Over the weekend I was in Chicago spending time with family. "So what's new in Madison?" I was asked. Blah blah blah. A couple relatives were very dismayed that Feingold was booted out of office. And of course the news that the extension of Amtrak's Hiawatha line to Madison had been 86'd came up. My mother chimed in saying that she wasn't sure the train was such a good idea. "People in Wisconsin don't ride trains," was her opinion after having lived in west central Wisconsin for 3 years back in the 1980s. Here are two things to consider about this statement:
1) No most don't because the vast majority of people in Wisconsin live in an area not served by rail.
2) People in Wisconsin do ride trains, i.e. – those who have some rail service. The most current numbers I have from the WI DOT show things going well for the Hiawatha line.
Ridership totaled 67,900 – a record high for the month of October during the entire history of the service. Through the first 10 months of this year, 654,483 passengers have utilized the Hiawatha Service – an increase of over 7% compared to the same period last year. Hiawatha ridership for 2010 is on pace to set a new calendar year ridership record of around 800,000 passengers
Given a rail service that runs with some frequency and that maintains a nearly 90% on-time rating, people from southeastern Wisconsin quite unsurprisingly ride the train.
The other Amtrak route that serves Wisconsin is the Empire Builder. More people ride that route than any other of Amtrak's long distance runs.
So yes, mom, people in Wisconsin do ride trains.
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On a train-related note, I saw a comment by "Bill Richardson" at one of David Blaska's recent blog posts. I presume this is the same Bill Richardson who has lobbied against rail here in Madison. Regarding the news that Jonathan Barry will not be running for Dane County Executive, Richardson wrote of Barry:
He, got the County a AAA bond rating during stagflation times, Falk screwed the pooch on that, dealt with the unions fairly when he was County Exec, He has been a UW Regent, runs a Fresh start program for troubled youth, Matc board member, has run many SUCCESSFUL biz as opposed to the above Quintet of Trough feeders.
Let me get this straight. A retired professor of music at the UW is labeling some politicos "trough feeders". As if he didn't have his gaping maw in the public trough during his tenure at a public university. Hey, didn't John Galt teach trombone too? This is the same guy who endorses using black people as the boogeyman when going after the RTA and rail. ("we don't want Cabrini Green!") He's a real class act.
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