.
This is kind of off-topic, but since we’re on the topic of passenger rail, I think it’s a shame there hasn’t been any significant movement to get the KRM commuter line going. Extending Chicago’s Metra service up to Milwaukee would be a great thing, not just for commuters but for folks like myself who enjoy visiting Chicago but who don’t want to have to bother with contending with crazy Illinois drivers.
crazy IL drivers and outrageous amounts of tolls.
I have a feeling that we will see many stories with the words “scott walker” and lay offs in the same sentence for the next four years.
welcome to the blog!
http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/106790123.html
Governor-elect Scott Walker reached out to a train manufacturer Friday, seeking to keep its operations in the state long-term as he advocates for stopping a passenger rail project involving the company.
“Governor-elect Walker is reaching out to leadership at Talgo to encourage them to stay in Wisconsin,” Walker spokeswoman Jill Bader said Friday.
A spokeswoman for Talgo, the U.S. unit of the Spanish firm Patentes Talgo, said that Walker told company officials that his decision to stop a proposed Madison-to-Milwaukee passenger rail line is “not final.”
He is already doing the tap dance…..
Again libs are happy to create 4700 temporary jobs and they get all giddy. Wouldn’t it be nice if they actually had a plan to create permament jobs, now that would be exciting news. As for the rail I say build it, who cares that it will just be one more drain on taxpayers as it will not be able to cover its yearly expenses, after the novelty wears off ridership will drop and they will need more subsidies to keep the lane running. In 2008 U.S. taxpayers spent about $32 subsidizing the cost of the typical Amtrak passenger. Forty-one of Amtrak’s 44 routes lost money in 2008. The more heavily utilized Northeast Regional lost almost $5 per passenger.
But yet all you see from linerals are this is going to be a huge success. The TRACK record of Amtrak tells a different story.
Actually, the losing gubernatorial candidate had an extensive plan to create permanent jobs…
As for losing money, all of our nation’s public transportation is subsidized…including the county bus systems…and our street, highway, and interstate systems are pure subsidy supported infrastructure…so even private transportation concerns receive indirect subsidies by not having to provide their own streets and highways to run on.
Even if it were $7.5 million, this state has a $7 Billion deficit. What would be gained by eliminating 0.1% of the budget? It’s silly.
Oh, Notalib, AMTRAK reported record ridership last year, and up 37% overall since 2000. Your point again?
Amtrak ridership reached 28,716,857 in the 2010 fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 and collected a record $1,742,991,134 in ticket revenue.
AMTRAK ASKED FOR $1.84B ($303M more than last year) – THEY GOT $1.58B ($90M more than last year – a 19% increase.)
So while ridership may be up they are still dependent on tax payer dollars to operate
is that $1.5 B nationwide? because it will cost almost that to add a lane from Janesville to Madison on I90
I don’t see anyone offering to build privately run intercity highway systems either…
This made me chuckle a little, “if the federal government treats the new line the same way it did the Milwaukee to Chicago portion, 90 percent of the operating costs would have been covered. That means the train would cost the state $750,000 a year to operate, not the $7.5 million.”
Either way the TAXpayer is on the hook to pay for this. But I guess in the progressive world if its not DIRECTLY from state taxpayers it really does not count.
I’m baffled by the logic that calls spending on rail infrastructure a “subsidy” when by that same math, “subsidies” for road building are in fact much higher. Or do you support user fees – tolls — to pay for roads instead?
You are right that federal tax dollars and state tax dollars are both tax dollars…but County Exec Walker’s opposition to fast rail from Milwaukee to Madison is the continued support of the system using Wisconsin tax dollars…he still wants the $800 million dollars, just not for rail.
Well he can wish all he wants but the money is earmarked for rail only and there is no way Obamas administration is going to let a republican governor use it for anything else.
Actually, legally you can’t do that period and Walker should know that, so it was foolish for him to promise it to be used for roads when you’re technically by all means not allowed to do that.
That’s a reason why there’s was a lot of controversy when the stimulus package to help along with repairing bridges and the infrastructure came into motion. That is why so many states were called out on by not using it properly by using it all on roads instead of areas that needed a lot of repair especially after the Minneapolis Bridge Collapse, due to us ignoring the infrastructure since the 1980s. Think Wisconsin was one of the few states to use it properly. (I think there were only like five that did it right, I have to check again.) While the other states went absolutely stupid and didn’t use it correctly, CEOs took from it, and so on which is likely we didn’t have a recovery because as in theory that should have jump started it? It wasn’t used correctly by all fifty states.
There is precedent–Gov. Thompson was permitted to use 250 mm for roads that had been earmarked for amtrack.
Just because he did it, does not mean it’s exactly legal. Tommy Thompson has a pretty terrible history in a lot of aspects, though I imagine most people won’t be willing to hear them. One of the worst things, had to be his management of Wisconsin’s budget. I won’t get into his whole case of vetoing either, Tommy Thompson was pretty ridiculous in that aspect. I won’t lie though, Jim Doyle had that problem too which was one of the reasons I did not like him.
Despite my dislike towards Governor Jim Doyle, (my parents voted for Barrett even back then before I was able to) I can’t deny he actually took a chunk out of the deficit we were left with Tommy Thompson and Scott McCallum – even though he was a fairly shifty governor himself.
While Tommy Thompson did come out with pretty good ideas, like Badgercare for example? I don’t think he’s a good example because while he was pretty center-leaning right as a Governor? There’s a lot of controversy about what he did.
I honestly don’t recall Walker promising to use it for roads. I do remember him saying he’d RATHER use it for roads. Link me if I’m wrong.
“I have a feeling that we will see many stories with the words “scott walker” and lay offs in the same sentence for the next four years. ”
So what’s different about that and the words Jim Doyle/Tom Barrett and the layoffs we’ve already seen for the last eight years?
Remind me again exactly how many jobs Scott Walker created during his tenure as Milwaukee County Executive. After all, he was in office for nearly 8 years, so sure he created thousands upon thousands of jobs, right?
http://bloggingblue.com/2010/11/01/tale-of-two-cities/
, Governor Doyle was intervening using the government to intervene and committing to $135.6 million dollars of government money and bringing in 7.400 jobs to the State of Wisconsin.
because jobs have actually been created terry.
One thing that seems intertwined with the whole ability to judge if this rail is good or not seems to be the state of the public transit system in the destination cities.
I’m sure no expert on this train, and why would I be – it’s hundreds of miles away and I’ll never use it. Trust me, never.
BUT Aren’t there “hidden” costs with this Train in that to get your money’s worth out of it you have to have a great set-up for people once they get to their destination, right? Both Madison and Milw. would have to have really top-notch city transit or you have a guy in a train station holding a lot of luggage being really pissed off. 9 times out of ten in a shit neighborhood too.
That’s what I don’t understand about this train, how great is it once you GET there. So to really justify building this train you have to have tons of money to spend on your city transit?
But city transit budgets are all in trouble, yes?
I have been carless for many years in the past. It sucks. The only place that seems to run car-less with success is New York. Madison – not so much. Milwaukee (I never go there) I imagine astronomically worse
So they rent cars once they arrive? that seems weird.
I guess to me the underlying issue that screws with all the “poetry” of it, or how it sounds so nice in Green Living theory but in the actual living of it, it may not be so rosy. The party-wrecker here seems to be that for over half a century we have had the sprawl mentality, the “anti-Europe” approach to building and we STILL do. Councils still approve ridiculous outer limits sprawl while existing malls are garbage and downtowns rot. They are still developing huge mall-areas on the edges of Eau Claire in completely irresponsible manners. Even “liberal” council persons hate to be the one to say “no” to developers. Public transit in cities designed that way is really doomed for the first moment of planning.
Weather gets bad, routes often don’t go where you need to be when you need to be there, It’s night and dangerous, hell in Madison it’s DAY and dangerous. Someties I think if that Kunstler fella had actually ridden Madison Metro he would have written a very different book. “Love Your OilMan” or something like that O_o
omg, You have heavy bags, you have shopped, you have a bad back or are getting older. Kids, holy crap all the stuff you haul around when you have kids.Japan has this railway crap, with nifty lunch spots in them and all that fun stuff. but their entire national structure is way different than ours. Lost in Translation, eh?
Living without a car the way our cities have been designed is hard, hard stuff, don’t tell me it;s not cuz I’ve done it for loooooong periods.
So, what happens when the people get off these Trains? How much does THAT cost?
I think Scott Walker is a Douche, but in all the rants I see about this train and its costs there are never any mentions of the costs of maintianing a really top-notch City Transit to be used by the people getting off the trains. Why is that?
And if the city transit is not up to snuff will anyone ride the high speed rail after that first frustrating experience?
it seems to me this Train is about a change of a way of life. and if it is to succeed and be worth the money spent on it, it needs to be fully funded in ALL aspects and not just the part between Madison and Milwaukee.
So is there City Transit money in these figures, or does Jimmy Howie Kunstler pick them up in his horse-drawn-car
LOL even that is better than Madison Metro
(In case you missed it – I hate Madison Metro)
I favor train transportation throughout the Midwest. Anything that allows me to wear my shoes and sit where I please is an improvement over flying.
mm’kay 😀
“too short comment” time to lean on the keyboard !
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