Madison-Milwaukee High Speed Rail

[ryne100]

http://host.madison.com/c...f-a7b7-001cc4c03286.html

 

So it looks like this is going to become a reality. Living on the westside in Madison, I'm really rooting for a downtown stop so I wouldn't have to drive all the way to the airport to ride. Also, has anyone heard of where the stops in Milwaukee might be? A downtown Madison to Miller Park stop would make me really happy.

[homer]

Also, has anyone heard of where the stops in Milwaukee might be? A downtown Madison to Miller Park stop would make me really happy.

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The stop in Milwaukee is downtown. You can bus it from there to MP - or take a quick cab ride.

 

Also, the stop at the airport in madison is dumb - they should have one downtown.

[Teatoe993]

I don't know if I am the only one, but I really question the demand for this. The only places in the country that I feel would have the need for this is the northeast US and southern California. Is there really enough people that are willing to bus/cab/bike/walk to the train station and take the train to Milwaukee and bus/cab/bike/walk to their destination? And then have to do it all over again to get back to where they came from when they could just drive? To me it would seem much simpler to drive and would probably be comparable (if not better) in time and money to taking the train. But I'm a car guy at heart, so what do I know. I hope I am wrong because a lot of money is going into this project.

[TooLiveBrew]

America is long overdue for these types of projects. And yes, there are plenty of people that are willing & happy to utilize it -- some even with the environment in mind. Kudos to the gov't. for taking this initiative.

[berniebrewer4life]

Anyway they expand this to the twin cities? Right now, i can't really utilize it(i live in walworth co). However, i would love to take a train from madison to St Paul.

[thebruce44]

I assume this will be a part of the Chicago to Minn line the government gave funding for.

 

As someone who works in the loop, the demand for this is definetly there. People need to move away from the car mentality. I did (I take the train every day and drive about 1 time a week to get groceries) and have never looked back. Sure, when I take the train up to MKE my parents have to drive down from Grafton to pick me up, but they don't mind too much. It ends up saving a lot of time over how long it would take me to drive from the loop to Grafton in the end. The real advantage for me will be that I can come up for Brewers/Bucks/MU games and use public transportation the whole way.

[bjkrautk]

The only way that I see this having real value is if the Madison stop is within walking distance of Camp Randall or the Kohl Center (and, by extension, the UW campus). Placing the Milwaukee stop(s) could be interesting as well.

 

I'm skeptical about the whether the project is sustainable in the long-run, but I'm sure that the less convenient it is to get to-and-from local events, the less likely it is to be even revenue-neutral.

[TooLiveBrew]

I assume this will be a part of the Chicago to Minn line the government gave funding for

 

I'm 99% sure this is correct

[ryne100]

If I can get to Miller Park, Bradley Center, Summerfest, the airport, and the state fair for a reasonable amount of money, I think I would do this a lot. Driving is boring and I don't need to be below a .08 to be on a train http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

[homer]

I would think the "Badger Express" from MKE to MSN would be pretty fun on football gamedays. Be cool if you could rent out an entire car for a party.

[jerichoholicninja]

They need to eventually bring it up to Green Bay and Appleton. If I could take the train to Milwaukee instead of driving I would attend more Brewer games.

[nate82]

Yes if they are going to do a rail system they need to do it correctly and right now it is not being done correctly. The stop at the Madison airport is just stupid it doesn't take you anywhere really if you are going to Madison. I use the rail to go to Chicago when I go there but here is the kicker Chicago already has a great public and taxi transportation system Madison and Milwaukee do not. I'm not against the rail system I am just against where the stops are being placed. If they are going to have a rail system it either needs to stop in downtown Madison or somewhere near the UW campus. Also adding a rail line to Green Bay and Appelton would be a great idea also it would make getting to Packers games for people living in Milwaukee a lot easier and people living near Green Bay an easier option to getting to Brewers, Bucks, and other events in Milwaukee.

[TooLiveBrew]

You can just catch a bus from the Madison airport. I don't know the logistics of how the line is being run relative to Madison, but I don't see any problem with making the stop at MSN.

[paul253]

Nate kind of took what I was going to say. There is a right way to do this and a wrong way. First off let say that Milwaukee is NOT Chicago. Traffic in Milwaukee is not that bad....and yes, I have driven on the freeway during rush hour. The need for trains to Madison, in my opinion, is minimal, especially at such a ridiculously high cost. That being said, they way its being planned now is absolutely the wrong way. Having a stop a the Dane County airport is a joke and everyone knows it. The only reason they are doing it is because it makes it easier to extend the line to Minneapolis which was the goal from the beginning. The line needs to go right into downtown Madison. I'm not familiar with Madison, but if the main part of the campus is not downtown, there needs to be a line that goes to campus as well. Milwaukee wise, there absolutely needs to be a stop at the State Fair. It leads right into shuttles that can take you to Miller Park or Summerfest. There is also plenty of room to build it and makes it a lot easier for someone to come pick you up as its literally right next to the freeway. There also needs to be stop somewhere in between like, Johnson's Creek or something. I imagine a lot of people would like to take the train to go to that big outlet mall. If you can walk/take a city bus/get a ride to a train station in Madison and get to Milwaukee and to where you need to be all in an hour or so, you would actually make it possible to live in one city and work in the other, which would be huge. But to make this end in the middle of nowhere at the Dane County Airport.......why????

 

I'm not entirely opposed to rail, but my lord......for once can we just sit back and do things the common sense way instead of screwing it up from the beginning?

[And That]

The need for trains to Madison, in my opinion, is minimal

Except that the greater plan is to run a high speed train from the Twins Cities to Milwaukee and it would be kind of silly not to stop in Madison on the way.

[hawing]

Anyway they expand this to the twin cities? Right now, i can't really utilize it(i live in walworth co). However, i would love to take a train from Madison to St Paul.

Since you can already take a train from Columbus to the Cities, I join other posters in assuming one will eventually be able to take a train from Madison to the Twin Cities.

 

If we could take a train from Madison to reasonably near Miller Park, the hawing household would be 100% all over that. My only reservation would be if a game ran long and we had to either leave a game early or miss the last westbound train.

 

I'm not a fan of a train stopping only at the airport. That would seem to help Dane County (more parking revenue at the airport) and cab companies more than those who want to travel by train. Finding a way to stop on or near the UW campus seems like a no-brainer, especially if you can tie it into sporting events and cut down on vehicle traffic.

[Mr QL]

Don't know how long this while stay open but I'll get my take in before it closes.

 

It just seems like a colossal waste of money. The ridership won't justify it and there is no way it could be self-sufficient. This is 100% about getting people out of cars and has no argument in convenience or saving money. The people who actually do make frequent commutes between Madison and Milwaukee, simply put, are not going to chose to ride this line over driving their cars. 110 mph hardly qualifies as "high speed rail" either, it's old technology. Just send the money back to the Chinese.

[TooLiveBrew]

If I can take a train at 110 mph from Milwaukee to Madison, you'd better believe I'd choose it ahead of a car. And getting people out of cars is a *good* thing.

[yoshii8]

I don't think the Dane County Airport is considered the middle of nowhere. It would be pretty easy to have shuttles to downtown or campus. It would be about a 10 minute bus ride. I am very excited to see this project get off the ground.

[Hofbraunhaus]

I am definitely all for this. Not so much because it connects Milwaukee and Madison, but because this is the first step in creating much larger train system across the country. Hopping trains in Europe for a month was one the most amazing times and relatively cheap compared to flying. I wish I could do that here in the U.S. Unfortunately, I'll probably be too old to care anymore by the time it becomes a reality.

[Invader3K]

I don't see how it will be sustainable. The maintenance on this thing is going to be crazy, as well as paying employees, etc. Tickets are going to cost $25-30, which isn't horrible, but I'm not sure the mass appeal is going to be there like some are predicting. Car travel is an ingrained way of life for most Americans. I'm just not sure if most people want to park near the train station, wait for the train, travel to Madison, take a bus or cab downtown, find a way back to the Madison station later on, etc. I hate to say it, but I think most people are too lazy or lack the forethought to plan ahead for something like that.

[pretendastronaut]

From my understanding, the airport destination isn't final in any sort, so we don't need to treat it like it is.

 

I'm excited about this personally. The Hiawatha line from Milwaukee to Chicago is awesome, even if it isn't ultimately that much faster than driving and the usage of it has doubled in the past 5 years. I can read a book, take a nap or whatever on that ride, and not have to deal with parking, traffic, tolls and other issues. The differences in available public transit are certainly legit, and hopefully the planning of stops takes that into consideration.

 

I would think it would also have some employment benefits for both cities after it's up. If you've ever taken the Hiawatha service in the morning or evening, there are a lot of people who use it to clearly travel to a job one way or the other between Milwaukee and Chicago. The same could easily be true then with Madison and Milwaukee.

 

It's all great to be a car person if you want to be, but it's clear that we need more mass transit options into the future, and has been for some time.

[homer]

You can just catch a bus from the Madison airport. I don't know the logistics of how the line is being run relative to Madison, but I don't see any problem with making the stop at MSN.

Right but if you have to wait for a bus and then ride a bus, that's an extra 30 - 40 min to your trip which sort of removes the "high speed" from high speed rail and will knock down ridership quite a bit, IMO.

[Mr QL]

If I can take a train at 110 mph from Milwaukee to Madison, you'd better believe I'd choose it ahead of a car. And getting people out of cars is a *good* thing.

So you have to park at the train station, pay for fare, wait for the train, ride the train at 79-110 mph(not really high speed rail) with a couple stops, and once you get there you have to get a cab or bus or whatever to get around after that. It's a "cool" idea, especially to UW-Madison students, but there isn't a want or a need for it. They're not going to be "green" trains either, they're suppose to use diesel fuel and where do you think we're buying that from?

[Baldkin]

When the price of the train ticket, per person, is going to double what they'd spend on gas, I have extreme doubts that it will be a self-sustaining thing.

Especially if they put the stop at the airport, 25 minutes from campus, and downtown.

 

I'm all for it, but I have very little faith in the ability of the government to do something like this correctly.