While governor-elect Scott Walker celebrates chasing thousands of jobs out of state, before he even takes office, many other states across the country are celebrating the benefits of newly reallocated high speed rail funds.
The City of Bakersfield, California, will benefit from an additional 66 miles of track connecting the southern San Joaquin Valley business center to the new valley high-speed rail route. As the local press observes "The move comes after $624 million in federal funds bound for rail projects in Ohio and Wisconsin were redirected to California and 12 other states. The funds will be matched dollar-for-dollar by money from the state's high-speed rail bond."
"A windfall for California" exults the Los Angeles Times. "The $624 million from Wisconsin and Ohio, combined with the $3 billion in federal funds the state has already received, will help smooth the way. Thanks a billion, cheeseheads." Another $342 million has been redirected to Florida, for a new high-speed line from Orlando to Tampa.
But there is no joy in Appleton; Alan Lawrence says Mighty Walker has struck out. "That was part of a much larger network. It could be like the interstate highway system 50 years ago, was just sort of a dream," said Lawrence, chair of Sierra Club Fox Valley. "You could do the same type of new things with trains. Well Wisconsin is going to suffer, we're not going to be at the forefront of that."
Milwaukee also faces the potential loss of jobs at the new Talgo plant, which is hiring another 125 workers for contracts to produce trains for the Chicago to Milwaukee line, and for orders from Oregon, but may close down after 2012. Talgo moved to Milwaukee anticipating orders for trains for the canceled Milwaukee to Madison route. Illinois governor Pat Quinn has invited Talgo to move south, where high speed rail work is continuing. Walker's idea of "job creation" appears to be reducing the wages of the state's workers in a race to the bottom, rather than nurturing businesses that pay a living wage.
Illinois will get an additional $42.3 million for the high-speed connection from Chicago to St. Louis. Wisconsin's neighbor to the south has already posted a billboard announcing "Dear Scott Walker, Thanks for the money & jobs! Love, Illinois." North Carolina only got $1.5 million of the money rejected by the incoming Wisconsin and Ohio governors, but will be happy to speed up work on the Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor, including a 110 mile per hour connection between Raleigh and Richmond, Virginia.
“High-speed rail will modernize America’s valuable transportation network, while reinvigorating the manufacturing sector and putting people back to work in good-paying jobs,” said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood in a Dec 9 press release. “I am pleased that so many other states are enthusiastic about the additional support they are receiving to help bring America’s high-speed rail network to life.”
LaHood, previously a Republican congressman from Illinois, added that "Last year, the Obama Administration received a commitment from 30 domestic and foreign rail manufacturers to establish or expand their base of operations in the United States if selected for contracts building America’s high-speed rail network. These rail manufacturers and suppliers committed to not only locate in the U.S., but to ensure high-speed rail projects are built by American workers with American-made supplies. To deliver maximum economic benefits to American taxpayers, the Administration’s high-speed rail program also includes a 100 percent ‘Buy American’ requirement."
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs suggested that "there are people sitting around their kitchen tables in Ohio and Wisconsin who are wondering why they’re not at work because a partisan political food-fight by a governor-elect” steamrollered new job creation.
Other states receiving the transferred rail funding are Washington, New York, Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, Missouri, Oregon, Iowa and Indiana. Wisconsin gets back $2 million to improve the existing Hiawatha service between Chicago and Milwaukee.
Comments
The money is likely to go to states like NY and CA where population densities and traditional entrenchment to rail is high. The money is better spent in those regions than the tenuous Milwaukee-Madison connection. It's a blessing in disguise providing Wisconsin more time to look at modern transit technologies and to address the plethora of environmental, safety and siting issues that were largely ignored in the soured HSR project. You have to respect Walker whether you agree with him or not on his HSR decision as a man of his word unlike many politicos that break their campaign promises.
I don't have to respect Walker at all - in my seldom humble opinion, he is an overgrown spoiled brat and a snake oil salesman, who will do great damage to our state in the next four years.
I have heard the mantra that high speed rail is only economically feasible in densely populated urban corridors. That is arguably true for urban rail systems - although a modestly large central city with a number of suburban concentrations around it can also support a rail system, e.g. Denver. But connections between large cities some distance from each other also makes sense, e.g., Chicago to New York. If train service ran the distance in ten hours, it would be quite competitive. The capital investment in reliable high speed tracks could then also sustain stops in cities like Cleveland and Pittsburgh, and even some short lines providing smaller towns in between connections to the larger cities.
It may however be a blessing in disguise that short-segment projects offering modest upgrades of existing tracks have been dispensed with. In a few years, we may see full scale development of entire corridors, like doing Milwaukee to Minneapolis all at once. That would inspire more confidence, and better results.
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