January 11, 2012
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The West Central Wisconsin Rail Coalition is asking the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to reject a preliminary recommendation drafted by the Minnesota Department of Transportation to select the existing Amtrak line via La Crosse as the only route to be considered for future High Speed Rail between Chicago, Milwaukee and the Twin Cities.
Thursday is the deadline for the public to comment on the MnDOT report, the next step in the route study that began in the fall of 2010 and was the subject of a public hearing in Eau Claire that December that drew 200 participants.
In its comments, the Coalition cites serious errors, omissions and inconsistencies that resulted in routes serving Eau Claire being inappropriately eliminated from consideration:
• West Central Wisconsin citizens are effectively being denied due process in a decision that will have long term consequences for the state’s transportation system. The study failed to follow through on its required plan to fully involve the public, skipping one promised set of public hearings, and completely shutting Wisconsin citizens out of the process after WisDOT withdrew from the project last August.
• Hidden deep in the report’s hundreds of pages of details is the fact that different, more expensive cost estimates were incorrectly applied to the route via Eau Claire vs. the route through La Crosse, meaning capital estimates were not “apples to apples.”
• The report’s conclusions ignored a finding within the report that trains on the La Crosse route would be limited to a top speed of 90 mph for over 100 miles between La Crosse and Hastings because of curves along the Mississippi River, where there is also more freight congestion; while the tracks via Eau Claire could be upgraded to 110 mph speed for the entire route, and where there would be less freight train interference.
Leaders of the Coalition assert that the West Central Wisconsin route is still very viable as a route for passenger rail service, and that this decision is too important for it to be made by the transportation department of another state. They are asking FRA to require MnDOT to address the errors in the report’s methodology, revise its conclusions to ensure that routes via Eau Claire are correctly recognized as meeting the report’s “reasonable and feasible” criteria and remain eligible for future studies, and that the report’s authors be required to fully complete the Public Participation Plan that promised “to engage the public in a meaningful and transparent way and to build community consensus around recommendations,” including the holding of hearings in Wisconsin cities.
More information on the MnDOT/FRA study:
www.dot.state.mn.us/passengerrail/mwrri/phase7.html
The public may submit comments by (deadline January 12):
• Email MWRRIPhase7@state.mn.us
• Fax: 651-366-4248
• Phone (leaving a recorded message): 651-366-3199
• Mail: Minnesota Department of Transportation
Passenger Rail Office
Mail Stop 480
395 John Ireland Boulevard
St. Paul, MN 55155
The West Central Wisconsin Rail Coalition, a committee of Momentum West, the 10 county Regional Economic Development Organization, provides leadership and coordination to develop passenger rail service through west central Wisconsin as part of a regional strategy to ensure a balance transportation system necessary for long term sustainable economic growth.
