The loser will be...Wauwatosa, where the city is wobbly on development and innovation.
On the one hand, its city leaders are probably going to lend millions of taxpayer dollars to get the new, sprawlified UWM Engineering School and private sector Innovation Center built on County Grounds property within the city boundaries.
But now its Mayor belatedly says "no" to a high-speed rail connection to leading high-tech business cities with bigger graduate campuses, like Madison, and Minneapolis-St. Paul.
Fear of talk radio and obeisance to Republican candidates and their anti-rail 'philosophy' is trumping common sense and economic growth in Wauwatosa.
OK, fine. Like Oconomowoc, Tosa can take itself off the high-speed rail line and forego business development at and near the high-speed rail station.
And also consign residents to longer freeway commutes as I-94, from Jefferson County to Miller Park, with the Zoo Interchange in between, gets scheduled for decades of construction.
Fewer stops from Chicago to Milwaukee to Madison and beyond are better for the rest of us who want an inter-city transportation option - - with comfy seats and wi-fi, to boot - - but don't want to live in economic backwaters.
Which is just where these rail drop-out cities are headed.
When Tosa said they were interested in the rail stop they went up one notch in my book.
ReplyDeleteNow, with this, they are back down to zero.
As a Madisonian, I'm a little torn. On the one hand, it's sad to see so many local governments in the Milwaukee burbs think their constituency is Charlie Sykes.
ReplyDeleteOn the other, dropping these stops frees up money for the Madison station that the city might otherwise have had to kick in itself and shortens the trip to Milwaukee and Chicago.
You're right about the tech angle, though. The UW Madison's research budget is several times that of all Milwaukee institutions combined and that's not likely to change even with all the new investment in UWM. The rail line provides a faster, direct connection between the Midwest's largest research center in Madison and its financial center in Chicago through Wisconsin's largest pool of skilled/educated workers in Milwaukee. No potential there, I'm sure.