Milwaukee Intermodal Station Trainshed

Our belief that 2010 could have been the Year of the Park East, came up a bit short, and unfortunately it wasn’t the only project that was derailed in 2010.  The Rainier Properties II LLC’s office and movie theater proposal hasn’t budged.  The CommonBond project, an apartment proposal on RSC’s Park East land, failed to receive WHEDA tax credits so it stalled.  In fact nothing actually broke ground in the Park East, and most Park East proposals have gone quiet during this past year.

That said there were a couple of significant advances in the Park East.   First, The Moderne finally received financing, and although it has yet to officially break ground, site preparation started this past week. Secondly, The North End Phase II project received a funding agreement from WHEDA, though it is still working with the City of Milwaukee to complete the project’s financing.  Finally, MSOE proposed the building of a parking garage/athletic facility in the Park East which seems to be on the fast track.  So with an improving economy it looks possible that the Park East project will be able to get back on track in 2011.

Unfortunately, 2010 ended up being the year of high-speed rail, just not in Milwaukee.  Governor Walker ran a campaign that featured shutting down the high-speed rail upgrade and extension project as a key plank in his platform, and once elected he got his wish.  As a direct result the funds were reallocated from Wisconsin to a multitude of other states, costing Wisconsin, and Milwaukee in particular, jobs, tourism, and improved transportation options.  Legally required upgrades to the Milwaukee Intermodal Station are now delayed and possibly unfunded.  The funding for freight tracks that were to be upgraded to allow trains to travel at speeds higher than 10 MPH was also lost.  Finally, instead of 125 new central city jobs, Talgo will likely only keep 60 here in Milwaukee.

Clearly, 2010 wasn’t the year of the Park East, though certain projects did move forward, unfortunately for Milwaukee it turned out to be a year of anti-urban rhetoric that cost us much more than the pennies a year high-speed rail service would have cost Wisconsin.

Featured Photographer Todd Montgomery

Todd Montgomery has been photographing the life around him for more than 40 years. His diverse background experiences as a Naval officer during the Vietnam War, as an investment manager, an educator, an urban planner, and as a world traveler have given him a view of the world and its inhabitants from many perspectives. His photos cover the expanse of his travels and experiences all over the U.S., Asia and Europe. While the themes of his photography are as varied as his experiences, his work focuses on key moments that capture the essence of his subjects. Todd has exhibited his photos in many galleries, including the Agora Gallery in Soho, New York City.

Milwaukee Intermodal Station

If you want to ride Amtrak’s Hiwatha Service line between Milwaukee and Chicago, the cost is $22 per ticket. If you buy your ticket in advance, the cost is $22 per ticket. If you ride on the weekend, the cost is $22 per ticket. If you want to ride in the middle of the day, you guessed it, $22 per ticket. With Interstate 94 under construction between the state line and Milwaukee for the next few years, new equipment on the way from Talgo, a new Milwaukee Intermodal Station train shed coming, and a route extension to Madison under construction, it’s time for Amtrak, iDot, and WisDOT to explore new pricing models for the state-sponsored rail service to encourage more riders and raise more revenue.

Amtrak, to their credit, does offer discounts for children (ages 2-15) who ride for $11 each with the purchase of an adult ticket (up to two discounted tickets per adult ticket). They also frequent rider discounts, in the form of a ten-ride ticket for $165 (that expires in 60 days) and an unlimited route ridership pass for a calendar month for $358. Those options leave a lot to be desired though.

Before I propose my list of pricing suggestions, it’s worth noting that the 2010 Amtrak Fiscal Year (October 1st, 2009 – September 30th, 2010) resulted in record ridership and record ticket revenue for the Hiawatha Service (and Amtrak as a whole). The Milwaukee to Chicago route had 783,060 trips and generated $14,092,802 in ticket revenue, for an average of $18.00 per ride. More valuable than the average revenue per ride would be to know both how many riders paid full price (and at what time of the day and day of the week), but unfortunately Amtrak doesn’t release that data. For the sake of this article, we’ll use my informal observations from riding and the data we have available to assume that a very high percentage of unique, adult riders pay full fare.

The pricing suggestions I propose are aimed at increasing ridership and marginal revenue simultaneously, while not requiring any service changes. They might have the added positive externalities of reducing congestion, reducing pollution from automobiles, improving the reputation of Amtrak, and encouraging travel and business between Milwaukee and Chicago, but if any of those things happen it’s merely a bonus.

Pricing Suggestions

Megabus Model - Megabus is famous for their $1 tickets, despite the fact that rarely anyone actually gets to buy one. The service is sold on a yield management pricing model, where the first one or two tickets are $1 with prices increasing incrementally from there. Amtrak could offer the Megabus pricing model not on all trips, but on the lowest ridership ones. This is likely to be especially valuable given that Megabus has drastically scaled back service out of Milwaukee.

Badger Bus Model – Badger Bus, the bus company that currently offers inter-city bus service between Madison and Milwaukee, has a pricing model for frequent riders that allows the company to collect interest off future ticket purchases. Amtrak currently offers a 10-ride ticket for $165, but it expires within 60 days. Using the Badger Bus model, Amtrak would allow customers to give the customers a large sum of money up-front in exchange for a discount whenever those funds are used to buy a ticket. In the case of Badger Bus, a $125 deposit gets you $175 in purchasing power (29% discount). The benefit maxes out at a $325 deposit ($485 purchasing power, 33% discount). If Amtrak were to offer something similar, they could be collecting interest on my money just like Badger Bus is (the last time I put $125 with Badger Bus it took me two years to use it all). An added revenue bonus is available with the model in the form of permanently unused funds, similar to gift cards that go unused. Amtrak would need to analyze exactly what deposit amount to collect, and how big of a discount to give.

Hessenticket Model – Germany has an innovative weekend pricing model available with their national rail system. The state of Hesse (home to Frankfurt) offers a weekend pass for 29 euros, where you and up to four others can ride the system’s non-high-speed all day on either Saturday or Sunday, anywhere you wish to go, getting on and off as you please. Their is a national pass with similar rules available for 33 euros as well.  Implementing the idea between Milwaukee and Chicago might not work quite as well, but with future service extending to Madison it might make more sense. It seems reasonable to assume Amtrak could offer up a four-rider, $50 weekend day-pass with the requirement that the riders sit together (to prevent abuse).

Off-Hours Pricing – The current system prices every single-ride ticket equally, regardless of the time of day or day of the week. It’s worth exploring the idea of pricing lower ridership trips at a cheaper fare.

Wisconsin Vouchers – Scott Walker has managed to make an Amtrak service extension as political as possible (see: NoTrain.com). The victor on November 2nd would be wise to explore sending a non-transferable voucher to every taxpayer when the new Talgo equipment is put into service, giving them one free one-way ticket on the Hiawatha. It would be great for Illinois to do the same (tourism dollars on top of increased revenue). It’s hard to find someone who has ridden the service, but dislikes the quality of the ride. It is, however, easy to find someone who thinks the service is a “boondoggle” and has never ridden. The vouchers would serve as a new-customer acquisition strategy, generating a lot of new customers who would effectively be getting a half-off first trip. The long-term value of those new customers could be enormous. As an added bonus, angry Journal Sentinel commenters no longer can argue they get nothing in return for the state sponsorship of the rail line.

Corporate Pass – What if businesses got a discount when they purchased tickets? Could the company car be replaced (or the least supported) by the company rail pass? A program where the more tickets a business buys annually results in a greater and greater discount could increase revenue.

Advance Purchase Discount – Hotels often offer a price discount for booking your room early, Amtrak should do the same. Even if it’s only a 5% discount, or the ticket has to be bought at least 6 months in advance, Hiawatha ridership might increase (and Amtrak might collect interest) if customers book their tickets early.

Buy-One, Get-One – As one boards the Hiawatha they notice that the greatest unused inventory isn’t two empty seats together, but the empty seat next to a rider. To make better use of the marginal inventory, Amtrak should offer some form of buy-one, get-one free (or half off) for riders that sit together.

What are your ideas for Hiawatha Service pricing?

So, in case you haven’t heard, or intend on sending $800 million to Texas, Florida, California, or Illinois, then it is apparent that high speed rail service is coming to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Though, it will take a few years to built and get up to speed.

In the near term the Midwest High Speed Rail Association (MHSRA) is coming to Milwaukee.  They will be holding a brown bag lunch to discuss the soon to be built high-speed rail system.  There will be a presentation by MHSRA executive director Rick Harnish regarding the status of high speed rail in the Midwest.  The presentation will be on held at 12 p.m. Thursday July 22nd at the Milwaukee Public Market (400 N. Water Street, Milwaukee, WI 53202).

How the existing Hiawatha Service will be extended to Madison is illustrated in this image from WisDOT.

On Thursday the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) released nearly $80 million of the $8 billion allocated to fund high-speed rail. This is a historic milestone for the build-out of high-speed rail across America as it’s the first time the federal government has released any of the funds to the states. While Florida received the bulk of the funds in this issuance ($66,000,000), Wisconsin was far from left out receiving $5,700,000. The funds Wisconsin received are to conduct environmental assessments of planned stations on the Madison-Milwaukee extension. While the environmental assessments won’t put construction workers to work across the state, they are an integral part of getting the high-speed Hiawatha operating by 2013.

The areas that will be studied as they currently lack a station are Madison, Watertown, Oconomowoc, and Brookfield. Presumably there won’t be much studying of the Milwaukee Intermodal Station, as the station currently serves existing Hiawatha and Empire Builder trains. These funds will support the study of the recently announced downtown Madison Monona Terrace station. It’s not clear at this point if an assessment would be conducted of a Wauwatosa station.

As the likely operator for the Milwaukee to Madison extension of the Chicago to Milwaukee Amtrak Hiawatha Service, Amtrak is the likely brand for high-speed rail in the Midwest. If Amtrak is to be the brand for Midwest high-speed rail, it’s going to bring with it a lot of baggage, both good and bad.

What does the Amtrak brand represent?

• Cross-country, slow travel on the rails.
• Inter-city commuter service on routes similar to the soon-to-be upgraded runs between Milwaukee and Chicago and Chicago and St. Louis.
• A money pit
• An essential piece of the transportation infrastructure to others.
• A dying, legacy system that barely anyone rides.
• A growing system that if it were an airline would be the 8th largest in terms of passengers.

Clearly, investing over a billion dollars in high-speed rail in the Midwest is worthy of having a brand absent of past baggage.

Thankfully, there is an established precedent for how to utilize Amtrak as the operator of a branded service. In the Northeast Corridor, Amtrak operates a multitude of services with the high-speed component being known exclusively as “Acela“. In the Northeast Corridor there isn’t brand confusion, there isn’t service confusion, Acela is high-speed rail, and high-speed rail is Acela.

The Midwest needs its own high-speed brand, and it needs one soon. Chicago is set to become a hub for two high-speed rail lines as soon as 2013, and it’s time for a brand to organize around. Grants have been awarded to implement 110mph high-speed rail service between Madison and Milwaukee as an extension of existing 79mph Hiawatha Service between Milwaukee and Chicago and to upgrade Lincoln Service from 79mph to 110mph between Chicago and St. Louis. If more grants are awarded, as the Obama administration indicates they may be, it’s very likely that one of those grants for another high-speed corridor would go to a route out of Chicago.

Keep the Hiawatha and Lincoln branding for individual routes, but it’s time to give an overreaching brand for high-speed rail based out of Chicago.

We did not hear back from Megabus on a rational for the cut, but it would appear the buses are likely being used to run the route between Indianapolis and Chicago that was expanded in March. A route that for the time being probably is more profitable due to the lack of Amtrak service between the two cities more than once a day in each direction.

The Milwaukee stop is now exclusively part of a larger route to Minneapolis so departure and arrival times are based around end-points on the route, not Milwaukee. The convenient leaving times are now a thing of the past, as no bus currently originates it’s journey in Milwaukee.

What’s left of the service between Milwaukee and Chicago?

Milwaukee to Chicago (runs that were eliminated highlighted in red)

• 6:30 AM (arrive 8:30)
• 8:30 AM (arrive 10:25)
• 1:00 PM (arrive 3:00)
• 2:30 PM (arrive 4:25)
• 7:00 PM (arrive 8:55)
• 9:45 PM (arrive 11:45)
• 11:30 PM (arrive 1:15) – new service
  

Chicago to Milwaukee (runs that were eliminated highlighted in red)

• 6:30 AM (arrive 8:25) – new service
• 7:00 AM (arrive 8:55)
• 9:30 AM (arrive 11:05)
• 11:30 AM (arrive 1:25)
• 3:00 PM (arrive 4:55)
• 5:30 PM (arrive 7:25)
• 9:30 PM (arrive 11:25)

Effective Megabus and Amtrak Schedule – Milwaukee to Chicago (as of December 1st, 2009)

• 6:15 AM (arrive 7:57) – Amtrak – Monday through Saturday
• 8:00 AM (arrive 9:29) – Amtrak
• 11:00 AM (arrive 12:29) – Amtrak
• 1:00 PM (arrive 2:29) – Amtrak
• 1:00 PM (arrive 3:00) – Megabus
• 3:00 PM (arrive 4:29) – Amtrak
• 5:45 PM (arrive 7:14) – Amtrak
• 7:35 PM (arrive (9:04) – Amtrak
• 11:30 PM (arrive 1:15) – Megabus

Effective Megabus and Amtrak Schedule – Chicago to Milwaukee (as of December 1st, 2009)

• 6:00 AM (arrive 7:29) – Amtrak – Monday through Saturday
• 6:30 AM (arrive 8:25) – Megabus
• 8:25 AM (arrive 9:54) – Amtrak
• 10:20 AM (arrive 11:49) – Amtrak
• 1:05 PM (arrive 2:34) – Amtrak
• 3:00 PM (arrive 4:55) – Megabus
• 3:15 PM (arrive 4:44) – Amtrak
• 5:08 PM (arrive 6:45) – Amtrak
• 8:05 PM (arrive 9:34) – Amtrak

Service quality also seems to be a growing issue, as Megabus appears to frequently leave riders in the cold as to how long a delay will be (despite having a text messaging system in place that has never once been used in a delay I have been part of). Chicago Now blogger Glenn McBridge has a great breakdown of his experiences, which have been remarkably similar to mine it appears, noting that Megabus is great 50% of the time and that you get what you pay for.

We’ll let you know when and if Megabus adds more service out of Milwaukee again.

It’s all about Chicago, the capital of the Midwest. It always has been. The $823 million in federal funds isn’t about building a connection between Milwaukee and Madison, it’s about growing the link between those two cities and Chicago. There will be plenty of riders between Milwaukee and Madison, but viewing the line as simply a system for that is extremely misguided. Trains that originate in Madison will terminate in Chicago and vice versa.

What does that mean for residents of Waukesha County? A simple drive to a suburban rail station with free parking. Jump on a train with seats far more comfortable and spacious than what Midwest Airlines formerly offered. Pop open that laptop, hop on the wifi network, and enjoy a stress-free ride into The Loop in Chicago. Riders will be able to rack up billable hours, get caught up on email, read a book, or sleep. All options that are nearly impossible when driving. Get off the train and head to your destination in the heart of Chicago, by foot, cab, or another transit option.

Residents of Waukesha County have been able to accomplish this by driving to downtown Milwaukee and getting on the train at the Milwaukee Intermodal Station. That’s worked exceptionally well to-date, with ridership doubling on the Hiawatha over the past 10 years. The Madison high-speed line will extend the existing Hiawatha line through Waukesha County with a stop in Brookfield and Oconomowoc, making the trip shorter and more convenient, with increased service frequency. What’s not to like about a frequent, first-class train line with a stop close to your house with free parking?

If that’s not enough, the next planned extension to Minneapolis/St. Paul through Madison with potential stops in Wisconsin Dells, La Crosse, and Eau Claire will help increase the utility of the line.

Megabus buses loading and unloading in Chicago

It’s hard to fault Megabus for dropping the routes if they’re losing money.  The service survives without any direct public subsidy. To that end, Megabus has always been tuning service, whether it was dropping service to Pittsburgh and Louisville, adding service to Madison and Champaign, eliminating the entire West Coast operation, or installing wifi and power outlets on every bus. Sad as it is to see service cuts, the service appears to continue to thrive because of the constant eye placed on the bottom line.

Thankfully with the more-expensive, but quicker Amtrak Hiawatha in the mix there are still are numerous options to go from the Milwaukee Intermodal Station to Chicago Union Station.  The only true lacking in service options is a real late night train to be able to come back from events such as concerts, games, and festivals in either city.  Hopefully the KRM/Metra commuter rail service is one day able to bridge that gap.

Here’s to hoping that instead of getting reduced, service continues to improve between Milwaukee and Chicago. New Talgo passenger cars are on the way for Amtrak, and Megabus has wifi and power outlets on-board now. The technology is looking up, hopefully the service offerings follow.

Milwaukee to Chicago (runs that were eliminated highlighted in red)

• 6:30 AM (arrive 8:30)
• 8:30 AM (arrive 10:25)
• 1:00 PM (arrive 3:00)
• 2:30 PM (arrive 4:25)
• 7:00 PM (arrive 8:55)
• 9:45 PM (arrive 11:45)

Chicago to Milwaukee (runs that were eliminated highlighted in red)

• 7:00 AM (arrive 8:55)
• 9:30 AM (arrive 11:05)
• 11:30 AM (arrive 1:25)
• 3:00 PM (arrive 4:55)
• 5:30 PM (arrive 7:25)
• 9:30 PM (arrive 11:25)

Effective Megabus and Amtrak Schedule – Milwaukee to Chicago (as of December 1st, 2009)

• 6:15 AM (arrive 7:57) – Amtrak – Monday through Saturday
• 8:00 AM (arrive 9:29) – Amtrak
• 8:30 AM (arrive 10:25) – Megabus
• 11:00 AM (arrive 12:29) – Amtrak
• 1:00 PM (arrive 2:29) – Amtrak
• 1:00 PM (arrive 3:00) – Megabus
• 2:30 PM (arrive 4:25) – Megabus
• 3:00 PM (arrive 4:29) – Amtrak
• 5:45 PM (arrive 7:14) – Amtrak
• 7:35 PM (arrive (9:04) – Amtrak
• 9:45 PM (arrive 11:45) – Megabus

Effective Megabus and Amtrak Schedule – Chicago to Milwaukee (as of December 1st, 2009)

• 6:00 AM (arrive 7:29) – Amtrak – Monday through Saturday
• 7:00 AM (arrive 8:55) – Megabus
• 8:25 AM (arrive 9:54) – Amtrak
• 10:20 AM (arrive 11:49) – Amtrak
• 11:30 AM (arrive 1:25) – Megabus
• 1:05 PM (arrive 2:34) – Amtrak
• 3:00 PM (arrive 4:55) – Megabus
• 3:15 PM (arrive 4:44) – Amtrak
• 5:08 PM (arrive 6:45) – Amtrak
• 5:30 PM (arrive 7:25) – Megabus
• 8:05 PM (arrive 9:34) – Amtrak

Jim Doyle and Barack Obama, the golden ticket to high-speed rail in Wisconsin?

Things look good for high-speed rail (110mph max speed) to be connecting Milwaukee and Madison courtesy of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.  The state has actively drafted plans for the route and conducted environmental assessments to put Wisconsin as close to first in line as possible if and when capital funding were to become available.  The stimulus package provides just the perfect opportunity.

While we won’t know if Wisconsin gets the funds until the final months of the year at the earliest, the announcement that Talgo will locate in Wisconsin and that $47 million in train equipment will be purchased from Talgo seems to indicate that Governor Doyle is either extremely confident we’ll get the money, or has received a verbal promise.

Milwaukee has recently invested in an excellent, centrally-located intermodal station that will provide an excellent hub on the line.  The Milwaukee Intermodal Station itself is near a number of bus transit routes, will likely be served by the coming streetcar, and is even within walking distance of numerous destinations.  It also features a lot of available, low-cost parking, which encourages many to take the Amtrak Hiawatha to Chicago from further off neighborhoods and suburbs.  Also important, the development potential of the site is limited only the looming presence of Interstate 794, something that eventually be overcome.

The Milwaukee Intermodal Station is a welcoming hub for transit in Milwaukee.

Madison’s Plan

What does Madison have?  Well at the moment, nothing.  The plan is, however, for the stop to be located at the Dane County Airport in Madison.

What does the airport provide in terms of opportunity?  For starters at least a $12 cab ride to the Capitol.  Sure it provides parking, but at a cost greater than the parking in an urban location in Milwaukee.

There are few to no development opportunities at the airport itself, which of course enforces building height restrictions.  The proposed station site is a big parking lot shared with the airport that can never be developed, and it is constrained by a creek and other wetlands. Without connections to an urban context or a street grid, walking to the station will never happen, and taking a bus isn’t much better. The current single bus route that serves the airport  requires a transfer at Madison Metro’s North Transfer Point to reach downtown.

Yahara Station

Thankfully Madison-based urban planner Barry Gore provides a voice of reason and compromise between the WisDOT recommend to build the station on the mainline track at the airport versus bringing the train down Madison’s isthmus.  Gore advocates for placing the station at Burr Jones Field. This location, near the intersection of First Street and East Washington Avenue provides roughly 950 feet of undivided land stretching over to East Johnson Avenue, which he claims is enough to site the 600-foot-long station platform.  The site seems to be a logical compromise between an expensive downtown Madison station, and the remote Dane County Airport station, the Burr Jones Field stop, in-between Washington and Johnson on First Street, presents a wealth of opportunity.

Before diving into why Gore’s Yahara Station idea appears to make a lot of sense, it’s important to understand why an urban location was passed over in the first place by WisDOT.

1. Cost – A significant amount of track would have to be rebuilt to build a station closer to the Capital Square near the Monana Terrace convention center.

2. The fear of back tracking – With the of the Midwest Regional Rail Initiative proposing to have a line from Chicago to the Twin Cities, going too far into the isthmus would require back tracking out onto the mainline, possibly adding twenty minutes to the trip.

The Yahara Station addresses those points and more.  The station wouldn’t require any back tracking, as the station’s location is on the track to go to the airport.  In fact, Yahara Station’s location is 3.4 miles closer to Milwaukee, and correspondingly 3.4 miles closer to downtown Madison.  According to Gore, if six trains run between Madison and Milwaukee a day as proposed the milage savings are incredible: Out to the airport and back is twice 3.4 miles, or 6.8 miles on every trip, 40.8 miles a day, 285 extra miles a week,  1244 miles a month, and 14,892 miles a year.  That’s before considering the savings on buses, taxis, and personal automobiles driving to and from the site.  Also considerable savings would be found in seven fewer crossing signals being forced to come down and block traffic on the train’s route to and from the airport.

The route into Madison the train would take with either proposal. The turning point is the proposed location of Yahara Station.

Short term cost savings are found at Yahara Station by shaving off 3.4 miles of track that need to be rebuilt. Keep in mind that there isn’t station at the airport currently either, so both stations would require new construction costs.

Transit access is far superior at the Yahara Station site, with 14 bus routes within a block of the proposed station, and eliminating the need for a transfer to get downtown.  The station is within cycle range of the UW campus, and offers a much cheaper cab ride to downtown.

The development potential of the Yahara Station site is nearly unlimited, compared to that of the airport site.  There isn’t much around the site at the moment, but that isn’t a bad thing.  Furthermore the developable parcels nearby would provide ample opportunity for firms looking to add locations in Madison to locate offices, as well as a logical spot to continue condo development as it spreads out from downtown.  Perhaps most importantly to those that would drive to the station, the currently under-utilized land would drive parking costs down for those looking to drive to the train.

Orientation of the station as well as likely land to be developed is pictured.

Potential Hold-Up?

What’s the hold-up with what seems such a logical plan?  The proposal by Gore came late in the process, and WisDOT is reluctant to change their plan in a way that might jeopardize the potential $500+ million in stimulus dollars needed for the project. Gore understands the timing issue, but doubts that such a change would jeopardize the funds.

A simple compromise seems to be take the clearly better station as a back-burner plan, get the funds from the stimulus dollars, and then change the plans during the final design process.  At this point no construction documents have been prepared for the project.  Scared of the federal government taking the funds?  Look at how long Milwaukee has held onto $91.5 million, which was originally $289 million for bus lanes on the interstate.

The airport plan will certainly hurt ridership on the line, and it’s fortunate that such a opportunity has presented itself in the Yahara Station to fix the potential misstep by WisDOT.

Why It Matters to Milwaukee

Why does this matter to Milwaukee?  The station’s location significantly affects the mobility of travelers from Milwaukee and Chicago upon arrival in Madison.  A more central location affords flexibility for spouses to work in different cities, greatly increasing the number of available jobs.  It allows students to more reliably get from one city to the other. A downtown-to-downtown connection also greatly increases the ability for businesses to collaborate and grow in both cities.

Additional Documents

• Yahara Station Overview Document
• Yahara Station Detailed Plan
• Gore’s Letter to Representative Pocan
• Why the Airport Station Won’t Work

If you’re still not convinced, enjoy this story.

Fast forward to 2013.

President Barack Obama, fresh off a narrow re-election victory over Sarah Palin, is celebrating the opening of new Amtrak service between his hometown of Chicago and Madison.

Obama is riding with Gov. Jim Doyle and Mayor Dave Cieslewicz as the train rumbles past East Towne and under Wisconsin 30 and starts across East Washington Avenue.

“There’s the Capitol,” says Obama, looking out the window of a new Spanish-built Talgo passenger car. But instead of slowing, the train sweeps around the corner at First Street and starts heading back out of town.

“Wait a second,” says the confused president. “I thought you promised we’d stop in Madison for a beer?”

Doyle looks sheepishly at Cieslewicz before answering.

“We will eventually stop, Mr. President, but the new Madison train station is actually out at the airport,” an embarrassed Doyle explains. “We’ll have to get a ride back into town.”

“Forget that,” says Obama, grabbing his briefcase and ordering the engineer to stop at East Johnson Street. “I’m thirsty. You airport guys can meet me later.”

The Twin Cities are heading into a budget deficit for transit operations that could result in fare hikes, it appears the mixed-mode (detailed in the article) funding source for transit is failing.  Ironically, it appears largely due to declining auto sales.  On the plus side though, things are moving ahead on the Northstar commuter rail line into Minneapolis.  The Twin Cities continue to impress with their vision of a true intermodal system.  They have light-rail connecting the Mall of America, the airport, and downtown Minneapolis, an expansive bus system, commuter rail under construction to connect northwest suburbs, and a proposed light rail line to link downtown St. Paul with downtown Minneapolis.  The new baseball stadium is even logically located at a hub on this network.

In Montana, they want to expand Empire Builder service using stimulus funds and start manufacturing more rail equipment there.  Probably not the best idea, the money would be better spent relocating Montana residents to more urban centers, expanding manufacturing capacity in those centers, and growing inter-city rail between nearby major cities.  Long-haul Amtrak routes are plagued by delays, are less cost-efficient, and don’t generate the kind of positive goodwill that the Hiawatha between Milwaukee and Chicago does.

All that said, rail service in Montana is a good idea (provided it connects population centers).  But the most important thing is that we build the most cost-effective routes first to generate momentum going forward (and one would guess they’re not in Montana, with a state population about the same as Milwaukee County).  That momentum will help reorient the country to using rail as a substitute for short-flights and inter-city driving.

In New York City weird things happen when street lights go out, traffic gets calmer.  Perhaps something more intersections in Milwaukee could use.

Also in New York City a coalition wants to tear down the Sheridan Expressway.  It’s recently been labeled “the worst highway in the nation.“  If they tear it down, hopefully they get the land deal structured better than we did in Milwaukee.

If you’re looking for a good article on cross-country train travel, GOOD Magazine has a great feature piece.  Please note the difference between inter-city rail, and cross-country, long-haul travel.

Seattle is struggling through potential transit cuts due to sales tax collection reductions.  This same problem has been rearing its head in other cities.  There hasn’t been much data that I’ve come across that indicates if these systems pushed too hard on the tax as a funding source (and didn’t leave enough in a rainy day fund), or if something else is at work.  What is known is that its the opposite of what we have seen here in Milwaukee, with collections rising despite the economy faltering.  Are people in the Midwest simply traveling less?  I’ll follow up on this in a future article.

In other news, maybe there is hope for Janesville, WI.  A former GM town in Indiana appears to be on the rebound.  I still think the best bet is to relocate the people to our urban cores, and not for the state to throw dollar after dollar into the dying city itself.

The first 100 fans to arrive at Miller Park on February 20th with a ticket in hand to the September 17th Brewers vs Cubs game at Wrigley Field will receive a free round-trip ticket to and from Chicago on the day of the game and a Wrigley Field South t-shirt.  The next 1,500 will receive just the shirt.

Now the exciting part of the promotion isn’t the Wrigley Field South aspect, there are simply too many Cubs fans that invade Miller Park every year (like the coauthor of this site) to make it seem like Brewer fans are legitimately fighting back.

The exciting part is that positive brand association Amtrak receives.  They currently advertise at Miller Park, but it’s not the kind of ad that makes you want to take any action at all.  This offer seems to be the exact opposite, promoting the passenger railroad as a great way to get to Chicago.  No one can doubt the strength of the Brewers’ brand at this point, and the association with Amtrak should help improve the image of the Hiawatha line between Chicago and Milwaukee.

Hopefully this is just the first of a yearly promotion.  Every little bit of positive recognition Amtrak can get, especially in areas that are potential future destinations (Madison, Green Bay), will help the railroad.