Amtrak station in Madison
MADISON, Wis. — Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway — in her 2024 budget request — is proposing an increase in local funding ($350,000 to $400,000) to help establish the need for an Amtrak station in Madison. In addition to covering the costs for programming and planning, the funds would go towards the city’s required local match for participating in a federal passenger rail corridor identification program.
Rhodes-Conway is looking to obtain a percentage of the more than $60 billion outlined in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal from Congress in 2021 to upgrade and expand the public transit system, according to a Wisconsin Public Radio story.
Amtrak has never served the Wisconsin capital with direct rail service, only with Thruway buses to Chicago and a connection to the Empire Builder at Columbus, Wis. Milwaukee Road passenger trains from Chicago were not retained when Amtrak began operating on May 1, 1971.
Efforts to extend Chicago-Milwaukee Hiawathas to Madison ended in 2012 when Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker turned back $810 million of federal economic stimulus funds and canceled the state’s purchase of Talgo Series 8 trainsets. The money would have rehabilitated a former Milwaukee Road branch line between Madison and Watertown, Wis., and upgrade Canadian Pacific’s main line into Milwaukee
In 2021, Amtrak released a 15-year plan to expand the existing Hiawatha route connecting Chicago and Milwaukee to include Madison. According to the plan, the Madison Hiawatha Extension would provide “Dane County residents, businesses, and visitors with increased mobility options between the state’s capital and its largest city, as well as service to Chicago.” Amtrak also suggests trips could be added to connecting Madison to Minneapolis-St. Paul.
The city could move forward in the planning phase without state funding, says Madison Transportation Director Tom Lynch in a WPR interview. “There will come a time, you know, [in] several years where we get into the design, final design and construction, and there will need to identify partners and ways to accomplish a local match.” So other funding sources are key. The overall time stamp on a project of this magnitude is not clear, nor is the final cost. Lynch estimates 6 to 8 years for a plan to come to fruition.
“The bipartisan infrastructure law has provided more money for passenger rail than at any time in decades, and so this is a good time to be pursuing some of that,” Lynch says. “It’s been 50 years since we’ve had passenger rail. We’d like to bring it back to Madison.”
In 2022, Madison’s Common Council invested $120,000 in a passenger rail station study to decide on possible locations for an Amtrak station. The report should be released this fall. The Common Council will vote on the capital budget and 2024 operating budget in November. Therefore, the quest to establish service is decades long and looks like it will continue for years to come.
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As I recall, there is some street running on the Watertown to Madison branch. However, I think there is now a direct connection for the Watertown line to the Portage line via a short stretch of trackage rights on the C&NW that does not require a run around move in the former Milwaukee Madison yard.
Sounds fantastic, you have to start somewhere and Wisconsin should have been years ahead by now if Walker and his GOP enablers hadn’t refused money and left Talgo on the hook with two train sets.
Cracks me up. We need money to “create the need”. I thought it was the other way around, the need is identified and then money allocated to meet it.
This mayor has been working in public service too long.
I had the same thought Mr. Rice when I read that part. Doesn’t speak well of Mayor Rhodes-Conway.
This idea is dead on arrival. Way too costly, if there is any money left from being doled out to others and slower service as compared to cars. IMO, the only place for this “station” is where it was proposed before. Extremely inconvenient, but this is where the existing rail lines are. Perhaps the best case situation would be to back down into downtown Madison at a slow speed to drop off/pu people. More wasted time. It won’t be high speed as we understand what high speed means these days. Maybe 65 between Madison and Watertown at best?
Yes it was not high speed, but lets be honest that is not why it was killed. Scott Walker was against investing in environmentally friendly transportation provided by government, which trains are an example of.
Also the timeline is a bit wrong. While Doyle was in office from 2002 to 2010, the opportunity for actual funding did not exist until 2009 when money was allocated by feds
Sorry, Jacob, that’s rhetoric. Walker knew a loser when he saw it and there was nothing environmentally friendly about the proposal. Waste is waste, not pro-environment.
Let’s look at the actual record, not the Democrat talking points. Wisconsin has supported the Hiawatha no matter who was governor or what party. The two all-new stations, Sturtevant and Milwaukee Airport, and the enormously expensive rebuild of Milwaukee depot, were supported by both parties and some of the work occured while Walker was governor.
No Charles not Democratic talking points. Well known fact Snot Walker would do anything to kill investing in anything remotely environmental in the State of Wisconsin, ask the department heads at Madison. He was right along with Dick Scott and Christie turning down Fed Dollars for rail transportation egged on by the GOP to not take money from “that” President.
As a former resident/rail fan in Madison during the late 1960’s and completely familiar with the former Milw. Rd., CNW, and IC routes in the city, the only elephant in the room is future depot location, of which there are none any good.
Once again another example of money being wasted on a useless study which will do nothing and created nothing. Maybe some local politican is benefiting from or has money in vested in the company or service doing the study. These folks who do these studies are the only ones who benefit from this and make plenty of money for themselves in addition to wasting public money and creating mounds of paper to clutter and polute the environment and take up much needed space in some warehouse. Maybe the station if it is built can be turned into a rail museum or a model railroad club or hobby shop in keeping with the theme of railroading and trains
Joseph C. Markfelder
In other words the City of Madison is spending money on a train that doesn’t exist and is not even under study or consideration. A train station doesn’t create a train service.
The administration of Democrat Governor Jim Doyle had eight years in office (2003 – 2011) to do this right. He did it wrong. He labeled this proposal as High Speed Rail”. People who advocate for passenger trains but don’t know anything about trains call a train “High Speed Rail”. In other words if it gets up to a decent speed for some fraction of its route, but schleps at a crawl for other parts of its route, it’s “high speed”. As such, the proposal was ridiculed and with the innauguration of Doyle’s Republican successor, was discontinued.
If this train had been called a “train” instead of “High Speed Rail” it might be running now. As things stands, it might never run.
I just returned from a bike ride which paralleled the CPKC tracks through Elm Grove, Wauwatosa and Milwaukee. It ain’t high speed and never will be.
Charles, maybe the mayor is thinking, “if we build the station, the train will come”?
Excellent
Wow $120,000 for a station study! How does that work? Put your station over there or over there or there’s another good place. That’ll be 120 grand please!!