Before the Motor Law

I've been doing a little reading about the draconian measures being taken to get the Chicago Transit Authority and its suburban counterpart PACE on budget. Plans call for two rounds of cuts and fare increases which will result in the elimination of "roughly 20% of all service and 53% of all bus routes, leaving most areas of the city as much as a half a mile away from the nearest bus." The most simplistic explanation is that the state will not adequately fund the CTA and thusly the cuts. Considering that the Chicago metro area which is served by the public transportation services looking at steep budget cuts account for about three quarters of the state's population, I am forced to wonder how it all came down to this. Here in our state, our biggest city, Milwaukee, is wrestling with a budget and Milwaukee Transit is looking at fare increases and the elimination of routes as well. Considering our efforts here in Madison/Dane County to introduce light rail, I have to ask: where is the money to pay for, expand, and maintain it going to come from?.

I'm sure that the budgets of the two states have some mitigating differences and so the situation in Illinois is not an exact replica of the situation here in Wisconsin. Still, the Chicago metro area has about three quarters of the population of Illinois, while our two biggest metro areas, Milwaukee and Madison, combined don't account for even half of Wisconsin's population which is in itself less than half of Illinois'. I feel compelled to ask how is it that, if Chicago and its environs are unable to get adequate funding, why do we here in Madison think a light rail system would not just be a complete drain on our budget? My understanding is that the Feds will help get it built but that operating costs aren't their problem. Is it right to make outlying communities who don't want to fund light rail here underwrite it? We don't even fund our bus system here in Madison well enough so how can we expect light rail to be a financially viable option?

Being in a transportation frame of mind, I have found some interesting bits.

I think it would be nice if we had Amtrak service here in Madison. I am pleased to see that the Hiawatha line which runs between Milwaukee and Chicago set a record (PDF) this past August for the highest monthly total of passengers in the line's history and looks to set an annual record this year as well. The Hiawatha "currently boasts the best on-time performance of any Amtrak route in the nation" which goes to show that, if done right, people will travel by rail. In fact, I'd love to take a train up to the Twin Cities or down to Chicago. It would even be great for day trips to Milwaukee which is giving its Marquette Interchange a $800+ million overhaul.

With this area's increasing population we'll surely need more ways to move more people more quickly. At the moment, this is going to happen via automobile. If all goes according to schedule, the summer of 2009 will see I94 expanded to six lanes between the Badger Interchange (that's where I39/90/94 and Highway 30 all meet) and County N at the cost of $35-$40 million dollars. Try driving north from Cottage Grove on N as I did this past weekend and see all of the subdivisions. Ugly as they may be, they are there as is a business park at the I94-N intersection. Also I believe there are still plans to make I39/90 six lanes from the Illinois border to Madison. Not only are more folks from the Chicago area going north to vacation, but more people from as far south as Rockford are working here in Madison and making their daily commute on the interstate.

How long before Highway 51 is widened?

However green the Dane County Airport may be, the cars that will fill the new 1,240 stall parking ramp certainly won't be environmentally friendly. Perhaps new stalls are needed because there's only 1 bus route that goes to the airport and it doesn't operate on weekends or holidays. Plus it only goes between the north transfer point and the airport. Wanna get there from downtown or campus easily? Take a cab. At least we have some hybrid buses now.

I read somewhere that trains leave Berlin for Brussels, a trip of about 300 miles, every hour. By contrast, we have trains going from Milwaukee to Minneapolis - what? - a couple times a day? We - the Big Collective We - have opted for the automobile and I don't see that changing here in Madison anytime soon.