MILWAUKEE, Wisc. — Trains could carry suburban commuters into Milwaukee while the Marquette Interchange is being rebuilt — and perhaps for the 20 years of massive freeway reconstruction that will follow — under plans being considered by state transportation officials, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.
But the cost could top $250 million if authorities try to set up all four lines proposed, and rail supporters agree that persuading the state and federal governments to invest that kind of money is likely to be a serious challenge.
“We’ve still got a long way to go,” said Ron Adams, rail chief for the state Department of Transportation. “It’s quite a capital investment.”
Like a 1998 experiment with using trains to carry west suburban commuters during I-94 repaving, the more extensive train service would be aimed at reducing traffic — and giving commuters a way to avoid traffic jams — while construction is closing freeway lanes and ramps, Adams said.
This time, the situation will be more critical because the interchange work will temporarily close parking lots with about 4,500 spaces under downtown freeways, added Kerry Thomas, spokeswoman for the Southeastern Wisconsin Coalition for Transit Now, and West Bend railroad expert David Schwengel.
But the 90-day train service in 1998 wasn’t long enough to persuade many drivers to change their commuting habits, Adams said. That service, set up as an extension of Amtrak’s Chicago-to-Milwaukee Hiawatha line, handled 32,446 rides, an average of 365 a day, at a cost of $1.4 million.
This time, rail backers are seeking service that would continue throughout the three most intense years of the four-year Marquette Interchange project. Although preliminary interchange work starts late next year, most of the proposals call for starting rail service in late 2004 or early 2005 continuing through 2007.
Four separate rail plans have been submitted to an advisory committee that will meet Thursday to review ways to keep traffic flowing while the crossroads of I-94, I-43 and I-794 is under construction. The panel could recommend any one — or none — of those ideas to Tom Carlsen, the state’s acting transportation secretary, and the Federal Highway Administration.
Each plan would include some service for so-called reverse commuters — those who work in the suburbs instead of downtown — and some plans would offer midday or evening service as well. All would use Milwaukee’s existing Amtrak station downtown and new or renovated stations in the suburbs. One-way fares would range from $2 to $5.
In their preliminary form, the proposals are: A plan by Adams to extend the Hiawatha from Milwaukee to Watertown, with stops at Wauwatosa, Brookfield, Elm Grove and Oconomowoc, at a cost of $60 million to build and $10 million a year to run. That would provide 912,000 rides a year from late 2004 through 2007, Adams said.
This seven-days-a-week plan would be an expansion of the 1998 service, which stopped at Pewaukee instead of Brookfield. Most trips would be extensions of existing Hiawatha runs, with the rest shuttling only between Milwaukee and Watertown. A proposal by Thomas’ group wants to run commuter trains from Racine to Milwaukee, with stops in Cudahy, South Milwaukee, Oak Creek and the Town of Caledonia. That would cost $50 million to build and $12.5 million a year to run, providing 1.04 million rides a year from 2005 through 2007, Thomas said.
Leased trains, formerly owned by Chicago’s Metra commuter rail system, would run each weekday on the Union Pacific tracks, separate from the Canadian Pacific tracks Amtrak uses. Two plans by Schwengel to add weekday Hiawatha trips that would extend to West Bend and Sheboygan, plus some that would shuttle only between downtown and the suburbs. The West Bend line would stop on Milwaukee’s north and northwest sides and in Jackson, while the Sheboygan line would stop in Mequon, Port Washington and either Cedar Grove or Oostburg.
By adding runs to the Hiawatha, Schwengel said, his plans also would boost service to Sturtevant and to a planned new station at Mitchell International Airport.
Construction costs would be $55 million for the West Bend line, $9.1 million for the Milwaukee-to-Port Washington route and $8.9 million from Port Washington to Sheboygan. Operating costs would be $3.3 million a year for the West Bend line, $1.7 million a year for the Milwaukee-to-Port Washington stretch and $750,000 a year for Port Washington-to-Sheboygan line.
Also, commuter rail service could extend beyond Marquette Interchange work through the reconstruction of all of the area’s aging freeways, now under study by the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, said Thomas, Adams, Schwengel and Phil Evenson, executive director of the commission.
Milwaukee’s economy must keep running through the years of freeway work, and “if we can’t sustain it, we’re going to lose a lot of tax base,” Thomas argued.
Thomas’ group backs permanently extending Chicago’s Metra commuter train service from Kenosha to Racine and Milwaukee, an idea also under study by the planning commission. She sees the temporary service as a step in that direction, while Adams and Schwengel see their routes as a step toward separately proposed permanent passenger train service to Madison and Green Bay.
By positioning the service that way, backers say they would hope to obtain some of the federal and state funding that would be earmarked for easing traffic during freeway work or for the permanent rail projects.
That approach also would reduce the pressure on the Marquette Interchange project’s budget for easing traffic during construction, said Don Reinbold, director of the state’s interchange team. Reinbold said he’s not sure how much money will be available for traffic aid or how the rail projects would stack up against each other and other ideas.
Commuter rail systems run full-sized trains on existing freight railroad tracks. As such, they’re typically far less expensive per mile than light rail systems, which run electric vehicles on new tracks on streets.
Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker, a longtime light rail opponent, said he has no objection to temporary commuter rail service and no position on permanent service. And Milwaukee Mayor John O. Norquist said he thinks the public would like to have commuter trains.
Still, Adams said, “Nothing’s sure at this point.”