RobertR

I don't know if you've looked at a map lately, but there's no direct interstate link between Madison and Chicago. You can take I-90 via Rockford to Chicago or I-94 via Milwaukee to Chicago. Or you can wind your way over county and state highways. As far as I can tell, there's no significant difference in distance. They're planning, page 81 of the appendices, on right around 3 hours for the trip from Madison to Chicago through 2015 and around 2:45 after that. During rush hour. Edit: FWIW, I pulled up one of those internet map services and came up with a current drive time between downtown Madison and downtown Chicago of 3 hours and 7 minutes. Robert

1. Yeah, I agree that trucks do a lot more damage than cars. That said, there aren't a lot of practical options for getting trucks off the road. Presumably not air or water. Now, my understanding is that you can manage air pressure in tires to limit the damage from trucks, so that's something to consider for the next generation of trucks. Good news is that rail is one viable option for hauling freight. And the upgrades to the line should make moving freight between Milwaukee and Madison more viable as well. Freight is included in the plan. Really, there are three prongs; Hiawatha extended to Madison, freight, and the Empire Builder. The first one gets all the attention, the effect on the third is probably minimal, but the middle isn't insignificant. 2. People don't necessarily have to drive into Milwaukee to get to the station. There are stations to the south like Sturtevant and stations to the west like Brookfield, Oconomowoc, and Watertown. I can see it being very attractive to catch the train in Brookfield and take it to the airport bypassing three interchanges on the way and not paying for parking. Now, to the north that's an issue, although a Green Bay link is in the planning stages. 3. I agree that it's tough to forecast demand 30 years out. At the same token, a transportation option that allows one to work electronically and travel makes a lot of sense too. There's a give and take here. Robert

I'm just going to stop and sum up what I like and don't like about the plan. Likes 1. The general idea of upgrading existing track to modern standards is a good one. The track, bridges, box culverts, signalling, etc. identified in the report are out of date with modern standards. These rails are already used and will need the upgrade soon anyways. This is more akin to rebuilding the Marquette/Zoo interchange than adding a lane that might not be necessary. You're going to replace these bridges and box culverts before they collapse anyways. 2. The basic design included in the service plan and preliminary engineering plan appears sound. They've identified the work that needs to be done and done plenty of preliminary design work. And identified what else needs to be done. The route is identified in detail and shown very well in plan and profile. I can't comment on the rail traffic modeling, but I've little reason to doubt it. There doesn't appear to be too many unknowns. 3. Expanding one of the more successful lines seems like a sound strategy to me. The strategy of using Chicago as an anchor station makes a ton of sense. I think ignoring that it's a Chicago to Madison train, via Milwaukee, is really doing the plan a disservice. Milwaukee is a midpoint in the plan, not an endpoint. 4. Madison and the suburbs to Milwaukee, GMA, and Chicago seem like good destinations in one direction. And, GMA, Milwaukee, and Madison seem like good destinations in the other direction. 5. There's very little reason to doubt that they can build the project within budget. There's a lot built into the budget for inflation and contingency. They've been building railroads since the 1800s. 6. From a strategic point of view, adding a rail connection to the second most populous city in Wisconsin, home of the Capitol and UW, makes a ton of sense. After Milwaukee, it's the next most logical destination in the whole state. And it's in a sweet spot where you can make the case that it's better to take the train to Chicago, and vice versa, than to drive or fly from time and cost. 7. They go into good detail into the incidental benefits they think the plan will accrue and their reasoning. 8. It will add a significant amount of jobs during a recession. And the project can be built quickly so that the taxpayer can begin to take advantage of it soon. There should be little disruption in the meantime. Dislikes 1. The ridership estimates are given in very little detail in the report. I want to see more. How many do they expect from Madison to Chicago a week? Madison to GMA? Madison to Milwaukee? And vice versa. Same for the other stops. And what's the fee from getting from Brookfield to GMA? Is it competitive with parking costs? I've broken it down and they really don't need much ridership per additional station to meet their goals, but that still doesn't mean that every station is necessary. 2. There are ways to save money on this project that haven't been explored yet. Performing some rock corings for instance. 3. It's better to be too conservative than to underestimate costs, but fat in budgets tends to get eaten up. Or to not encourage innovative cost engineering. 4. Fares still have a pretty big cost range. I want more specifics. 5. The location of the Madison station is addressed in a pretty lackluster fashion. What are the pros and cons? Costs? 6. $810 million is a big upfront fee. Do all the stations need to be built at once? What's the benefit to that vs. building the Madison Station and Brookfield Station in 2012, the Watertown Station in 2015, and the Oconomowoc Station in 2018, for instance? Or any combination? 7. The engineering is so conservative that I think it does the plan a disservice. Overengineering a project design isn't necessarily a good thing. That's tieing up money that could be used for other things. There's an opportunity cost to that, even if the plan itself comes in under budget. 8. It still won't turn a profit and the plan doesn't really lay out what the goals the line needs to reach to break even. Robert

I think the next round is managerial tactics. Teaching them a different version of "the book". Or maybe sending them a good game simulator for their gaming system and have them play a thousand games in the offseason. Ned Yost might still have a managerial job if he had been more interested in Stratomatic than Nascar. Related to that might be, how to get the most mileage out of your bullpen. There's got to be a better system than our best reliever only comes in in the ninth when we have a three run lead or less. Robert

Hiawatha is also the most successful line in the midwest. And the 9th busiest in the nation. If you're going to work on expanding service in the Midwest, it's the line to work off of. I still think that the fact that it's a direct connection to Chicago is largely being overlooked as a source of passengers and a destination. Robert

The Deep Tunnel project does precisely what it was designed to do. It's the politicians who oversold what it would accomplish.There never was a civil engineer who claimed that it would eliminate all overflows for every quantitity of rainfall. The design was that it would reduce overflows from nearly every time it rained, about 60 times a year, down to about 6. It accomplished precisely that, but the politicians claimed that it would reduce overflows to zero, so therefore the system "failed" in the minds of the public. Which is precisely why you shouldn't let politicians talk about engineering. They'll claim it some wonder fix or that it's completely useless when the truth almost always is somewhere in the middle. The number of true civil engineering failures, such as the Minnesota bridge collapse, are extremely rare in this country. Most of the "failures" are failures of perception. It's also relevant to point out that nobody ever talks about the cost of separating the combined sewers. Which would involve tearing up every street, redoing every connection to every building, and rebuilding every sewer in the combined sewer area. Anybody want to guess the cost and amount of disruption that would cause? Or the complexity of doing that in the middle of a fully formed city with a complex network of existing underground utilities? Or how long it would take? In terms of concepts and actual constructability, the Deep Tunnel is remarkably simple, fast to build, and straightforward and caused very little disruption to the population. Which isn't to say that it's a perfect project or one without flaws, the downtown section should have been lined to prevent leaks, but there's a very good case that it was and is the best practical approach to the problem. BTW, the high speed rail project is not a light rail system. This is Amtrak. It's the Chicago - Milwaukee Hiawatha line extended all the way to Madison. A train will start in Chicago and go all the way to Madison and vice versa. No train changing, no delays besides loading and unloading, one train ride. This is part of the Chicago commuter rail system, which it seems really hasn't sunk in. Also, I don't see private firms building roads on their own either. Or airports. Or harbors. Things where central planning prevents things like redundancy or areas getting bypassed. Robert

24% is a pretty large number. Granted, it's a big project, but there are a lot of known quantities. The miles of rail. The square feet of station. The number of structures that will need replacement. Yeah, some structures will end up costing more, but they're not going to be 24% over on every mile of track. Not unless steel gets very expensive in the next few years. Heck, the ridership estimate is pretty conservative. Working it out, it's basically 20 people per new stop per one way trip. As usual, the DOT skimped on the geotechnical investigation some. No rock cores for the land bridges is going to lead to a conservative preliminary design. A couple of rock corings during the final design phase could lead to substantial savings. And because it's up for competitive bid don't be at all surprised when it comes in at a lower cost. Heck, the numbers are public, so if you want the job you start with the public budget and start figuring out where you can save money in order to actually outbid other contractors. So, this is a very conservative report. It's better to err on the conservative side than to underestimate costs, but there are opportunity costs for a too conservative estimate. No one is sticking their neck out on this report promising more than can be delivered. Robert

Yeah, it's the spin not the report that's at issue. BTW, there are $158 million in incidentals/contingencies/inflation in the budget for the plan. Frankly, that's an absurd amount, almost 25% of the base budget. I'll criticize the report for being too conservative in budgeting. That's butt-covering. Yeah, noone will second guess them when the project comes in under budget, but it's making it a much harder sell in the first place. I'll note, from the report, with 338,000 in incremental increase for 6 round trips daily, i.e.12 total, 6 in each direction, that is based on an average of 77 passengers per train on the Madison-Milwaukee portion. That doesn't seem unreasonable to me with the airport and downtown Chicago being destinations/sources. Robert

TCM's "31 Days of Oscar". One of the best months of programming of any cable channel of the year. And probably the best case that the Academy Awards actually do have merit. Robert

Making declarations without being able to back them up, with no expertise in the field, is the part of talk radio that I'm talking about, not left wing/right wing. The report's out there in the public. And, it's engineering, so it's based in math and scientific models. So, a challenge to anyone that thinks they know more than the engineers, point out the math errors and scientific fallacies with specifics. I respect it when people point out specific errors and actually debate policy. What should be the mix of highway/rail/air? How much is too much in operating costs? etc. But, frankly, I think the critics accusing the report of bias are full of hot air. Math isn't biased. Science isn't biased. If there's a significant error in the report, the scientific method applies. Disprove it by more than opinion. The report clearly lays out what it will cost to construct and run the line. And the error in that is? Frankly, I think the report overestimates the construction cost as it's packed full of contingency. Laying rail and building buildings aren't exactly unknown quantities. You can estimate the cost of a mile of track and a building on a square foot basis pretty easily. And the report lays out the rationale for estimating the benefits. And the error is? Heck, considering that they can build this project relatively quickly, getting it off the ground before the zoo interchange reconstruction makes a lot of sense. That's a benefit right there that's not included in the report. Frankly, I trust that there aren't math or science errors. The report is based on the idea of what it would cost to connect Madison to the Hiawatha Line extended and what are the benefits and it answers those questions. It may not answer the larger policy questions or other questions, but it answers the limited questions that were put to it. Robert

The train is going through the City either way. The question is whether they put the station near 1st St & Pennsylvania Ave or by the airport. There's no real gain in speed. And, whether you're at the airport or downtown, you still have to travel through the isthmus to get to the Capitol and UW. There's really not going to be a savings in time for those travelers or an alleviation of traffic. I would presume that a downtown station would have the same intermodal model as the airport. Just with the airport being one of the destinations. But, on a daily basis, I can't imagine the airport being a more popular end point for commuters to Madison than the Capitol or UW. I know several people are pushing for 2 stops. Downtown and the airport. Unless one of those is a very stripped down station, I don't know how much sense that makes. Robert

It bothers me that people can state with authority that they know more than the engineers. Who actually did studies and documented them. Without a hint of self doubt. What is this, talk radio? I'll make a small point for perspective. The State's transportation budget for 2010 is $2.7 billion for the coming year. In any given year, $15 million is less than 1% of the State's transportation budget. It's a pittance. Especially when Illinois will likely be paying for a good chunk of it. Repaving a 10 mile stretch of 2 lane, each way, interstate costs more than that. You start extending pavement life, you save money. The breakeven point is when you can put off repaving one small stretch a year. Cutting down on the demand for petroleum doesn't hurt the pocket either. Robert

Looking over the plan some more, I feel strongly that the downtown Madison station is the more attractive of the two alternatives. The pros of the airport station are that a) it's an actual destination, the downtown station just drops you off at the east end of the isthmus and you'll need another form of transport to get to the Capitol and UW and b) there's parking at the airport. I presume it's also the cheaper alternative to construct. That's all well and good, but I feel strongly that if the line is going to be a success it needs to be attractive to Chicago travelers. And Twin Cities travelers. And what's the attractiveness of going from Chicago to the Dane County Airport as opposed to something closer to your real destination? Yeah, the airport is only about 2.3 miles further down the line, but that's likely another 5 to 10 minutes of travel that seems unnecessary. Especially when you're backtracking which is sure to be psychologically irritating. Run a shuttle from the station to the airport. And maybe in 10 to 20 years, when the Twin Cities connection is made, consider an airport station. Robert

In general, I don't think this is being designed around sporting events/concerts. And, I imagine the rush of people from these trains is going to clear a pretty substantial path where they coincide. I do think it's worth pointing out that this isn't a choice between $810 million and $0. The Chicago/Milwaukee/Twin Cities route will be improved to keep up with modern demands. That's going to cost 100s of millions too. The choice is $810 million with Madison connected to Chicago and the Twin Cities or some large number with no benefit to Madison. And probably higher operating costs with one of the prime destinations/source of passengers removed. Robert

Not that good. 5217 gallons a day X 7 days / 22500 passengers a week = 1.6 gallons / passenger. Offset some by freight. Looking over the proposed schedules, it doesn't look like the idea of seeing something in Milwaukee and catching the late night train back to Madison is feasible. Last train scheduled to depart Milwaukee for Madison is 6:38 pm. Last train departing Madison is 6:53 pm. Obviously the schedule isn't set in stone and might change on the weekend, but I wouldn't be making these train plans yet. This is being designed around rush hour as an alternative. This is obviously being set up for the business traveler primarily. Go to a meeting/airport and return. Robert

You're misreading the report. That fuel consumption is for the Empire Builder (which goes all the way out to Seattle) and freight. The tipoff in that paragraph should be when they talk about existing service. They talk about daily fuel consumption of 5,217 gallons for the 6-train service later in the paragraph. And that train route is from Chicago to Madison. Robert

I agree the farther you have to travel, the less sense rail makes. That said, I'm looking at the schedules, page 81 of the appendices, and here are what I think are the attractive routes. Basically intermediate distances, too long to drive, too short to fly. Madison to Chicago - approximately 3 hours (Certainly faster than you can drive, especially during rush hour. Depending on where you're going in Chicago, probably faster then you can fly.) Presumably Madison to the Twin Cities will eventually have a similar time. Milwaukee to Chicago - about 1 and 1/2 hours (Definitely faster than you can drive. Or fly with checkin.) Watertown to Milwaukee Airport - about 1 hour Watertown to Chicago - about 2 hours 15 minutes Oconomowoc to Milwaukee Airport - about 45 minutes Oconomowoc to Chicago - about 2 hours Brookfield to Milwaukee Airport - about 1/2 hour Brookfield to Chicago - about 1 hour 45 minutes Obviously pricing matters, but those times look like good alternatives to me. While something like Watertown to Madison doesn't make much sense. Except for perhaps the business traveler. Get dropped off at a train station near the house and ride to an airport from there. Edit: Actually, you should do better than that on most of those as I believe the schedules are based on departure times. Departure to arrival should be shorter. Robert

Usually I try to see all the Best Picture nominees. Heck, for the most part, they are generally very good pictures. It's not going to happen this year with 10 nominees. So far, I've seen The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Up, Up in the Air, and District 9. And I am going to try to see A Serious Man and Avatar in the next month. I missed an opportunity to see An Education, although my understanding is that Carey Mulligan is the best part of the movie. I'd like to see Precious at some point. Can't say that I have all that much interest in The Blind Side. Robert

FYI, Page 81 of the Appendices has a sample schedule. As is usual, that's where the guts of the report is. After glancing through it, I'm fairly comfortable with the operating estimates. Heck, it's not hard to figure out how much it costs to run a train. I'm sure Amtrak has plenty of information on that. I'm still looking for the ridership estimates which I do think bear careful scrutinty. Edit: The capital cost budget starts on page 217 of the appendices. It's fat with contingency. They really should be able to come in below budget. Robert

Frankly, for some buildings and rail lines, I don't know why we wouldn't trust those estimates. They're not building a rocket to Mars, just upgrading and building existing systems. Considering the engineering challenges of the Marquette including working in the middle of the city, scheduling demolition of structures for specific dates, etc. this should be a relatively straight forward project in comparison. One of the things that came along with the digital / computer revolution were much better databases for calculating how much it will cost to build something. There's a reason that the Marquette Interchange came in under budget. For building this project, I trust the $800 million quite a bit. I wouldn't argue that too much. Considering that the project will be competitively bid, I expect the actual cost to come in under it. WDOT isn't much for change orders. I do think it would be prudent to pay attention to their ridership estimates and how they derived those numbers. I don't think those numbers are at all beyond the range of possiblity, they're basically assuming only about 2/3rds of capacity on average or about 270 passengers a trip, but of course the devil is in the details. And I haven't delved that deeply into the guts of the report yet. But, first glance indicates that it's a more than competent report. Robert

According to the report: I'm going to stop linking but most of the answers to the basic questions are in the report and what they see as the benefits. Also, looking through the other reports, I'd expect some side by side sections to accomodate more than one train at a time. Robert

So, what are you arguing here? That artificial walls in the budget make no sense if they end up costing the taxpayers more in the long run? I think it's a fair question if we've reached the point of diminishing returns on roads or not. I don't know the answer to that, but I think absolutely looking at a road budget and a rail budget as opposed to a transportation budget doesn't make sense in the long run. I'm going to have to sit down and look over the report thoroughly. One of the things that jumps out at me is two stations in Waukesha County. And apparently phasing in Brookfield, Oconomowoc, and Watertown at the same time. I think the idea of hubs in the route makes a lot of sense in the big picture, but would it perhaps make more sense to phase them in differently? Say, build the Brookfield and Watertown stations right away and the Oconomowoc station in 3 or 4 years? Or vice versa? And where are they putting the Madison station? I do absolutely think that linking Madison to the larger passenger rail network is long overdue. And I think if you live in Madison you should be all for it. Robert

And all fees and taxes will cover the railway maintenance costs. The basic point is that there's no free lunch. And, roads aren't cheap to build and maintain. That's why we have gas taxes, licensing fees, etc. But, I think the main point is that you have to look at transportation on a holistic basis. I'm sure if you broke it down by roads, some roads would run at a deficit of benefit to cost. The idea is to figure rail into the equation and what are the benefits. Yeah, it would be great if rail broke even based on ridership and fares. However, if you lose $15 million on rail, but save $30 million in road and bridge maintenance and building costs, you still come out ahead. And that's a good deal for the taxpayer. That's a win/win, if the report is accurate. More options and less overall cost. Robert

This is an extension of Amtrak service. It's Hiawatha extended. With suburban station hubs. Here, from the first paragraph of the report, which I highly encourage people to read. Again, I think it's really important to look at the overall view of the plan. The idea isn't just to create a glorified trolley with two end points. They're creating a modern interstate railway. I haven't read the report in depth, but there's nothing glaring that jumps out at me as a completely unfounded or overly optimisitic assumptions. My main concern would be the location of the Madison station from preventing the plan from really flourishing. The other stations appear to make sense, but a station that's not really close to the Capitol and UW is a strike against the plan, IMO. Robert

I just want to interject one point. Roads run at a deficit as we're discussing here. A huge one. There's a reason we don't have private roads. And that's part of the point, to divert some of the ridership from roads to rail. To spend $800 million to save probably in excess of $3 billion to run a third lane to Madison, along with added maintenance costs. Robert