http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/legislators-buck-walker-reject-train-maintenance-base-bg4isr4-142671085.html

We in Wisconsin continue to pay for Walker's decision to reject the train funding. So far, this means the decision to reject the train funding has now cost the Wisconsin taxpayers over $ 900 million. We should recall walker for this decision.

All_Aboard_Wisconsin next meeting

Tentatively scheduled for March 19, 1:30 pm, at the Inn On The Park in downtown Madison. If you're interested, and wish to make your views known in a constructive fashion, you're invited to come.

All_Aboard_Wisconsin meeting

There will be a meeting on February 28, 10 am, at the Wisconsin Council of The blind, in Madison. All who are interested in trains, and can offer constructive help, are invited to attend.

"The Great High Speed Rail Lie"

"The Great High Speed Rail Lie." at SFGate.com:

Some excerpts:

"In 2008, voters approved a $10 billion bond to begin construction of a bullet train from Los Angeles to San Francisco that would make that trip in less than three hours. So who knew that by 2011 the general consensus would be that the project is an ill-conceived, mismanaged boondoggle?

Former Amtrak spokesman and Reason Foundation writer Joseph Vranich knew."

"So what's going on here?

It's simple. Vranich makes stuff up. Adrianne Moore, vice president of policy at the Reason Foundation, says the Europeans are abandoning rail in favor of driving and flying. Nonsense."

"The Reason Foundation is funded by Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell Oil, the American Petroleum Institute, Delta Airlines, the National Air Transportation Association and, of course, the Koch Family Foundation. They know what will happen once Americans, furious about gas prices and the way airlines treat them, experience electrically powered 200-mph trains. But big oil and aviation can't attack high-speed rail directly - that would be an obvious attempt to abort competition. So they hire a "think tank."

Reason collaborates on research with James Moore III, a transportation engineering professor at University of Southern California. They parrot Reason's "train to nowhere" nonsense, a phrase they apply to all rail projects. It's especially absurd in this case, because interim services will have high-speed rail trains slow and reach the Bay Area on existing rail lines. Reason's minions claim there's no business plan or ridership figures. Except that anyone can go on the California High-Speed Rail Authority website and download them."

"A modern 200-mile-per-hour rail link between Los Angeles and San Francisco will change America's transportation paradigm. Just like in Europe and Asia, California will develop a profitable system joining all its cities. Nearby states, such as Nevada and Arizona, will link into the network, just like European countries did after France established its network. Jet airplanes will be used for what they were intended: long-distance travel. Automobile use will be reduced. This will save millions of barrels of oil. And that's the real reason these lobbyists want it stopped."

This is what we will continue to face in the future. The opposition rhetoric will find fertile ground among those who have never ridden aboard a train. It will be up to us to counter this rhetoric with our own.

A brief update:

Seeing as how this website administrator hasn't been diligent in his duties, I will allow for a short update on some activities. The Scott Walker Recall will happen. It is up to us to make his refusal of the funds for the Madison extension an issue. There have been a series of meetings of a group that intends to get more public involvement in future rail efforts. There will continue to be a push for getting funds to reintroduce passenger rail to Madison. We haven't let this project die -- it has just gone underground for a while. We also must consider future service through Madison to a some sort of upgraded, higher conventional speed rail service, and not HSR. HSR is becoming tainted by the events surrounding the California project, and we must take steps to avoid being tainted.

See also "How to talk to a detractor about 'high speed' rail"

This website administrator also thinks that the Obama Administration has made some serious errors in their roll-out of train improvements. One of the errors being that Obama made the entire thing a target by stating his wish that higher speed trains be a legacy of his Administration. When the Republicans ( and Tea Partiers ) got a whiff of that, they put a big target on HSR. Obama may have set train improvement efforts back by a decade with this poor effort.

Edit: The PDF addressing 37 different criticisms leveled at the recent Passenger rail improvements can be found here.

A new link

A blog we could monitor: http://hizeph400.blogspot.com/

In other news, MNDOT has gotten funds to complete the engineering & EIS work for the route between the Twin Ports & Twin Cities.

From the "Transport Politic" blog: Deciphering objections to improvements in rail service

Excerpt: "The baseline explanation for the limited Republican support for such investments is relatively easy to pinpoint: Their electors live in areas that would benefit only indirectly from such projects. Their constituents, primarily living in sprawling suburbs, do not see the value of government spending on anything other than roads."

At "The Transport Politic," here.

Some thoughts to keep in mind about why the opposition is so virulent and hostile towards improvements in passenger rail. Some points:

1. That there are those who see no value in investing in any transportation other than roads, or

2. Investment in any form of rail is an inappropriate involvement in the free market of transportation, that the improvements were spread too thin around the nation,

3. That the proposed improvements were actually upgrades to the conventional speed service, and that the Obama Administration funded it, so therefore, they're opposed to it.

4. Reason foundation opposed it, using any number of arguments.

5. With some opponents, they are going to oppose it no matter what. I think that is the case with what we had this last go around in Wisconsin.

There is also the issue that there are those who refuse to see any value in rail at all, even if (in the case of Wisconsin) $ 600 million' s worth of track improvements would have benefitted freight rail.