Gov. Jim Doyle’s announcement that the state would buy Spanish-made train cars built for high-speed rail has sparked visions of rapid transit from Chicago to Milwaukee to Madison, largely paid for by federal stimulus money. But it won’t be easy to turn that dream into a reality.
The state is asking for $600 million in stimulus money, and most of that would pay to upgrade the Milwaukee-to-Madison rail connection, which barely exists at this point. The stretch from Milwaukee to Watertown would require the construction of a second track, because freight trains use the current line. The Watertown-to-Madison section could use the one line, but it would need some rehab work, and a “siding” section where trains from opposite directions could pass each other.
Even then, the train would only travel to the Madison airport, but not to downtown Madison, which is a huge drawback. But the airport-to-downtown leg is complicated: At this point, says Department of Transportation spokesperson Chris Klein, no location or land has been determined for a downtown station and parking.
Then there’s the issue of average speed. High-speed in Europe means traveling 150 miles per hour. But the Chicago-to-Madison trains would initially travel only at a maximum of 79 miles per hour. That could increase to 110 miles per hour, says Ron Adams, the Department of Transportation’s expert on rail travel, but this would require that all trains, including freight trains using the line, have “positive train stop” to prevent collisions. But this technology is still being tested. Adams says a test is ongoing in Michigan.
Even if the technology for this is approved, all commercial freight companies using the same lines would then be required to pay for positive train stop on their locomotives. The freight companies, says Adams, “are struggling with what it means, what it will cost them.” I’m guessing that could delay things further.
And once the higher speeds are approved, the trains won’t average 110 mph, because they make stops. The Milwaukee-to-Madison stretch, for instance, stops in Brookfield, Oconomowoc and Watertown. Adams says the Chicago-to-Milwaukee trip could average 72 minutes, as opposed to the 90 minutes it now takes. That’s faster, certainly, but hardly “high-speed.”
Finally, the stretch from Kenosha to Chicago presents problems because the Chicago Metra commuter lines now use those same tracks. “They obviously have a lot of time slots,” Adams concedes. DOT’s plan is to run 10 trips per day from Chicago to Madison, but the available time slots not used by Metra may not always be ideal. That might cut into DOT’s projection of a total ridership of 1.5 million annually from Chicago to Madison, or double the current 750,000 ridership from Chicago to Milwaukee.
Doyle sees the proposed train as a golden opportunity to land federal money for a long-discussed project, and argues that Wisconsin has the edge on other states. “This truly is the most shovel ready rail project in the Midwest and, I think, the U.S.” he has told the media. The hope is that the stimulus money gets the basic line going and then, over time, problems like the lack of a downtown Madison station, get addressed, with additional state or (if Wisconsin gets lucky) federal funding. All of which adds a lot of “ifs” to the dream of high-speed rail.
The Skylight Sinks Deeper
It may have been the last chance to save the situation at the Skylight Opera Theatre.
Sources tell me Byron Foster and other Skylight board members had secured funding to provide severance money to Managing Director Eric Dillner, so he could be asked to leave. Foster’s idea was that the board would hire Colin Cabot, the highly respected former leader and founding spirit of the Skylight, as interim managing director. Cabot would have rehired fired Artistic Director Bill Theisen, and worked to heal the wounds with the many Milwaukee artists (up to 26 now) who have severed ties with the company.
But the board voted the idea down. A shocked Colin Cabot flew to Milwaukee anyway to attend the Friday meeting at Catalano Square just outside the theater’s building in the Third Ward, where all the unhappy artists and Skylight patrons met with Dillner and interim Board President Terry Kurtenbach. The meeting went badly, with Dillner essentially saying the Skylight would go ahead and find other artists to replace the long list of people who had severed their ties with a company they had loved.
Cabot has reacted by pulling out of a show scheduled for Dec. 31 through Jan. 10 starring him and his wife, singer Paula Cabot, that was going to include some Skylight history and backstage stories and would celebrate the theater’s 50th anniversary. For anyone familiar with the Skylight, that’s a heartbreaking loss. “I’d like to see them reconsider,” says attorney Matt Flynn, a Skylight board member, “but the theater has to be run on fiscally prudent basis.”
I’m told that there was also an attempt to bring back former Managing Director Joan Lounsbery (who served from 1992 to 1999) as an interim replacement for Dillner, but that idea was killed by board members. Lounsbery, who now lives in California, was willing to come back to Milwaukee and team up with Cabot to fix the theater’s problems.
Lounsbery has joined the throng writing letters urging the board to rescue the situation. Chris Libby, another former managing director, has written a letter suggesting the board is on a path to destruction. (You’ll find these letters and the most complete information on the Skylight controversy at Tony Clement’s Tuesday’s blog).
Theisen told me two weeks ago that he’d heard from 25 Skylight board members who had phoned him and that the board was very divided. Board member Elizabeth Friedman, who has now resigned, says 16 board members voted to retain Dillner and 12 voted to let him go and pursue an alternate plan.
Cabot attended one board meeting in person and another via speaker phone, and says the feeling of some board members was that “We have to support Eric; he’s only doing our wishes.” The original decision to fire Theisen was actually made by the board’s four-person executive committee without consulting the full board. That was a huge mistake. But Dillner compounded the mistake, Cabot believes, by not immediately falling on his sword in reaction to the storm of criticism from Skylight artists and supporters.
“Eric just didn’t have the personality to deal with this,” Cabot says. “If he would have simply apologized and said I made a mistake…” But he didn’t. He dug in his heels and so did certain board members. Cabot says the key board member is Vince Shieley (an executive at Briggs & Stratton). Shieley is not the board president, but “he was running the meeting,” Cabot notes.
Cabot says he realized the current board of directors really doesn’t know him. But there are countless donors, audience members and ex-board members who do know Cabot – and Lounsbery and Libby and longtime Music Director Richard Carsey and so many of the other longtime Skylight luminaries, all of whom have pleaded with the board to reconsider its actions.
In response, some supporters of the slim board majority are claiming Theisen spent too much and that Dillner had trouble reining him in financially. They also claim Dillner contracted with some top national artists to replace the many local professionals who now refuse to work with the Skylight.
Even if both claims were true, the increasing rift between the Skylight and its extended family could mortally wound the organization.
“We have lost our good will with the community,” Friedman writes, “we have lost our artistic community, and we sold out. Our beloved theatre is dying right before our eyes.”
The Buzz:
The Journal Sentinel situation just got worse: The paper now wants to cut not 25 more staff, but 50, as Pressroom columnist Erik Gunn reveals in his Facebook column (well worth signing up to get his updates).
-U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan has been touting his support from countless $100 supporters, but one blogger finds most of the donors are from outside his district.
-And what are the chances the Brewers make the playoffs? That Brett Favre stops whining? The Sports Nut computes all the odds.
