paul253

Not sure how that is misleading. They clearly state that price is for a round trip ticket. And the price listed for the train ticket is a one way ticket which is not mentioned. They mention the cost of a round trip ticket for the bus and a one way ticket for the train. You don't think that is misleading? Posters here besides me aren't saying "I know more than you and you are just wrong." Those posters are saying that this report seems correct and the people who put it togeather know what they are doing. They are saying that if you are so against it then please point out the flaws. Saying you just think the numbers are wrong with no evidence or methodology isn't very convincing. Are you reading my posts? The only thing I am saying is wrong is the rider estimates. That's all. I said some parts of it are misleading, but I am not saying its wrong. The above example is correct, it's just misleading. You need to stop painting everyone who doesn't like this plan as ignorant nobodies who are calling the engineers liars because that's not what we are doing. We should trust civil engineers? You mean like the civil engineers who were involved in the deep tunnel project? If a light rail system is so cost effective long term, wouldn't a private railroad want to build it? I don't understand why we would want to go backwards and invest in old technology. This is a very good point. How many times has the government painted a very rosy picture of something in order to get support for it only to have the reality be nothing like the theory? The people who wrote the report were obviously not going to make it sound like it was a bad idea. Would you at least give me that? That means that they either had to leave out or re-word certain things in order to make the general public think something else. Again, it's not that what they say is wrong, but it's just not completely accurate. It's like how "jobs saved" can be re-worded to make it seem like people who get a raise counts a job saved when clearly it should not. Except, it would be more like 2 or 3 people who have never watched a baseball game sitting in on a press conference with Doug Melvin after his big signing and telling him he doesn't know what he is doing. Again this is you just flat out ignoring what we are saying. Nobody is saying the engineers are wrong (except rider estimates) or that they don't know what they are doing. I've traveled on trains before while I was visiting friends in Chicago. They were much faster and more convenient than cars. We walked about 3 blocks to a station, rode the train to the other side of the city, got off, and walk another 6 or 7 blocks to our destination. The price of the tickets was probably a little more than the price of parking, but it saved a lot of time. Ok....there you go....I am admitting that the train in Chicago is a good idea (as I have before). But this isn't Chicago, and the need for a Madison-Milwaukee train is far, far less than the Chicago train. And if you really listen to people, you'll know that more there are a few people against this plan, not just the ones who bother to post on brewerfan.net about it. Again, just because one person doesn't want to use it doesn't mean it will or won't work. It is somewhat off base to base any opinion off of one's own personal view or 'poll' And couldn't this very well be turned around to say "Just because you WANT this train and WILL ride it doesn't mean everyone else will too?"

Yet you think they are wrong and you are right. It sounds to me as though you think you are smarter in this aspect than the people who put together the report. And yet you have not pointed out one single, creditable flaw in the report. You just don't think its right...you just don't see yourself using it...you don't see anyone else using it. They are misleading everyone who reads it into thinking that it will be cheaper than taking the bus. Why is that not a credible flaw? Cost has a huge affect on ridership totals. The only thing I have ever thought they were wrong about is ridership estimates. I have never said anything about the cost to build it, rather I talk about the cost to operate it and how we will pay for those. I've stated over and over again it's a good plan in theory except if nobody rides it then the theoretical numbers are meaningless. I have disagreed with Bruce's opinion on a few things, namely how much this will actually save in highway maintenance, but that has nothing to do with the report. I didn't realize in needed a degree in civil engineering to have an opinion as to how many people will use a train. My bad. This is how I view this entire thread. I compare it to the Brewers signing a free agent, we'll call him John Smith. You are some big time baseball guy who studies stat after stat after stat and I am a casual fan who follows the team and goes to a few games. The Brewers go out and spend $100 million to sign Smith, and in turn ticket prices go way up. I tell you, you know this is a bad signing. We could have used the money elsewhere, or not at all because the team was pretty good to begin with, and then we wouldn't have had to raise ticket prices. You come back with, well I know a lot more about baseball than you do and this is a good signing. Definitely worth the ticket price increase. He's really good at this stat and at this stat and at this stat. I say, well knowing the team I don't think he's a good fit and I don't think he'll put up the same stats that you think he will. I've seen him play and to be honest I don't think he's that good. You just keep saying "you don't know what you're talking about. I know a lot more about this than you do and I am right and you are not". We could about it until we're both blue in the face, but until we actually see him play we won't know whose right. The only thing that is for sure is the contract is guaranteed and good or bad we are stuck with him. And ticket prices are going up so whether you wanted him or not, you have to pay more to see him. I have issues with people telling me I only have my opinion because conservative talk radio told me to. It's such an old and overused argument. It's used by both sides (global warming/Al Gore) but it seems to happen a lot more by people who disagree with a conservative. It's annoying and it makes you sound petty. Oh man, it sure was nice riding the train this morning. Right on time for work as usual. Took my car to work last night. Got there ten minutes early and parked in a structure attached to the building I need to go to http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif.

Dude, you're just not getting it. Robert's point is your and other's steadfast refusal to trust the experts while placing your own partial skepticism above all else does not make for effective discussion nor reasonable debate. This is an attitude prevalent on all forms of talk radio, from political to sports. No political undertones are necessary or inherently implied. This is a statement I have a problem with. Nobody here is claiming to be an expert and nobody here is claiming to be smarter than the people who plan this. I stated either in this thread or the one on the political board that in theory this is a very good plan. But reality isn't theory. I don't need Mark Belling to tell me that I don't think people are going to use it. I think that way because I myself won't use it for very practical reasons and I truly believe a lot of other people also won't use it for practical reasons. I'm not going to use a train to get somewhere when I can get there just as fast, just as cheap or more likely cheaper, and with the added convenience of having car at my disposal to go where I need to go. Why would I? Why would anybody? Just because we build a new system doesn't mean people will automatically start using it. Theoretically the idea is fine. Build an alternative transportation method so people don't have to use a car. This in turn will take cars off the freeway negating the need to repave rebuild or expand the freeways. But in reality if very few people use the train, which I believe will be the case, the need to rebuild and repave the freeways will still exist. I have not heard one person claim that this will turn a profit, which means we will need yet another fee or tax to continue to pay for it. It may be disguised as some sort of regional transit tax that goes to all forms of transit, but it will be there. You can count on it. I also have stated some reasons why I don't like the report. I think it was filled with a lot of assumptions, like stating that with an aging population there will need to be an alternative form of transportation, or something to that extent. It compares the fares for Badger Bus and this new train, yet fails to point out the prices they gave for Badger Bus were round trip and the estimated price for the train was one way, thus making it appear as though it would actually be cheaper to take the train. It's billed by the media as a "110mph train" but the report states it will top off at 79mph train until the second phase is completed, and even then it will only travel at tthe higher speeds for a short distance. I don't believe anyone flat out lied about anything on the report, but I certainly think they worded it in a way that makes it seem like a much better idea than it really is. And that's certainly not something thats limited to this report, it's something everyone does, but that doesn't make it right. I stand by my opinion (yes it's my opinion, its not Mark Belling's or Charlie Sykes' opinion) that this train is going to cost taxpayers much more than it saves.

I'll throw in Zach Jackson and Jorge De La Rosa. Both were supposedly top pitching prospects from their respective organizations when they came here via trade but neither one of them made any sort of significant impact. I really liked Kevin Barker and was super disappointed by him too. And think about how great it would have been if Dave Krynzel panned out. He would have been our leadoff hitter and centerfielder and Rickie Weeks never would have had to bat first. Dave Krynzel seems like forever ago, but he was right around the same time as Hart and Hardy and probably would have still be in Milwaukee. Pitching wise gotta go with Neugebauer, just because he got so frickin close!

he train saves the State government money. Isn't that the point? Your point about the politics raiding funding doesn't change that. What I was getting at is that the state couldn't care less about saving individual taxpayers money. Just look at how the rebuilding of the zoo interchange is being handled. They constantly raise taxes and fees for transportation, then take huge chunks of that money and use it for something else. This will be another excuse for them to raise fees and taxes. The state's report and common knowledge among any engineer/builder/planner says the opposite...especially when factoring in all the fringe benefits. If you disagree so be it, I won't try to change your mind at this point. I'm trying really hard not to offend you as engineer, but I just don't see how so many cars will now be off of I94 that its going to postpone or prevent any major road projects and in turn save all that much money. Of course the state's report is going to say it's going to save money. Do you expect them to fill out a report saying "yeah this is going to cost people millions of dollars more each year". Maybe if you look far enough into the future you'll start seeing some savings, but that still doesn't take into account the added costs of the train. I know my opinion is frustrating to you, and I really do feel bad that you seem to be the one who has to keep defending this, but I just can't see that many people using this thing.

I don't think realigning based on team payrolls would work because you'd have to keep adjusting the divisions every few years. I believe strongly in a salary cap but that's very unlikely to ever happen. The only way to even out payrolls, in my opinion, is to have a luxury tax so ridiculously high that nobody dare go over it. Also have a penalty for payrolls that are too low. If you can't meat a certain payroll you have no business being a major league team. Set the levels somewhere around $60 million on the low end and $120 million on the high end.

Big 10 network

I can't believe they are seriously considering this. I thought this was something someone from ESPN though of or something. The tournament is the most successful event the NCAA has. Why mess with it? Are they really that concerned that people's feelings are hurt because they don't get to play in it? Think about it. Of all these teams that complain they don't make the tournament, most of them can't even win the NIT! Who the heck wants to see N.C. State play Providence in a first round tournament game? This just shows how backwards the NCAA is. The won't institute a college football playoff and now they want to double what was supposed to be an elite basketball tournament. What a joke.

No, this actually will save the tax payers money. The deficit the train will run at is less than the savings in maintenance along 94. Keep in mind though that we already have in place two ways to collect money to pay for the highways...the registration fee and the gas tax. If certain politicians didn't continually raid these funds to pay for things completely unrelated to transportation there would be a lot more money to pay for highway maintenance and/or they wouldn't have to constantly raise the fees. In order to subsidize the train, we're going to have to come up with a whole new tax or fee or both to pay for it. I don't believe this will "save us" anything overall. It may save us money on highways, but that money and more is going to be used to pay for the train. No, there are not a lot of homeless people in that area. That is false. Unless your idea of "a lot" is like one or two. I don't mean to keep going back to this completely unrelated point, but you are wrong. I won't get into how I know you are wrong, but I do. I will say this though. This past summer the private security guard who works at Milwaukee's train station locked all of the entrance doors for the station between certain early morning hours because people were constantly walking into the station, not buying train or bus tickets, and basically sleeping on the chairs.

That all sounds like some solid advice....I appreciate it.

I was thinking about investing some money in gold (actual gold) and was wondering if anyone knew anything about this and had any suggestions. I was looking at goldline the other day and noticed most of what they sell is coins. My main question is, when buying coins, should I be more concerned the actual amount of gold in the coin (1/2 ounce, 1/10 ounce, etc) or the resale value of the specific coins I am buying? In other words, is a 1/4 ounce gold Canadian Maple Leaf coin going to be worth essentially the same as a 1/4 ounce gold American Eagle coin? Why are certain coins with the same weight of pure gold in them more expensive than others? Also, obviously this would be a long term investment and from what I hear gold tends to just keep going up. Is that an accurate statement? If I'm going to buy some coins, how long should I expect to hold onto them before I even consider trying to sell them? Any advice would be much appreciated.

Its certainly not that bad of a neighborhood. But when walking from the BC to the train station, especially in the winter time at 10:00 or 10:30 at night, you're going to run into a lot of homeless people. That's all I was getting at. Most are fine but some are rather aggressive. I knew someone that worked at the George Webbs on 3rd St down there and he said they constantly had problems with people who refused to pay and refused to leave, basically because they had no money and nowhere else to go. Once the cops kick them out they just wander around the area.

What the heck are you talking about? I'm talking about walking from the train station to the Bradley Center, which is what TracyThom was suggesting he'd do. Calm down homer, I was agreeing with you. I was just hinting that taking a cab would be a little safer while still not super expensive.

When gas gets back up to $5/gallon people will be complaining, "Why wasn't the rail line built years ago??" Haha I can't possibly see this happening. I think people will complain like they did last time. "Why are the stupid gas taxes so high?", and "if the price is oil is so friggin' high, why don't we tap into our own supply?"Also, if the station in downtown Milwaukee is anywhere near the Bradley Center, we would take the train for Bucks and Admirals games, as well as concerts. Homer beat me to the punch but its about a 6 block walk. I'd suggest a cab ride as well....it's a long 6 blocks. And not too sound too politically incorrect but you'll probably run into a lot of homeless people walking back from the Bradley Center after the game. Take that as you'd like.

Well then I am sure the study that you have never seen and have no knowledge of how it was put together is, as you said, absurd. I really am trying to play nice here, but it seems as though instead of responding to my points you are just using personal shots and trying to downplay the points I have made by acting as though I am completely ignorant on the subject. I really do believe this topic doesn't have to be political so I will continue to comment on this thread so long as its open and other people are as well. To your above quote though....no....i do not know how the numbers were put together, as I stated it was just my opinion. I also stated though I was curious how they could even come up with accurate numbers before the route and prices were set. If you truly believe 3,100 people are going to travel from Milwaukee to the Dane County Airport every day at a cost of around $40-$60, that's certainly your right. I don't believe they will, though, as it would cost half that to drive....not to even mention convenience. Second, a few posts ago I wrote up the distances between each of the cities (Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison, and Minneapolis) and used a rough estimate of how long it would take this new train to get from Chicago to Minneapolis (about 5 hours, give or take not including stops) which you never acknowledged. You seem to think its going to knock all this time off the current trains we have (8 hours 15 minutes/9 stops via Amtrak), but while I acknowledge it will knock some time off the trip the time it will knock off doesn't seem to be worth the cost. People have stated over and over again that we need to get away from this "car attitude" we have but nobody can really give a good reason why. Is it because Europeans use trains and we are supposed to be like the Europeans? Is it because cars are going to destroy the world through global warming? If man-made global warming was set in stone I wouldn't think their scientists would have to make up and/or use false data to prove their point. So again....why exactly do we need to move away from cars? If the United States can build a train system that fits my needs better than cars do, then I will use it and I suspect a lot of people feel the same way. If I lived or worked in Chicago, I would most likely use the Metra. You certainly seem to think very highly of it, and for good reason. But I see very little demand for a train from Milwaukee to Madison. The fact that we wouldn't even be considering this unless we got "free money" from the Feds to build it seems to back my opinion. My point was that you have no concept at all of what a ridership of 22,000 means, especially on an entire line that will be carrying riders from Chicago to Minneapolis by way of MKE to Madison. The 15,000 figure I provided was for a single stop on one of the less busy Metra lines. This is covered by 2 parking lots...its essentially a large park and ride for a city of 50,000. I continue to ignore any comparisons between this and Metra because they serve two very different purposes. The Metra is successful because traffic in Chicago is atrocious. I've had to drive through Chicago around rush hour and it literally makes you want to get out and walk. Driving thru Chicago can literally take longer than driving from Milwaukee to Madison on occasions. Taking the Metra to and from the Chicago suburbs saves loads of time and is more than likely going to be much cheaper than tickets to this new train. Also, a heck of a lot more people work in downtown Chicago than work in downtown Milwaukee or the Dane County Airport. Just sheer the population of the city and its surrounding suburbs means a lot more people are going to be taking the train. The fact the Metra is successful provides me with no relief that it will carry over to this new train. I see what you're trying to say....I think That people from Madison will come to work in Milwaukee just like people from the Chicago suburbs come to downtown Chicago to work. I just don't buy it. Downtown Milwaukee just doesn't have that much business, while Madison probably has more business than the Chicago suburbs meaning the demand on both fronts will be less. Its not worth the cost....not now.

Paul, again, I would love to see some of your independent calculations if you are going to accuse the planners who came up with this as being biased and their work absurd. Do you actually have any concept of how many people 22,000 a week is because its actually not very much. A suburban Metra station I am working on right now has 15,000 just during the work week. Obviously I have no engineering training, but I did get a B- in common sense in high school. Fist of all, if they haven't even determined where the train is going yet, how can they come up with an accurate estimate of ridership? Are they assuming that a stop in Madison is a stop in Madison, no matter where the stop actually is? Second, if they did this estimate based on the seemingly most common idea that its going to go to the Dane County Airport, I just can't imagine that many people going there every week. Again, not familiar with Madison at all but I believe I heard there really isn't much around there? Third, prices, to my knowledge, haven't been set yet and that will have a major affect on riders. People aren't going to pay $60 round trip every day. Finally, this idea has been very misleading from the get go with constant mentions of 110mph speeds. If they conducted studies/surveys based on that speed instead of the more accurate speed, those studies will also be flawed. Basically what I am saying is it's just my opinion that the numbers thrown out are the absolute rosiest of estimates based on 110mph speeds, cheap tickets, and convenient stops. I think the Metra will be much more popular than this train will be so even 15,000 a week may be high.

I'm sure the people that will have jobs in Wisconsin because of this aren't going to be complaining...you have to admit there are some benefits. I think it'd be foolish in a way to pass up the money until I know all the details. We don't know what the operating costs will exactly be and such. You might be upset in general that they're doing this, but I think that's a different topic than this specific location. You're absolutely right, and that is a benefit....but again, at what cost? Are the temporary construction plus the maintenance/conductor/train staff jobs worth $810 million? Who knows? But wouldn't there be a lot of similar jobs just by having Amtrak service Madison? My opinion on this is rather divided. Like Invader said, this seems like a real lousy and very rushed way to do this. The government is spending close to a billion dollars on a rail line that they didn't bother to really figure out how much use it will get. Those numbers thrown out earlier in this thread are absurd....something like 22,000 fares a week? Whoever came up with that number is obviously biased. I'd love to be able to hop on a train and get to Madison in 30-40 minutes but it's just not going to happen. I think once the initial "cool a new train" attitude wears off this system is going to be an enormous mistake. Our deficit this past year and these next two years are something like 3 times higher than any deficits in the history of our country. I'm just saying, is it so wrong to study this plan before you spend close to a billion dollars on it? Oh, and just an fyi to anyone not familiar with Milwaukee. As Tabbert said, taking this thing to Miller Park isn't very convenient at all. From Madison you'll either have to get off in Brookfield and take a bus or cab a good distance east on I94 (during rush hour most likely), or get off downtown and take a bus or cab west on I94. A trip on a bus from downtown to Miller Park around 5pm or so will cost you about 20-30 minutes. They should add a stop at State Fair Park during the summer for Brewers games.

Bruce you might know this. Would this new track use the same exact railroad lines that the Amtrak use, or would an entirely new system be built? The basics of the line from Chicago to Minn will be the same high speed or not. I think what a lot of people are missing is that both high speed or regular speed lines would be Amtrak lines I don't quite understand what you are saying. My point was this though. We already have lines from Chicago to Minneapolis, obviously, which Amtrak uses. What is so wrong with those lines that an entirely new system, one that really won't cut down travel time all that much, needs to be built? Wouldn't it just be easier (and cheaper) to build an Amtrak line to Madison from Milwaukee? If people need to go from Chicago to Madison, they can switch trains in Milwaukee. If they need to go from Chicago to Minneapolis, they can just use the existing lines. If Amtrak is so out of date and worthless, then the government should end all subsidies to it and it should simply go away. In that case, the lines should be updated to allow for trains that really are "high speed" and will have a significant impact on travel time. I'm talking Milwaukee to Chicago in 45 minutes. Chicago to Minneapolis in 4 hours. Milwaukee to Madison in half an hour....etc. That would be worth $810 million and I would definitely use it if I ever had to go to Minneapolis or Madison and wouldn't need a car.

96 is way too many teams. I know every year you have 4 or 5 teams that whine about not making the tournament. But let's face it, even if those teams did make it they'd be lucky to win the first game. Each year there are probably 6-7 teams that have a real good shot at winning it all, and every now and again you get a real shocker from a 5-8 seed. The tournament is perfect the way it is. There is no reason to water it down to the point where teams with records of 16-14 getting in.

I was actually hoping for either Nebraska or Texas. Nebraska doesn't bring much in terms of basketball, but what a great tradition-rich football program. Can you imagine watching Nebraska against Michigan, Ohio St and Penn St every year? Either way, with Pitt included, this is how I would set things up. Each team plays the five other teams in its own division. Thats 5 conference games. They play one team from the other division every year. Then they rotate between the remaining five teams in the other division every year to make up the final 2 conference games. I'd set up the divisions like this. Wisconsin Penn St Illinois Ohio St Northwestern Pitt Minnesota Indiana Michigan Purdue Michigan St Iowa Obviously Michigan--Ohio St could play every season. I just can't see a setup where the two most storied programs would never be able to meet in the conference championship game. Wisconsin could play Iowa every year. Michigan St-Penn St. and so on. I think it keeps the typical rivalries (Ohio St-Michigan, Michigan-MSU, Pitt-Penn St, Wisco-Minn, Indiana-Purdue, Illinois-NW) in play every year. Plus you dont have one dominant conference with Michigan, Penn St and Ohio St all in the same division.

Um, thats exactly what this is. The difference in cost between standard track and high speed rail will be extremely minimal. Are you saying that it would cost $810 million to add an Amtrak Route from Milwaukee to Madison? I can't imagine that to be the case.

So should Wisconsin just have said 'no' to the funding from the Feds? Yes. It's not free money. The Federal government is not going to keep paying for upgrades and other costs that fares don't cover and eventually Wisconsin taxpayers are going to have to foot the bill. Even if they do, people act like federal money isn't taxpayer money. That money comes from us, one way or the other. Its that kind of attitude that led to a soon to be $15 trillion debt (no offense). Of course it never should have gotten to this point. The Federal government never should have forced this down our throats when there were much better ways for the money to be used and would have created the same amount of jobs. Some of it could have been used to create a Milwaukee to Madison Amtrak route, for instance. Or instead the government could have used the money to start buying down the debt. A billion dollars is a billion dollars.

Now you said there is already a line from Chicago to the Twin Cities via MKE. That is true, but this would drasticly cut down travel time. It would also be much cheaper than flying obviously. And that is where the real need for this line comes from. Right now the Amtrak train ride from Chicago to Minneapolis takes about 8 hours and 15 minutes according the the timetable on their website, and that includes 9 stops in between. I couldn't find any info on how fast the Amtrak trains go but obviously the 9 stops takes up a good chunk of time. Distance wise Chicago to Milwaukee is about 83 miles, Milwaukee to Madison is about 72 miles and Madison to Minneapolis is about 241 miles, for a total about 396 miles. I am terrible at math and have no intention of figuring out how long exactly it would take to get there going at the estimated 75-80 mph the train will actually go, but lets just say somewhere around 5 hours. That doesn't include stops either. So really while there will be a reduction in travel time, its most likely not going to be that dramatic, maybe an hour or two, and certainly not dramatic enough to excuse the cost of the new service. In general I am not against rail. I am all for anything that gets more cars off the interstates, especially in the bigger cities. But right now the demand just isn't there, and the system being built is a bad system. Milwaukee to Chicago and Milwaukee to Madison just aren't far enough apart, distance wise, for the 200 mph trains to be used, and the trains they are going to use aren't that much of an upgrade over the ones we already have (that most people don't use). I would love to hop on a train in downtown Milwaukee and get off in Minneapolis 2 hours later, but that's not going to happen with these trains. It would be a great system for the West, traveling from Los Angeles to San Francisco to Portland to Seattle, where the distance in between the cities would allow for the real high speed trains and have a dramatic effect on travel time. Or it would be great for trains that cross the US, from Chicago to say, Denver or Houston. But when the stops are crammed together like they will be, and therefore speeds basically no faster than you would go in a car, I just don't see the point of spending so much money at a time when we have both the largest deficit and largest debt in the history of the country. For cities themselves, like Chicago, New York, LA, and so on, where traffic is at a standstill almost every day, trains can be a godsend. For travel between Milwaukee and Chicago, or Chicago and Madison via Milwaukee, not so much.

Who has mentioned traffic in Milwaukee Its not so much people mentioning traffic in Milwaukee, its people mentioning traffic in Chicago. And maybe the overall picture is a Chicago-Milwaukee-Madison-Minneapolis line, but this thread is specifically about Milwaukee to Madison and it's cost. I only mention Chicago because people keep bringing up how much trains are needed there because of the traffic. For instance: 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. And my reply to that is....traffic in Milwaukee is not like traffic in Chicago so the need here isn't the same. My other point in that post is we already have a line that can take you from Chicago to Minneapolis via Milwaukee so basically the only new route would be Milwaukee to Madison. So again, traffic from Milwaukee to Madison is not like Chicago where it can take you two hours just to get through the city. So while it IS needed in city of Chicago, it's not needed once you get out of the city.

Say gas is $3.50 a gallon ($28 round trip). Say gas gets up to $4.00 a gallon ($32 round trip) With all due respect gasoline isn't even close to this price now. If it ever does get to this price, there are plenty of other ways to driver it back down should we choose to. And for all of those using Chicago to prove your point, you need to stop. I've said it before and I will say it again. Milwaukee traffic isn't even close to as bad as Chicago traffic. In fact Milwaukee's drive/traffic is supposedly one the best in the entire country. However, if you insist on bringing up Chicago, I will ask this. If you are on a train now that works well for you and accomplishes what you need.....then why do we need to build a whole new system? You can take the Amtrak from Chicago to Milwaukee to Minneapolis. Why not just simply add an Amtrak route to Madison instead of spending $823 million dollars on a "high speed" line that is going to go probably no more than 10 mph faster than a car? Its just a big waste and its going to cost us millions of dollars every single year.