MILWAUKEE — According to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, temporary commuter train service is not likely to be part of the state’s plan to avoid traffic jams during Marquette Interchange reconstruction, the freeway project’s chief said Thursday.
Instead, the state Department of Transportation is leaning toward tried-and-true methods such as expanding bus service and adjusting stoplights to move traffic faster on downtown streets, said Don Reinbold, director of the state’s Marquette Interchange team.
However, rail backers will keep fighting to run commuter trains during interchange reconstruction, public transit advocate Rosemary Potter said.
“We’re not giving up,” said Potter, executive director of the Southeastern Wisconsin Coalition for Transit Now. “It’s too good a project to just throw out.”
Reinbold called train service a worthwhile idea that should be considered separately.
“It needs to stand on its own merit,” Reinbold said. “They’re all good ideas, and maybe they should all be implemented, but they should be implemented on their own.”
With the downtown crossroads of I-94, I-43 and I-794 facing four years of construction, from late 2003 to late 2007, rail supporters had suggested using trains to carry suburban commuters into downtown. It was a solution that could have continued past the interchange job, through the 20 years when the rest of the freeway system will be rebuilt, advocates said.
Separate proposals would have set up four commuter train lines: one to Wauwatosa, Waukesha County and Watertown; one to the southern suburbs and Racine County; one to the northwest side and Washington County; and one to Ozaukee and Sheboygan counties. Some trains would have been extensions of Amtrak’s Chicago-to-Milwaukee service.
But Reinbold said he wasn’t authorized to act on behalf of the future freeway projects – which could total $5.5 billion and are still in the early planning stages – even though he likes the long-term approach.
And the combined cost of the four proposed rail lines could have topped $250 million, nearly one-third of the interchange project’s $760 million to $890 million budget. Even though rail advocates were seeking only $79 million of interchange money – and hoping to find other state and federal funds for the rest – that was still almost four times what Reinbold was prepared to request for traffic-control measures.
“It’s really expensive,” Reinbold said.
Rail advocates, however, saw the expense as a long-term investment in helping people move around the area during more than two decades of freeway work – and a small fraction of the combined $6.25 billion price tag for rebuilding the entire freeway system, including the interchange.
Kerry Thomas, spokeswoman for Potter’s group, said it was unfortunate that the state couldn’t look at traffic issues beyond one road project at a time.
“In the end, Milwaukee and the region will suffer for it,” Thomas said. She fears that decades of traffic jams could damage the metropolitan economy.
Reinbold and his top deputy, John Oimoen, said it would be more appropriate for rail advocates to ask the state Legislature and local governments to authorize commuter train service than to try to attach it to Marquette Interchange reconstruction. That’s still a possibility, Thomas said.
Indeed, the south shore commuter rail service that Potter and Thomas are seeking is an abbreviated form of an idea now under study by the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission. Planners are considering whether to extend Chicago’s Metra commuter trains from Kenosha to Racine and Milwaukee, at a cost of $152 million.
Similarly, the western line backed by Ron Adams, the Transportation Department’s rail chief, would have been a step toward a planned $176 million high-speed rail line between Milwaukee and Madison. And West Bend rail fan Dave Schwengel hoped his proposed northern and northwestern lines could extend to Green Bay, Fond du Lac and Manitowoc.
But Potter, a former state legislator, said she would still push to include rail service in the interchange project. The advisory committee that reviewed traffic-control concepts Thursday has not finished its work and will meet again next month, Reinbold and Potter said.
Ideas that the committee favored Thursday totaled $20 million and included:
*Expanding service on the Milwaukee County Transit System’s Freeway Flyers and regular routes, and on the Waukesha County-to-Milwaukee commuter buses operated by Wisconsin Coach Lines. That could include shuttles from State Fair Park’s parking lot to downtown and a new park-and-ride lot near Brookfield Square to replace one lost at the mall.
*Adjusting stoplights, restricting parking and boosting police patrols to aid the flow of traffic on alternate routes, primarily Milwaukee city streets. Upgrades on Lincoln Memorial Drive, which is a county road, and St. Francis streets also could be part of this plan.
*Adding tow trucks and other emergency vehicles to respond to freeway crashes and clear crash scenes faster, reducing the extent of freeway traffic jams.
Acting state Transportation Secretary Tom Carlsen and the Federal Highway Administration will have the final say on which proposals are selected.