Farmers fighting a freight rail incursion across their land in southern Wisconsin sound like the good folks in Story Hill and Wauwatosa who are faced with special interest planning arrogance that feels entitled to add I-94 lanes, access roads, dirty air, noise pollution and other "uglifying" infrastructure across their communities regardless of what the residents want.
I see an urban/rural grassroots alliance against bad planning and out-of-control state power in the making.
I see an urban/rural grassroots alliance against bad planning and out-of-control state power in the making.
So, a managing partner of the company says the project's going through, it's just a matter of tidying up the details.
ReplyDeleteThis is a multi-state thing, so is it Feds? Does the State have any say in this? Fun that this is going through Paul Ryan country.
It appears that the hearings are actually being held in the area instead of hundreds of miles away. What were they thinking? People might actually be able to come.
I remember when the US DOT Sec. and WisDOT also said the Milwaukee-Madison Amtrak expansion was going through.
ReplyDeleteThis is going to benefit Wisconsin Southern -- Scott Walker's cash cow (everyone remembers the first conviction in Walkergate, right? Felon Billy Gardner.
ReplyDeleteNot the railroad is tied to Koch interests. They are far-and-away the biggest customer of global transportation holding company WATCO. Since it, like Koch Industries, is also privately owned; it isn't actually possible to see direct and/or indirect ownership. But, since Koch does an overwhelming about of business with WATCO, the actually can control WATCO.
Scott Walker has been dumping virtually all of Wisconsin's state and federal railroad funds into his BFF Wisconsin Southern. This began to exponentially increase the frack-sand business on the line:
WATCO/WSOR Frac Sand Pay-to-Play
http://voicesnewspaper.blogspot.com/2012/12/watcowsor-frac-sand-pay-to-play.html
And
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNE7HXtOlWc
So now they are going to be a hub to funnel freight around Chicago and its all going to go through Milton, Janesville, Clinton via Madison and/or Milwaukee?
Figures -- my best best it this goes through and you can bet that the Great Lakes Basin Transportation, Inc. is not going to operate independently from Wisconsin Southern. There is a much bigger part of the story here that is being withheld from the public.
People need to attend these meetings and ask how enough freight traffic is going to come through Milton Wisconsin to make this feasible.