by jboullion | Nov 10, 2010 | Uncategorized
From an article by Jason Stein in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Madison – Milwaukee business leaders are showing little public opposition to Governor-elect Scott Walker’s plans to stop a Milwaukee to Madison passenger rail line while some business leaders in Madison are trying to revive the $810 million federally funded project.
One reason for that difference: Milwaukee already has the successful Amtrak Hiawatha line connecting the city to the Midwest business powerhouse of Chicago while Madison residents would need the Milwaukee line to have a rail connection to the Windy City.
Tim Sheehy, president of the Milwaukee Metropolitan Association of Commerce, said that his members are much more focused on seeing what Walker can do to balance the state budget, lower or hold down taxes and refocus Wisconsin’s strategy to grow businesses. Supporting the passenger rail line – or actively opposing the newly elected governor on the issue – just isn’t a priority, he said.
“Quite frankly, our focus was on ensuring that we had that (Hiawatha) connection to Chicago for lots of reasons. (The Madison line has) been more of a nice-to-have discussion than a need-to-have discussion in the business community in southeastern Wisconsin,” Sheehy said Wednesday. “In a sense, why beat a dead train?”
But in Madison, business leaders do see more of a benefit to the connection to Chicago. The Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce has gone on record supporting the project.
Kevin Conroy, president and chief executive officer of the Madison biotech company Exact Sciences Corp., has been seeking to revive support for the passenger rail line. Conroy is no stranger to politics – he briefly considered running for governor last year as a Democrat before bowing out to let Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett run unopposed.
by jboullion | Nov 10, 2010 | Uncategorized
From an editorial in the La Crosse Tribune:
The Tribune’s endorsement of Scott Walker for governor included this sentence: “We think Walker is absolutely wrong about high-speed rail … and he needs to understand that he’ll be the governor of the entire state, not just Milwaukee County.”
Gov.-elect Walker, we still think you’re absolutely wrong.
You said Monday that you don’t anticipate anything that will change your mind, but we suggest an overriding issue that should serve as the tipping point: If money leaves the pockets of Wisconsin taxpayers and goes to the state of New York to build high-speed rail and create jobs and commerce, it’s a lousy deal for Wisconsin.
During the campaign, Walker assured everyone that Wisconsin could take the federal money designated for extending high-speed rail from Milwaukee to Madison — more than $800 million — and use it for other infrastructure improvements, such as road and bridge repair and construction.
While we think that approach is short-sighted, at least it would have kept money earmarked for the Badger State here.
On Monday, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood — a former Republican congressman from Illinois — said that if Walker persists at halting the high-speed rail project, Wisconsin will lose that money to another state.
“None of the money provided to Wisconsin may be used for road or highway projects, or anything other than high-speed rail,” LaHood said. “Consequently, unless you change your position, we plan to engage in an orderly transition to wind down Wisconsin’s project so we do not waste taxpayers’ money.”
by jboullion | Nov 9, 2010 | Uncategorized
From an article by Mary Wisniewski in the Chicago Sun Times:
Illinois wants the $810 million in federal high-speed rail money that Wisconsin Governor-elect Scott Walker has promised to reject.
“We’d love to have it,” said Illinois Transportation Secretary Gary Hannig. He said Illinois, which has already received $1.2 billion in high-speed rail funding, could spend Wisconsin’s money making further improvements to the Chicago-St. Louis corridor to add more passenger runs.
The money also could be used to build stations in Joliet and Rockford, Hannig said.
Walker, a Republican, made opposing a high-speed train line from Milwaukee to Madison a key part of his campaign against Democrat Tom Barrett. Walker objected to the state having to pay up to $7.5 million a year in ongoing operational costs.
State Sen. Jeffrey Schoenberg (D-Evanston) said he would work with other lawmakers to persuade the U.S. Department of Transportation to transfer the money to Illinois. He also would like to see trainmaker Talgo, Inc. move here. Talgo has said it can’t promise to stay in Milwaukee if the state rejects the rail project.
by jboullion | Nov 8, 2010 | Uncategorized
From an article by Jason Stein and Tom Heldin the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Madison — Governor-elect Scott Walker reached out to a Milwaukee train manufacturer Friday, seeking to keep its operations in the state long-term as he advocates for stopping a passenger rail project involving the company.
“Governor-elect Walker is reaching out to leadership at Talgo to encourage them to stay in Wisconsin,” Walker spokeswoman Jill Bader said Friday.
A spokeswoman for Talgo, the U.S. unit of the Spanish firm Patentes Talgo, said that Walker told company officials that his decision to stop a proposed Madison-to-Milwaukee passenger rail line is “not final.”
Walker, a Republican, campaigned on an unambiguous promise to end the passenger rail line, funded with $810 million in federal stimulus money, which he has called a boondoggle. Bader said Walker was not backing away from that promise.
This week, Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle, a supporter of the project, halted work on that line temporarily after Walker’s election.
That has thrown some doubt over jobs at Talgo, which is building two trains for an existing Milwaukee-to-Chicago rail service and had plans to build two more for the proposed Milwaukee-to-Madison line. The company has a site at the former Tower Automotive property.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore said Friday during a briefing in her Milwaukee office that other states are clearly in line to take the funds if Wisconsin turns them down. A lack of public transportation is a significant cause of the high unemployment in the central city because residents there can’t reach jobs in the suburbs, she said.
“Walker has a record of being anathema to public transportation,” Moore said.
New York Governor-elect Andrew Cuomo made a pitch for the rail money that the governors-elect in Wisconsin and Ohio have pledged to reject. He sent a letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood asking that the roughly $1.26 billion be redirected to pay for a rail project that would connect New York City, upstate New York, Toronto and Montreal.
“High-speed rail is critical to building the foundation for future economic growth, especially upstate,” Cuomo said in a statement. “If these governors-elect follow through on their promises to cancel these projects, a Cuomo administration would move quickly to put the billions in rejected stimulus funding toward projects that would create thousands of good jobs for New Yorkers.”
by jboullion | Nov 4, 2010 | Uncategorized
From an article by Clay Barbour in the Wisconsin State Journal:
Some $800 million in contracts, a series of difficult legal hurdles and a struggling economy will not stop Governor-elect Scott Walker from doing what he promised on the campaign trail — stopping the train.
Walker, a Republican, soundly defeated Democratic Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett for the right to replace outgoing Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle. He takes power Jan. 1.
The Milwaukee County executive ran a strong campaign on a series of checkbook issues, vowing to cut government spending by $300 million, bring 250,000 jobs to Wisconsin and roll back $1.8 billion in tax increases approved last year.
But few issues so caught the public’s attention as Walker’s promise to stop the $810 million Milwaukee-to-Madison passenger rail project, a project officials hope one day will link the Midwest, from Chicago to Minneapolis.
Wisconsin transportation officials earlier this week signed a deal to commit the state to spending all of the $810 million in federal stimulus money on rail project, a significant move because it makes it harder for rail opponents like Walker to stop it.
Many political experts felt Walker was simply using the train to gin up voters, never truly intending to bring a halt to the project — a move that could end up costing the state millions of dollars and thousands of jobs. Some assumed Doyle rushed the contracts through in an effort to tie the governor-elect’s hands.
But on Wednesday, Walker reiterated his intention to stop the train and said he believed there was a way to do it without the state losing its shirt.
