We Keep Laying That Blacktop

James Rowen had a blog post yesterday in which he noted that the first $300 million of stimulus money that comes Wisconsin's way will be highway projects.

Those of us in Dane County can expect some bridges to be painted and $40,170,000 devoted to expanding I94 from 4 to 6 lanes. (I've written about widening I94 previously.) Rowen is very much in favor of public transportation, especially for southeastern Wisconsin and he questions whether the next $300 million will go to public transportation.

While Wisconsin's urban centers seem unlikely to get money from Doyle for public transportation, rural areas were given nearly $2.5 million in grants last month.

Governor Jim Doyle has approved 11 grants totaling $2,409,061 for projects that will help non-urbanized areas develop or expand public transportation. The grants will provide incentives to expand existing rural public transit systems, and to plan or start up new ones.

Regular bus service from Hayward to Couderay, anyone?

Also on the bright side is news that Amtrak's Hiawatha line, which runs between Milwaukee and Chicago, set a new ridership record last year:

A total of 766,167 passengers boarded Amtrak Hiawatha Service trains between Milwaukee and Chicago during 2008 - a new calendar year record - and a 24% increase over the old record of 617,799 set in 2007. The Hiawatha finished the year strong - ridership for December of 2008 totaled 62,935 - a nearly 6% increase over the same month in 2007.

So when is Madison going to get an Amtrak stop? Maybe, if it happens, the Packers could be convinced to play a home game in Milwaukee again. That might give incentive to people to try out the train who might otherwise never give it a thought. That and I know many geeks who'd love to hit the rails and head to the Twin Cities for some midwinter gaming.

On a related note, I'm confused. Badger Bus announced last month that it was going to ditch its terminal downtown and develop the land with retail and luxury apartments. Badger Bus service would be re-rigged and would include service from a transit hub at the new Union South, when it is completed.
But, as Jay Rath, discovered, the new union won't have a transit hub.

So what happened?

I also found Alderman Mike Verveer's comments a bit disconcerting: "It would be a nice addition to the Downtown on a prime piece of real estate that's currently underutilized. But one of my concerns is, will inter-city service be maintained?"

In preliminary discussions, Badger Bus suggested the prospect of a depot in the Park Street area, but it's unclear if that options is still under consideration, Verveer said.

Is any bus depot or public transportation facility in a downtown area an example of land being underutilized? Or just this particular one? Verveer's comment sounds like NUMBYism to me. "We can maintain inter-city bus service but have the depot down on Park Street and out of my district? Perfect."

If an inter-city passenger rail station were planned for prime downtown real estate, would Verveer come down against it because it underutilized the land?