I am just wondering in the chicago area the metra wants to expand to milwaukee. i think it will help the economy of kenosha and racine counties in wisconsin becuse it is all farm land and i live in that part of the state. Getting a job that is not a minimum wage job is not easy because most of the jobs are in illinois does anyone think it could help the economy of that area if metra expanded to milwaukee or should metra stay in the chicago area? whats your 2 cents?
There are precedents for state-run commuter authorities to operate out of their state. New Jersey Transit operates in both New York City and in Philadelphia (Atlantic City Line). SEPTA operates in Delaware (Wilmington and Newark) and in New Jersey (Trenton on the Corridor and West Trenton on the ex-Reading line). Boston’s MBTA runs to Providence, RI and is to be extended to Kingston. And METRA already served Waukegan.
The issue was mentioned in an article in Sunday’s Chicago Tribune and has been addressed in another thread. Extending Metra to Milwaukee is unlikely, the concept being proposed is a separate Milwaukee-Racine-Kenosha suburban operation. Funding is still up in the air.
ok funding is still up in the air. but the RTA or metra would end up running it. becuse the funding is not there in the small farm communitys it would run threw so metra running to milwaukee is the better bet. and the idea was mentioned in the tribune once. the kenosha news had many artialc adressing the issuie. over the last 2 years
yes waukegen has meta service, but it is also a 30 min car ride from the border to the stop in waukgen. the station is not in the part of the town.
Matt,
Extending service to Milwaukee is possible, but ‘funding’ is the big issue. Also, Amtrak already has Chicago-Milwaukee service in the ex-Milwaukee Road line. That is 7 trains each way(8 including the EB) between Milwaukee & Chicago. How much demand is there for local service on the ex-C&NW line north to Milwaukee?
Jim
Has there been any talk in regards to restoring any sort of commuter or passenger service to Green Bay from Milwaukee? I figured that there would be some sort of interest.
There hasnt been talk about that in years. Money is the main thing and CN doesnt want to contend with amtrak on their line (from what i was told from a yardmaster a few years ago)
Paul
Ah, thanks. Sounds like a familiar story.
metra has trackage rights up antioch ill. the line i am talking about is on the far east side of kenosha county and is the ex millwakee road. aka cp rail
I think you would have a lot of political opposition to any proposal to let metra run a train in Milwaukee. It is bad enough I have to trust the politicans in Milwaukee County to do the right thing with my tax money, but Chicago, no way. The residents of Wisconsin would have no accountablity for the decisions made in Chicago, and I could see Milwaukee and Wisconsin getting really screwed in the deal.
Maybe it will shake out some day that a Wisconsin-based transit agency will operate trains Milw-Kenosha; Metra already operates some trains to Kenosha.
Perhaps an across-the-platform transfer would be possible, just as some SEPTA runs to/from Philadelphia and NJT from parts north, both wind up in Trenton at the same time, sometimes with across-the-platform transfers.
There’s also a possibility that a Wisconsin-based agency could form a working relationship with Metra that is similar to the Metra - NICTD (South Shore Line) relationship in which the WI Transit Agency trains are allowed to run all the way to Ogilvie Station with stops within in the current Metra Union Pacific-North line. However, this possibility I think would be difficult…then again, no one thought four Indiana counties could work together to save the South Shore Line, so stranger things have happened…
Now if the Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee Railroad could have survived to the Illinois RTA era, perhaps we wouldn’t be having this discussion…
For a overview of the ongoing efforts to establish such a service, please refer to these threads:
http://cs.trains.com/forums/1132631/ShowPost.aspx
http://cs.trains.com/forums/1355923/ShowPost.aspx
http://cs.trains.com/forums/1318530/ShowPost.aspx
http://cs.trains.com/forums/1453108/ShowPost.aspx
http://cs.trains.com/forums/1254461/ShowPost.aspx
The line I’m talking about is on the far east side of Kenosha county and is the ex-millwakee road. aka cp rail.
Wrong railroad Matt - downtown Kenosha and the State St. Depot in Racine were the path for CNW commuter passenger service - before Amtrak was saddled with it. Because the freight roads whined they were losing money.
CP thru Kenosha and Racine counties is the current path for Amtrak’s Hiawatha (inter-city commuting with limited stops) and the Empire Builder which runs thru the Twin Cities and out to the left Coast.
Anything run on the north side of the cheese fence will have a board answering to the funding communities - or it won’t get funded nor ever run a mile!
i thought the cp trackage was going to handle the metra traffic the kenosha news said that they have plans put stops in somers pairid use the stertivent amtrak stop and put in one or two more in racine county and others in milwaukee county plus i have a family member that works for the cp rail. in milwaukee
Dumb question. Did or does Wisconsin have something in the state constitution about the state(Wi) not being able to give money to railroads?
When Milwaukee(TMERL?) had light rail it went out of business because the neither the city or state would or could buy it. (I think)
Rgds IGN
Info regarding the financial history of the TREM&L, as well as the history of Wisconsin power generating locations (scroll down to the "Company History: Wisconsin Energy Corporation section)>
http://www.answers.com/topic/wisconsin-energy-corporation?cat=biz-fin