Madison-Milwaukee High Speed Rail

[Godspeed]

Yeah, I believe Silver Spring goes under Green Bay Rd, Teutonia Ave, Sherman/43rd St & 76th ST, but you're still talking about displacing lots of residents in between. Logically, the Stadium Freeway really should be connected to the Fondy Freeway, but you have the same issue there and still no easterly connection to I-43 except via I-94.

[paul253]

Well yeah, its kind of too little too late now. There are so many businesses on Silver Spring, plus considering it runs through multiple jurisdictions you'd have to get cooperation. I mean, I'm sure it could be done, but at what cost? The other idea though, connecting the Hwy 41 (that's the stadium freeway you refer to right......that little 3 or 4 mile stretch of freeway directly north of the stadium?) to the Fondy Freeway would cause huge issues in Milwaukee. I know this isn't the political board so we won't get into details, but that freeway would go almost directly through the western portion of the inner city. Can you imagine how hard it would be to get that done? Also, it really wouldn't make any sense unless somehow either that or 45 is connected to 43 because the Fondy Freeway just meets up with 45.

[thebruce44]

But back in the 60s they were eminent domaining the hell out of a lot of people. Better to do it then when that area wasn't so built up. I mean, all of those freeways would have been a little ridiculous considering MKE's population didn't increase like Chicago's did, but a bypass has been a necessary part of a modern city since the 50s and 60s. Wherever they were planning to do it, I wish it had gone through. Obviously it will never be done now.

 

Ironically, eminent domain is actually pretty easy right now. The interchange I am working on is going to be taking some houses and the people can't wait for the government to bail them out of their mortgages. It makes the public meetings a lot easier, thats for sure.

 

Anyway, I just wanted to draw a comparison to show that a lot of civil projects get negative press and have a lot of detractors. Hindsight is always 20/20 but its an engineer/planner's job to try and look at these projects from that perspective. Most others don't see it that way though.

 

A lot of people think there is bias or some hidden agenda, but that couldn't be further from the truth. Its all about objectively figuring out what is best for the area and population you are serving right now and in the future.

[Bucky370]

My understanding when I was a kid growing up on the north side of milwauke ,the original plan was for Brown Deer Road to be a freeway west/east on the north side. I don't believe this idea ever went very far, but at the time 60's, their was really nothing built in this area, it was almost all farm fields. Maybe this was one of the ideas when the planning stages of hwy 41 was selected. HWY 41 was a very poorly designed idea looking at godspeeds links. Long term it wouldn't have alleviated traffic much at all. But if your driving west / east on the north side today, both good hope and brown deer act almost like freeways. Speeds are always around 50 in rush hour traffic, and the lights can be timed really really well. Silver Spring is too congested and too busy to be a speedy route west/east.

[Godspeed]

But back in the 60s they were eminent domaining the hell out of a lot of people. Better to do it then when that area wasn't so built up.

 

The 12/24/69 article states that they would have been displacing around 10,000 middle class residents. Is that as high of a number as it sounds? That's like obliterating the entire city of St Francis, plus an extra 1,500 people.

 

 

I mean, all of those freeways would have been a little ridiculous considering MKE's population didn't increase like Chicago's did, but a bypass has been a necessary part of a modern city since the 50s and 60s.

 

The question is, what would a north/south bypass brought more of: economic progress or exurban sprawl.

[paul253]

Yeah they are, unfortunately for me they are way too far north to do me any good. Like I said, when going west to east or vice versa in the city of Milwaukee in the late afternoon, it's basically a pick your poison between North, Center, Locust, Burleigh, Capitol, or Hampton. They are all packed and all basically one/one and a half lanes. Silver Spring isn't as bad because it dips under quite a few intersections. Location wise Silver Spring would be perfect for a east/west freeway but as we all know, too little too late. I know a place like Mequon would never go for it, but that would be a good place for a bypass now. A lot of farmland and open space.

[Bucky370]

I know a place like Mequon would never go for it, but that would be a good place for a bypass now. A lot of farmland and open space.

 

It's too late for anything east / west on the north side. Their may be a lot of farmfields in mequon in the west, but when you get to 76th street (wauwatosa road), it's all mega mansion sub divisions. You'd have to keep going north which means something more like hwy 60. I think that would be possible as you could loop around the few towns in the area, but again, too far north and rather pointless since hwy 60 already is 55mph for most of the way. Good Hope is wide enough, and if they elevated it probably could work, but I'm sure would very cost prohibitive. Bottom line is they screwed the pooch 40 years ago.

The question is, what would a north/south bypass brought more of: economic progress or exurban sprawl.

 

What would have stopped urban sprawl would been skipping the bad idea of school bussing and de-segregration. It pretty much pushed everybody that could afford it out of Milwaukee. I still remember all the riots at some of the High Schools in the late 70's, particularly James Madision. I also remember most of my neighbors with school kids almost all moving to Menomonee Falls etc. It sucked cuz my area became mainly older or very young families. Most of my friends were gone. \At one point the entire northridge area was beautiful and technically like a subburb, but that is all changed now, and you couldn't pay me to stop at any of the stores as I pass bye.

 

I think initially it would have helped economic progress, but would have went backwards like a good portion of the north side of Milwaukee has.

[homer]

Good Hope is probably faster than Silver Spring or Capitol if you're willing to go that far north.

[Godspeed]

At one point the entire northridge area was beautiful and technically like a subburb, but that is all changed now, and you couldn't pay me to stop at any of the stores as I pass bye.

 

Pssh... I shop in that area all the time and never remotely had an issue. It may not be what it once was, but the paranoia regarding its current state is way out of line with reality.

[FVBrewerFan]

I like the idea of a bypass from Hwy 45 somewhere between Hwy 60 and County Line Rd., running East/West over to !-43. But what's needed even more is a bypass North/South from I-94 up to Hwy 45. Ideally then, this bypass would start at I-43 near Hwy 60, go E/E to Hwy 45, then contunie N/S down to Waukesha area- maybe just West. I can dream. Try traveling from Waukesha or Oconomowoc to Grafton/Cedarburg sometime...

[thebruce44]

Try traveling from Waukesha or Oconomowoc to Grafton/Cedarburg sometime...

 

Thats exactly what I was saying earlier in this thread.

 

Hwy 60 is too far north in my mind for the completed bypass. I agree that Brown Deer Rd would have been perfect though. Oh well, too little too late.

 

The 12/24/69 article states that they would have been displacing around 10,000 middle class residents. Is that as high of a number as it sounds? That's like obliterating the entire city of St Francis, plus an extra 1,500 people.

 

Wow, that seems really hard to believe. Even today I wouldn't have expected that many people if they put the highway around Brown Deer Rd or even Hwy 60 (if they snaked it around Grafton).

[paul253]

Ok well I suppose getting back to topic a little, Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker recently questioned where the money was going to come from to pay for the annual operating costs of the new train. The proponents of the train bashed him for it of course. A spokesperson for Doyle said "By his logic, Scott Walker would prefer to send the $823million grant

and the associated jobs to California or Ohio or Florida. Walker's criticism is similar to opponents of the interstate

highway system" I wasn't around during the interstate debate and I don't know what the arguments against it were, but assumption was it had nothing to do with people not using it. My argument against the rail is use, not necessarily cost (basically that the use won't justify the cost). As far as the first part of the quote, that's more or less like saying well if we didn't spend the money someone else would have, which, while true, isn't an overly reasonable argument for it and continues to make me shake my head at how government money is thrown around. Also, while people may bash opponents of it for questioning the new train, nobody has come up with an answer yet as to where the money will come from to pay for the annual costs. I think it's a given it will come from taxes or fees, but who is going to admit that now? Anyway here is a link to the article:

 

http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/84198582.html

[Bucky370]

http://hamptonroads.com/2009/12/norfolk-light-rail-over-budget-opening-delayed-2011

 

Any chance Wisconsin will have the same problems? With Government involved, good chance.

[homer]

Light rail is a whole different animal from commuter/long distance rail.

[thebruce44]

http://hamptonroads.com/2009/12/norfolk-light-rail-over-budget-opening-delayed-2011

 

Any chance Wisconsin will have the same problems?

No, no chance.

 

From the article:

 

Officials said the complexities of building in old, downtown streets as well as project enhancements have driven up the cost.Townes and Williams said a number of factors have contributed to the increased costs.

 

Several aspects of the project have been enhanced, including safety and security elements, passenger stations, the design of the storage and maintenance building, park-and-ride lots and landscaping. Additionally, the challenges of embedding tracks in the streets of downtown have proven costly, in terms of both money and time. A key issue has been relocating underground utilities and the delays that work has caused.

 

Working in old cities is hell. You bid out the projects as best you can, but then uncover a bunch of utilities that were never accounted for, and it happens all the time. It also sounds as though they have added a lot of work on the project for stations and such.

 

The vast majority of this project is in a rural setting and in current RR right-of-way. They won’t have any problems with utilities and are dealing with known quantities. It is completely different from what is happening in Norfolk.

 

Ironically, Norfolk has a population of 234,220; 80th largest city in the US. Madison is 81st with a population of 231,916. Milwaukee is 23rd at 604,477 and yet it has no light rail and very limited commuter rail options. Just another reason why this area is perfect for this project.

 

With Government involved, good chance.

I see you still haven't looked at this at all objectively.

[Bucky370]

I see you still haven't looked at this at all objectively.

 

Actually I have, it just doesn't agree with your point of view.

[igor67]

Bucky your statement should be amended to "with Humans involved good luck". We have seen that the private sector is just as capable of messing things up as well.

[RobertR]

That's true Igor. It's also true that it's rarely news when projects finish at or under budget.

 

But, here's a challenge, what's the last major WDOT project that was over budget? You're not going to find too many, because of how the State's contracts are written. One thing to understand, it's hard to get around an agreed to price once a contract is signed. And if you think a construction contract is easy to work around, you obviously have never worked in the industry. It's why I'm not too impressed that the Marquette came in under budget. I'm impressed that disruptions were minimized and it hit the timetable precisely, but not so much with being under budget.

 

There really are only two ways that a project comes in over budget. One, significant changes in the design as pet projects are added in/Change Orders. If they start adding stations that's a red flag. Two, "differing site conditions" claims. The latter isn't likely to be too prevalent, it's a railroad track in rural areas that already is a railroad track. But, there's potentially some unknown environmental issues that might be encountered, but again much of this runs through rural areas away from human activities in the first place and the odds of there being anything extensive is very low. The other potential issue is the "landbridges" part of the railline through some marshy areas proving to be more extensive. But, they've done quite a bit of geotechnical investigation already and seem relatively conservative in their approach. They probably could save money on the landbridges by doing a few rock corings. (Note: Differing Site Conditions are notorious in tunneling projects as estimating the amount of boulders potentially encountered is educated guesswork at best.)

 

That Norfolk example is an example of both Change Orders and Differing Site Conditions. Obviously, Differing Site Conditions is tough to plan for, you try to do the best investigation you can before hand, but there will be gaps. Change Orders is generally on the government/engineers though.

 

Robert

[thebruce44]

I see you still haven't looked at this at all objectively.

 

Actually I have, it just doesn't agree with your point of view.

Bucky,

 

I find that very hard to believe, but am more than willing to listen. I know we are not supposed to get political here, but I would like to give you an opportunity to expand and explain how your previous post wasn't a blanket statement rooted in personal bias and was instead specific to this project.

[MarquesJohnson2000]

Belling is reporting that an agreement has been reached to place the Madison station downtown, which he says he has confirmed and will be announced within the next 2-3 weeks.

 

He also claims this will dramatically increase the costs due to relocation costs for the people currently living in the path.

[paul253]

They have to relocate people to make it downtown? As in.....destroy people's house?

[jerichoholicninja]

I thought this was voted down this week or maybe that was a different train.

[Bucky370]

The RTA was not voted on Thursday, but doesn't stop the train project. The RTA vote was merely to create a state tax increase to support the project.

 

http://www.transitnow.org/RTAVote110208.htm

 

Madison's city council are endorsing the station in Madision to be downtown. Going to be very interesting how many homes are destroyed and how many homeowners will be against a fast train running essentially thru their back yard. I know it's planned to run on the tracks parallel to Williams street. Williams street area is manufacturing on one side and a dense neighborhood on the other with in some sections the tracks right in the middle. It will naturally (needfully) increase the costs because of the higher expenses to buy the land for the train station and houses that would have to be demolished. Suggestion an increase of 100m or more is not out of the question, and I don't believe this will be funded by the federal grant.

 

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt_and_politics/article_17b9e7fa-4c1a-11df-bf79-001cc4c002e0.html

[Baldkin]

1) It's Williamson st. Or Willy St as the Madisonians call it, so people don't get confused.

2) There's been trains running through that area since the beginning of time (for me at least, 31+ years), so I'm not sure how this train would be any different, other than it having a dedicated line and maybe moving a bit faster.

 

I'm curious as to how you know exactly where the train would run? Is there a map of the proposed routes (I'd love to see one and my googling has failed me)

[PKBadger]

Some of the posters earlier in this thread suggested that the bid was very conservative (i.e., the final actual cost of the project would likely be less than what was budgeted). If that's the case, I'm fine with spending a little more to secure a downtown location, even if it's not Fed funds. Better long-term solution for those riding the train.

 

Wouldn't worry about the "high speed train running through our backyard" issue either....it's not like it will be chugging along at 70mph into the city. They can slow 'er down to 30-35mph or so when they hit the residential area. When I lived in Evanston, my apartment was a block away from the Metra tracks and noise was never a big deal.