The Obama administration is determined to build a national high-speed intercity passenger rail network that ultimately will connect 80 percent of the country, even if the system must bypass Wisconsin.
The administration is proposing to spend $53 billion over the next six years to construct a national high-speed, intercity passenger rail network.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said potential funding sources for the plan are outlined in the president’s proposed budget, which he released this week. The proposed new investment would accompany a streamlined application process for cities, states and private companies seeking federal grants and loans to develop railway capacity.
The administration withdrew $810 million it had allocated to build a high-speed rail link connecting Milwaukee and Madison after incoming Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said he would reject the federal funds for the project. Walker called the rail project a “boondoggle.”
The funds also would have updated the Wisconsin line’s freight-carrying capabilities. The Milwaukee-to-Madison link ultimately would have been part of a high-speed spur to connect Chicago to Minneapolis.
Momentum is now building to reroute that spur around Wisconsin from Chicago across Illinois to Iowa and up to Minneapolis through Rochester.
The U.S. Department of Transportation awarded a $230 million federal grant for a new passenger rail route from Chicago to the Quad-Cities and Iowa City. The award also will include additional state and local funding that was committed as part of the joint Illinois and Iowa application.
To the north, the Southeast Minnesota Rail Alliance is calling the Rochester-to-Minneapolis spur the “Zip Rail.”
“Zip Rail promises a high return on investment because it will move people fast, safely and stress-free between Minnesota’s top population, job and medical centers,” said Commissioner Ken Brown of Olmsted County, which is a principal member of the Alliance, along with the City of Rochester, the Rochester Area Chamber of Commerce and Mayo Clinic.
The Rochester route around Wisconsin recently garnered the editorial support of the Minneapolis Star Tribune:
“In many ways, the recent election means a role reversal for the neighboring states. Under Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat, Wisconsin took the lead while Minnesota’s GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty was the laggard. The election of Republican Walker in Wisconsin and Democrat Mark Dayton in Minnesota will most likely invert that political equation … Already, patients and professionals arrive at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on the way to Mayo. Losing a link to Rochester – and routing a train through less economically dynamic Eau Claire instead – would have an opportunity cost that would last for generations.”
In his State of the Union address in January, Obama described this time as this generation’s “Sputnik moment,” in which America’s infrastructure is falling behind that of developing countries such as China, which is rapidly building a modern high-speed rail network.
“When it comes to building a national high-speed rail network, President Obama and Vice President Biden have been true visionaries,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. “They’re every bit as important for tomorrow’s infrastructure as President Eisenhower was for the interstate highway system or as President Lincoln was for the transcontinental railroad. There can be no doubt that they have set an ambitious goal. But with these two men and this great nation, we are on our way to connecting America with effective high-speed intercity rail.”
Meanwhile, Amtrak traffic between Milwaukee and Chicago is booming. According to a new report, “High Speed Rail in America,” by America 2050, a Regional Plan Association project, the Chicago-to-Milwaukee Amtrak corridor is the largest intercity rail market in the Midwest, serving approximately 740,000 riders in 2009.
With gasoline prices on their way to the $4 per gallon mark and no relief in sight, momentum and advocacy for high-speed rail will continue to build – with or without Wisconsin.
