If we are going to step back in time, I always wanted to ride in a stage coach. Why not stage coaches...more "green" than trains or cars. That should play in Madison! Plus it would create a few jobs to pick up horse apples.

We'd be better off investing in new Transporter technology - it worked for Captain Kirk and the spaceship Enterprise. This may meet the "shovel ready" criteria. Does that reference mean we will be digging a bigger hole?

Yay, great! Talk about something that will help stimulate the economy.

Wow, I love trains & I love passenger rail service but this is #*$@ING RIDICULOUS.

20 minutes faster than by auto? That is an unconscionable use of anyone's money -- tax dollars or private. A half billion dollars for a train that only averages 70 mph between (presumably) city centers?

What stops are planned? Johnson Creek? Bluemound and US 18 Park & Ride in Milwaukee? None?

If you are going to build a train, do it right: bullet train from downtown to downtown in 30 minutes or less or do not even bother.

The problem will be the cost to run and maintain the rail system, it's money from D.C. going to build it but it's like na unfunded mandate.
90% of Wisconsin tax payers will never use this service.

Here is why the argument of "rail trains work in China, Japan, France, UK, and Germany so they will work here" is a poor argument for a rail connecting points in Wisconsin. The population density per KM^2 are as follows for those nations: Japan 339, UK 246, Germany 232, China 138, and France 110. Wisconsin's is under 40.

"When governments invest in rail transportation, they work."
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Yep, just look a t Amtrak.

Don't try to fool us, just_hype, we KNOW Doyle paid you to inflate the number of estimated riders! ☺
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I'm guessing this is a pet project of Doyle's to provide discount transportation between Milwaukee and Madison for those state legislators representing the Milwaukee area. On a positive note, think of all the money taxpayers will save by not paying for the Dane County Airport to Mitchell Field hop on all those goverment junket flights. ¿Cómo se dice "railroad study in Mallorca" en español?

booch11, when the economy recovers demand for gasoline will push the price of automobile transportation back up. This isn't rocket science. High-speed rail in other countries works, everywhere it is tried. It is considered a necessity for economic expansion, everywhere else. Here it is somehow expected to "pay its way". When was the last time GM paid for a highway? When was the last time Ford paid for a street to your garage? You ignore the 100% subsidy that roads get and say "people use them". Well, that's because they are ALREADY THERE. The government has been pouring money into concrete for a century. You can't just pretend that subsidy doesn't exist. It's what makes automobile transportation as cheap as it is. It's what makes it popular. When governments invest in rail transportation, they work. They work in Britain. They work in France. They work in Germany. They work in Japan. They work in China. I could go on, but the point is that THEY WORK, demonstrably, whereas you are merely speculating about ridership because you personally have no interest.

Just a word of note here, I earlier used the figure of 50 passengers per day to get the point across that few would ride this rail. It is a number I pulled from my *s*.

So, jimmy the 'tax and spend govester', wants to get his hands on more of OUR money that was confiscated by the politicians in Washington to build a railroad from Madison to Milwaukee. That works out (using the 50 passengers/day) to over $10,000,000 per passenger!!! How about being honest and realistic about this boondoggle and tell ALL OF US who would pay for this, why this is necessary!! Do you suppose 'the govester' will hop on the "jim doyle express' when he travels from Madison to Milwaukee?? Washington and Madison need to get the message from ALL OF US to stop spending like a drunken sailor (no disrespect meant to our military), and realize that ALL OF US will remedy the economic problem we are in now much quicker if they would give the money back to us and let us keep more of our hard earned paychecks. God bless Paul Harvey, but he commented more than once on the radio, "businesses don't pay taxes, people do..."

Just_hype hit the head on the nail. The train goes to no where at each end. As he said time and cost to get to the end destination will break the bank of everyone and no one will continue riding. They are finding it cheaper to just drive and save time in the end. I hope Doyle will see this before he spends all this money for something that will go down the tube in a few short years. The state will not be able to support this venture when it is up and running.

How easy it is to forget the $4.00/gal gas. When gas is over $5.00/gal people will flock to the rails. Ridership of the rails will be proportionate to the cost of gas. When gas goes up, people will ride the train, when it's down, they will drive their cars. So, it looks like the price of gas, & the taxes on gas will go up, just to force people to use more efficient transportation.. And that is not a bad idea. With 300 million people we have to STOP driving, & start riding. Just think what life will be like when that 300 million doubles in the next 20 years..

ozzman - once Milwaukee or Madison have a metro area population of over 4 million I will begin to see the benefits of a rail between the two. Another thing overlooked here is that there is currently no commuter rail lines in Madison or Milwaukee for this rail line to connect to. If I lived in Madison and wanted to go to a Brewer game, lets say, I would drive my car to the airport, get on the train, get off the train in downtown Milwaukee, get on a bus or pay for an expensive cab ride, get dropped off at Miller park, watch a game, get on a bus, get on a train, get off the train, then get back in my car. Or I could just drive myself and save about 90 minutes worth of hassel.

ozzman-The population base between Milwaukee and Chicago for the Amtrak line and Metra for the Chicago suburbs are no comparison to the Milwaukee to Madison and Janesville population base. That is the reason for the increased ridership. I can see a spur to Madison but to include Janesville in the mix is insane.

I see a potential for a lot more than 50 passengers per day. Suppose the Milwaukee and Madison gangs start commuting. Why sweat being hassled by the cops in your crib, man. Work in Milwaukee, live in Madison and vice-versa.
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Make the trains and railway stations neutral territory and the top 3 gangs get dibs on exclusive use of the first three departures. They can plan their daily strategies and make assignments while dining in the breakfast car. On the ride home, they can divide up the profits, and rehash the day's events in the club car. The 4th and 5th departures are shared by the rest of the gangs and the 6th departure is last chance for any homie who missed an earlier train.
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Come ride the Speedball Express!

janesvillean:
in the year 2015 this project will be an albatross around our necks.
ridership will continue to be low and costs will have skyrocketed.
yet the freeways will still be busy.
it doesn't matter if these trains work in other countries.
people in korea eat dogs -- that doesn't mean we need to.

Sure justhype nobody uses intrasate rail service. Thats why Metra carries over 100,000 people a day on its system. Dont give me any BS about metra being a commuter line either The system branches out to almost 75 miles from the city center. OH and dont forget the Hiawatha service between Milwaukee and Chicago that apparently nobody rides either Even though they had record ridership last year

Washington, Oregon and British Columbia began to study and deploy High Speed Rail (HSR) passenger trains through the Cascade Corridor in the mid 90’s. Our Talgo tilt trains, capable of 125 mph, have been running between Eugene Oregon and Vancouver, BC since 1999.

Using an ‘incremental approach’ to building the system, with limited state and dwindling Amtrak funding for trains, track and signal, and operations, has enabled some pretty impressive achievements -- while still being limited to 79 mph by the Feds.

Ridership continues to grow at double-digit rates each year. More than twice as many passengers now choose rail over planes for the trip between Seattle and Portland. Trains get twice the fuel economy over planes and cars, while producing only half the CO2 emissions.

All Aboard Washington is excited the needed improvements are now achievable through the stimulus funding for HSR, and applaud our new administration. With modest capital improvements, new train sets could double ridership in years, not decades. Travel times could be slashed by up to 50% through higher speeds and reduced conflicts with current freight traffic, while achieving significant reductions to both fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Truly a win, win, win for America!

For more information, check out our state adopted HSR plan at: http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/NR/rdonlyres/83B...

And visit our web site at:
http://www.allaboardwashington.org/cms/i...

Maybe a monorail is too old school. What we need is a maglev supported on super magnets cooled with liquid nitrogen. They would float in evacuated tubes under ground built with a parabola shape so they would swing it back and forth like a pendulum. That was in the book "Battle Field Earth". I felt the movie was extremely disappointing by comparison. Seriously, trains are an effective stop gap measure on the downside of peak oil production, which we've reached, or will reach soon.

Intra state rail lines have been losers all over the country wherever they are tried. Low ridership and funding runs out.

Hmmmm Temp jobs...... have to support it after it is built......getting people to ride the thing.......$$$PRICEFULL$$$ but then again that's what Doe Doe wants and he will most likely get it....... I43 needs a lot of work as do a lot of other roads and bridges. That is where the money needs to go.....sheeeeeesh JMO

janesvillian - the highways are a good investment because people use them. A rail line connecting two Wisconsin cities is not a good investment because NO ONE WILL USE IT! People use highways, especially if the trip takes two hours or less. If enough of the public would use this rail line I would support tax money going towards it. But, that is not going to happen.

To bad they wouldn't build one between Janesville and Madison. Janesville would become a boom town if that happened. for those of you who don't understand think "bedroom community"

just_hype, the point is that the investment in efficient transportation will continue to generate jobs in the Wisconsin economy. It's the very same reason we invest in highways, but somehow we don't consider them responsible for paying for themselves. Yet those highways, 100% built and maintained by taxpayers, supported an industry that gave thousands of people in Janesville jobs for most of a century, and that's just counting the vehicles, not the overall Wisconsin economy.
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As for Janesville, the Amtrak thing -- which ran on a freight train at freight train speeds and schedules -- was just a demonstrator, and not the result of any traffic or need studies. By contrast, the Milwaukee-Madison (and Milwaukee-Chicago) corridors have been studied multiple times and are believed to be among the better opportunities in the country to get an economically viable high-speed rail line.
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These trains do work in the rest of the world. People in other countries don't understand why we don't have good (non-excursion) intercity service.

Here is an example of how the stimulus money now will cost taxpayers in the future. Using the stimulus money to build this rail will create TEMPORARY jobs now. After it is built, the state will have to subsidize it with our tax money just to keep it moving. The 50 or so passengers per day will not be able to cover the cost to keep it operating without taxpayer help.

they tried Amtrac from Janesville to where ever... the tracks are still there, but they don't come through here anymore... why spend that amount of money on tracks that are already there that to where it should be spent in a more practical manner--getting jobs so that people aren't exhausting the WI unemployment to the magnitude that it's been, or even paying out more to people that are currently being affected by the excessive loss of work... the reason why it seems as though the percentage national unemployment claims have dropped may be because that people that are out of work are no longer able to collect because of lack of work available...

It would be even better if they'd include Janesville in that loop. Lots of people in Janesville commute between those two cities. So why not?