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Wisconsin legislators more than ten years ago adopted in Assembly and Senate a resolution to amend the State constitution's mandate on transportation funding. Previous amendments in earlier decades had opened roads, harbors and airports to State tax dollars. Railroad transportation was approved by those resolutions, by two consecutive Legislatures in 1989 and 1991.
In April, 1992 Wisconsin voters approved that constitutional amendment by a 57 percent majority statewide.
Some counties voted even more strongly for state government to underwrite beneficial train projects. Kenosha county voted at nearly 70 percent in favor, second only to Dane county, which voted 75 percent in favor of train support. (Adjoining Iowa county also ranked among the top four supporters.) Both Racine and Milwaukee counties in the K-R-M corridor on Lake Michigan's shoreline also surpassed the state average in approving the Legislature's successive recommendations.
As we near the tenth anniversary of that overwhelming signal of popular support for train projects funded by the State of Wisconsin, we can also see that support has grown over the years, as documented by a 1999 public opinion survey reported by The Capital Times.
©The Capital Times. Published March 30, 1999
Posted on KenRail's website with permission
By Luke Timmerman
Wisconsin residents like passenger railroads - even more than railroad officials think.
That conclusion was strongly backed by a new statewide poll that shows overwhelming support for several routes, especially Madison to Chicago.
People polled were asked a straightforward question - whether they support initiating or upgrading rail service between several cities in the next year.
The answers came back with more than 80 percent either strongly agreeing or somewhat agreeing to four of the five routes.
Of those, Milwaukee to Chicago (88 percent), Madison to Chicago (84 percent) and Madison to Milwaukee (84 percent) had the highest levels of support. A route from Milwaukee to Green Bay had 81 percent of respondents in favor, while Eau Claire to Minneapolis had the support of 77 percent.
"We were really surprised by the intensity of the support," said Jeff Wiswell, a spokesman for Wisconsin and Southern Railroad Co. "We were just astounded by the overwhelming amount of support."
The poll involved 600 telephone interviews with Wisconsin residents between Jan. 27 and Feb. 11. Each of the state's 72 counties was sampled proportionately to the state's population based upon 1997 Census Bureau estimates.
The poll, conducted by Chamberlain Research of Madison, has a margin of error [of] 3.97 percent.
A second question asked people how much ought to be spent to support rail. Respondents were a little more unsure about that, with 25 percent supporting $50 million to $100 million, 19 percent supporting $100 million to $150 million, and 13 percent supporting $150 million to $250 million. One-third of those polled said they didn't know how much.
Demographically, people under 45 strongly supported passenger rail, as did independents and Democrats, Wiswell said. People between 56 and 64 were a little less favorable, as were Republicans.
Wiswell said the strength of the poll should be evident on the floor of the Legislature, saying that "it should give them the comfort zone to move forward."
Currently, $50 million has been set aside for rail routes hetween Madison and Milwaukee and Milwaukee and Green Bay, Wiswell said. If the Legislature commits to other routes, it could open the door for more federal funding, he said.
The poll comes after Gov. Tommy Thompson announced $2.5 million of Amtrak money to do preliminary engineering on a Madison-Milwaukee route.
That could become part of the $3.5 billion, nine-state Midwest
Rail Initiative, which would operate at 110 mph and link 70 metropolitan
areas. Wisconsin and Southern has been approached by Amtrak to
initiate service hetween Madison and Chicago.
