by jboullion | Nov 3, 2008 | Uncategorized
From a column by State Senator Dale Schultz:
As Wisconsin employers increasingly turn to our state’s rail roads to get their goods to a global market, state residents and communities enjoy the benefits of keeping jobs here, cleaner air from less truck emissions, and safer roads with less truck traffic.
Those benefits make our state owned railroad system a great investment and explain why I believe, despite a tough fiscal climate, we should increase funding to preserve the infrastructure of our public rail system in the next state budget.
Our public railroad system, which serves numerous communities, has been a great benefit by helping employers compete in the global market and keep family supporting jobs in Wisconsin.
The system also helps many villages and cities with their community development goals by generating increased tax revenues as employers invest in plant expansions and equipment.
In the past two years, in just the region I represent as a state senator, our public rail system has led to new jobs and tax base through major projects in Boscobel, Reedsburg and Rock Springs. For numerous state communities, rail service has been an essential asset to save jobs and create new jobs.
As rail shipping replaces thousands of truck trips, our roads last longer, our carbon footprint shrinks and we all breathe cleaner air.
The state helps communities and rail shippers save freight rail service through its Freight Rail Preservation Program. FRPP grants fund up to 80 percent of projects to rehabilitate tracks and bridges on public rail lines, buy essential rail lines so they aren’t abandoned, and save rail corridors for future rail service and sometimes as recreational trails in the interim.
While freight rail traffic is growing in Wisconsin, FRPP funding is falling far short of the needs. In the current state budget, FRPP funds met less than ten percent of the needs, forcing delays of badly needed projects on public owned rail lines. Since 1992, most FRPP funding went to add rail lines to our public system as a last resort to avoid loss of rail service for communities.
by jboullion | Jun 25, 2008 | Uncategorized
From an Associated Press story on Channel 7 WSAW:
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Amtrak says its passenger train service between Milwaukee and Chicago continues to set ridership records.
It says more than 64,000 passengers used the trains in May, another all-time monthly record.
For the first five months of the year, the seven daily Hiawatha Service round trips carried more than 281,000 passengers. Amtrak says that’s a 24 percent increase over last year.
by jboullion | Jun 16, 2008 | Uncategorized
From an editorial in The Capital Times (Madison):
The impossible happened this week — the U.S. Senate and House voted overwhelmingly to fully fund Amtrak for the next five years. There’s even some matching money to help states set up or expand rail service.
It’s amazing what four-buck-a-gallon gas will do.
Amtrak’s funding package even got the votes of some of its biggest critics, like Florida Republican Rep. John Mica, who admitted for the first time that Americans need some transportation choices.
“Nothing could be more fitting to bring before Congress today, on a day when gasoline has reached $4.05 a gallon across the United States on average,” he announced on the floor.
The two houses need to patch over some minor differences in the bills they passed, but Amtrak backers are confident that won’t be any trouble.
The biggest trouble, though, may still come from the White House. President Bush, who has attempted to dismantle the national rail system throughout his presidency, has pledged to veto the bill. Fortunately, both the House and Senate passed the funding by veto-proof margins. Unless Republicans switch because they don’t want to “embarrass” their president, Bush’s veto will be moot.
Frankly, the president should be embarrassed. His stand on public transportation has marginalized him on the issue. He continues to insist that Amtrak should be dismantled and pieces of it turned over to private companies to run short-line routes. That might work in highly urbanized areas, but without government subsidies the vast expanse of America would be left with no rail service of any kind.
But Bush has been far from alone. There has long been a mind-set against subsidizing rail transportation. Politicians from both sides of the aisle have never had trouble subsidizing the building of more and bigger highways and underwriting the cost of airports and sleek terminals, but when it came to rail, they sang a different tune.
Had we adequately funded Amtrak so that it could have improved trackage in congested areas and run more than one train a day between big cities like Chicago and Minneapolis, for example, the country would today have a reasonable alternative to $4gas and gridlocked and unreliable airports. We might even have had rail service to Madison. . . .
