Wisconsin DOT suspends work on high-speed train line
MADISON, Wis. — The Wisconsin Department of Transportation has ordered a contractor to suspend work on the high-speed train line planned to connect Madison and Milwaukee, a lobbyist said Thursday.
Pat Goss, executive director of the Wisconsin Transportation Builders Association, said the department sent an e-mail to contractor Edward Kraemer & Sons telling the firm to suspend work on a stretch of the line in Jefferson County.
Goss said the e-mail did not say why the work should be halted or if the project is being scrapped altogether. He called the future of the project "the million dollar question."
The suspension comes just two days after the election of Republican Scott Walker as governor. Walker has vowed to kill the $810 million project, which is to be built with federal stimulus funds.
Walker said Thursday he wasn't aware that the project had been put on hold, but he hoped that was the case. He reiterated that he believed the project would cost more than budgeted and the bill would fall to Wisconsin taxpayers.
Walker, who defeated train proponent Democrat Tom Barrett on Tuesday, called the whole thing a boondoggle that wasn't worth the estimated $7.5 million a year the state was estimated to have to spend on operating costs.
He argued that the money would be better spent on repairing the state's roads and bridges, even though it had been earmarked specifically for the rail project.
Outgoing Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle has tried to lock the project in place before leaving office. Over the weekend, his administration signed agreements with federal transportation officials obligating the state to spend all the money for the project.
Several Doyle administration officials did not immediately return phone messages.
The line was planned to connect Madison, the state capital, to Milwaukee, the state's largest city. From there riders would be able to hop on the existing Amtrak train connecting Milwaukee and Chicago.
The line was conceived as possibly extending on to the Twin Cities. Service was to start in 2013, with speeds reaching 79 miles per hour initially but then growing to 110 mph by 2015.
Shutting down the project entirely would require the state to repay any money it has already spent. Money received so far was to be used for engineering, design and track work, signals and communications, and drainage.
Engineering firm HNTB of Kansas City, Mo., was hired to do the preliminary engineering and final design of the track segments. A spokeswoman did not immediately return a message Thursday.
An official with Edward Kraemer & Sons, which was hired to build land bridges for a stretch of the line, also did not immediately return a phone message. Neither did Howard Immel Inc. of Green Bay, which was awarded a contract to demolish and rebuild the boarding area of the Milwaukee train station.
The project is estimated to create about 5,500 jobs while the line is being built and then 55 permanent jobs once it is up and running.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said two different visits to Wisconsin this year that the high-speed rail was a national priority and the train could not be stopped by one state.
The high-speed rail projects have been called into question in other states and among Republicans in Congress. U.S. Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., who is in line to head the House Transportation Committee, said on Wednesday that he wants to re-examine the $10 billion in federal grants that were handed out to Wisconsin and other states for the work.