New gains for Amtrak, fresh reminders of Walker's service derailments
It's good that track upgrades in Milwaukee will enhance Amtrak's popular round-trip service to Chicago on the Hiawatha line.
Walker had other motivations, like rewarding his allies who enjoyed making money as charter members of the road-building-and-fossil fuel complex, and weakening Milwaukee by erasing pollution-reducing, good-paying, family-supporting train assembly and maintenance jobs.
The very people about whom Walker never gave a thought - - as Governor, Milwaukee County Executive, or as a state legislator - - except as politicized pawns in a quarter-century long game of self-aggrandizing chess.
The Madison Amtrak service which Walker killed would have additionally revived long-dormant rail connections to schools, businesses, cultural facilities and vacation destinations on the Hiawatha line.
Including a station in Sturtevant not far from Foxconn jobs and commerce which may materialize someday in Walker's make-believe 'Wisconn Valley' - - as well as at stops along the long-distance Empire Builder train which Amtrak runs from Chicago through Milwaukee to the West Coast, and back.
That line bypasses the Wisconsin capital city and forces Madison-area passengers to make their own way to and from the nearest Empire Builder stop in Columbus.
Transportation services are supposed to serve customers, not obstruct, discourage and inconvenience them - - a principle as useless and foreign to Walker & Co, as are Midwestern high-speed rail, unfettered voting, fair legislative mapping, protected wetlands or Earth Day.
So Walker is gone from the capitol, and so is the Amtrak connection whose rail line construction, train sets' assembly and maintenance funding were in hand.
Another Walker run for Governor, or any public office?
I hope not.
Plans to add more Amtrak trips between Milwaukee and Chicago getting a boost with funding to improve rail yardBut it's also a bitter reminder of Walker's deeply negative rail service legacy - - a summary blog archive is here - - that discounted many state needs to serve his own personal agendas, like scapegoating President Obama, fueling Walker's doomed, 71-day mini-presidential race abandoned before the 2016 Iowa caucuses, and jabbing blue Madison with a partisan stick for good, ideological measure, too.
Walker had other motivations, like rewarding his allies who enjoyed making money as charter members of the road-building-and-fossil fuel complex, and weakening Milwaukee by erasing pollution-reducing, good-paying, family-supporting train assembly and maintenance jobs.
The very people about whom Walker never gave a thought - - as Governor, Milwaukee County Executive, or as a state legislator - - except as politicized pawns in a quarter-century long game of self-aggrandizing chess.
The Madison Amtrak service which Walker killed would have additionally revived long-dormant rail connections to schools, businesses, cultural facilities and vacation destinations on the Hiawatha line.
Including a station in Sturtevant not far from Foxconn jobs and commerce which may materialize someday in Walker's make-believe 'Wisconn Valley' - - as well as at stops along the long-distance Empire Builder train which Amtrak runs from Chicago through Milwaukee to the West Coast, and back.
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| How Amtrak rolls. |
Transportation services are supposed to serve customers, not obstruct, discourage and inconvenience them - - a principle as useless and foreign to Walker & Co, as are Midwestern high-speed rail, unfettered voting, fair legislative mapping, protected wetlands or Earth Day.
So Walker is gone from the capitol, and so is the Amtrak connection whose rail line construction, train sets' assembly and maintenance funding were in hand.
Another Walker run for Governor, or any public office?
I hope not.
3 comments:
I would not mind him running on a rail. Tar and feathers come to mind.
Remember how Walker tried to use the reconstruction of the Zoo Interchange against Tom Barrett? A quick, back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that, had the ridership and reduced road traffic from the Madison extension trains been only just enough to extend the working life of that single interchange by only one year, the service would have more than paid off all the "operating expenses" Walker whined about. One year, for one crummy interchange.
Showing the math: $2.3 billion for the rebuilt Zoo, where the original lasted 1963-2010. That makes 47 years, so $49 million dollar in savings per year.)
Scott Walker is a very stupid and arrogant person. His next run will be: remember how good I made the Wisconsin economy. He is a boot licker to anyone who gives him money. For a little campaign donation we could get Scooter to vote for anything. The ckown should actuaslly be locked up for violating all kinds of campaign laws. Oh, thats right, they changed the laws.
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