Kent Palmer's Folly

Kent Palmer of Madison Magazine recently strayed from his usual subject of beer to rail in a post called "Training Wheels". While I’m sympathetic to his general cause, I found the post to be highly misleading.

After an encomium to Chicago and its transit systems, Mr. Palmer describes a recent trip he took on one of Chicagoland's Metracommuter trains. It was so good that he is forced to declare:

Commuter trains would be a boon to Madison and other communities tied into the rail line.

When I turned 21 and could bar hop, I lived in Chicago. Buses, subways and elevated trains were a Saturday night salvation, a ‘safe’ ride home from the brewhouse…

Even though one can’t drink on a Metro bus -- or a mythical Madison commuter train -- if one behaves reasonably, Dane County regional commuter rail and mass transit could be an option to get people safely home after bartime.

It is completely disingenuous to sings the praises of a commuter train and then turn around and talk about the need for trains in Madison to haul the inebriated around. Metra commuter trains are not for people who get drunk downtown and need a ride back to their apartments in Bucktown; they are for people who work downtown (or elsewhere in the city) and need to get there and back to their homes in places like Palatine. Check out the Wikipedia entry on commuter rail. Commuter trains have big double-decker cars and are pulled by multiple big, loud diesel locomotives. They are not run in places like down the middle of East Washington here in Madison. Such trains are for getting people like my friend The Polack from his home in Edgerton to his job at The Wisconsin Club, not shuttling drunks from State to Willy Street.

In addition, comparisons to Chicago are inherently unfair. For starters, the metro area down there has, as Mr. Palmer notes nearly 12 million people while Madison is at the center of an urban area of around 350,000 people, with a metro area perhaps closer to half a million. Mr. Palmer notes a bit of the history of Chicago but fails to note that much of that history includes rail transportation. Rail infrastructure has been a part of the Windy City for ages. The El is nearly 100 years old. While Madison and Chicago may be in similar circumstances with regards to burgeoning sub- and exurbs, the scales are vastly different. Chicago is able to address this issue from a far different position in terms of existing rail infrastructure than Madison.

The only city in the U.S. of Madison's size that has a rail system is Salt Lake City. In 2000, it had a population of 178,858 people. However, the urban area at that time was home to 887,650 and the number jumps to over 1 million for the metropolitan area. Let's face it, Madison has neither the population nor population density to support rail. To be sure, public transportation is not about making profit, but it's also not about being a money pit either. Mr. Palmer is wrong to characterize Madison in this case as a petulant teen that refuses to grow up. This is not an issue about age but rather about size.

People who promote light/commuter rail for Madison love to talk about feeder bus routes. We won't fund our current bus system adequately yet they think there's going to be all this money growing on trees, not only to install highly expensive rail systems, but for new buses and routes to accommodate train stops. It's going to take more than some new malls and brewpubs along the routes to pay for rail here.

Believe you me, I'm not anti-rail nor against public transportation generally. Trains are part of our country's mythology as Los Lobos noted in "Everybody Love a Train" and just yesterday I wrote a post calling for Congress to help out Amtrak. Like Mr. Palmer, I used to live in Chicago and the El and Big Green Limousines were part of my daily life. (Although I haven't taken commuter rail down there since it was the Northwestern.) Here in Madison, I take the bus to work and on my treks downtown.

People concerned about public transportation should stop unfairly contrasting Madison with Chicago because Madison is not Chicago. Instead let's promote improvements in the Metro bus system. Park'n'Rides and express routes are needed to attract riders and reduce traffic. If the state wants to spend our money on rail and procure funding from the Feds for the same purpose, then it should direct it at Milwaukee with a metro population of around 2 million people and an ailing bus system.