Saturday, January 06, 2007
More on the SE Wisconsin commuter train

I stumbled upon this Web site this morning and it looks like there is a group ready to go if there is going to be a referendum for the tax shifting to pay for trains and buses in Southeastern Wisconsin. It is dubbed the Southeastern Wisconsin Coalition for Transit NOW.

Of course it is mostly propaganda about the trains, the economic benefits and everything else under the sun. There were two things that struck me (1) the misinformation on the economic benefits of the train and the project; and (2) the absence of the proposed consolidation of the bus systems. (Sorry no link, because there isn't anything on the site.)

Somehow raising sales taxes for trains increases economic output. I've taken a few economics classes and I still don't understand how--mostly because in reality it doesn't. They use three examples of how spending millions of dollars benefits the communities.

  • HarborPark in Kenosha, WI was 60 acres of lake front property left vacant and blighted after the Chrysler plant closed. The property was assessed at $0. One of the key goals of the HarborPark development was to attract residents that would use Metra for their daily commuting. A over 300 units will be built with
    value of over $100 million. The annual property tax revenues will be about $2.5 million when completed in 2006.
  • Arlington Towne Square in Arlington Heights, IL is one of five developments that are a part of a very recent major downtown redevelopment. In total, $200 million was invested near a new Metra station (Metra service was existing before new station was built). The Arlington Towne Square redevelopment used old housing/commercial real estate that was valued at 2.5 - $3 million and brought in $65,000 annually in property and sales tax. This property was transformed into the $65 million Arlington Towne Square mixed-use tower that includes residential, commercial, retail, underground parking and a theatre. Occupancy is near capacity in 2 years. $1.5 million in annual property and sales tax are realized from the Arlington Towne Square development alone.
  • Fox Island Place in Aurora, IL is a landmark historical hotel that has been renovated into a 110 unit apartment building. It is situated a few blocks from a recently renovated and expanded Metra station. Occupancy is always at full capacity with a waiting list. According to the manager, the biggest selling point of Fox Island Place is their proximity to the Metra station. About half of their tenants choose to not own cars, instead using Metra and other transit services. The manager stated that without the Metra station, occupancy would be cut in half and the historical landmark apartments would not have been developed.

Interesting how this organization pointed out two cities (in Illinois no less) that were already connected with the Metra System in the Chicagoland area. The author doesn't want to point out that the infrastructure was already there--the projects were renovations of train stations that had no new impact on service, or new service.

Also, let's take a look at the taxbase for the two cities and compare them to Kenosha, Racine and Milwaukee. (Based on per-capita income from the U.S. Census.) Take a look at the counties and it gets closer, but a considerable difference

I'm sure I picked the wrong data to look at, but look at discrepencies of the total amount of dollars in the counties. Cook County residents can have a massive train service and still pay significantly less when it comes to transporation compared to any of the Wisconsin counties. Building trains and train stations aren't cheap. Taxpayers in Southeastern Wisconsin cannot afford this project.

And let's not forget about Harbor Park...
This group claims that Harbor Park was built for the Metra. In reality, it was built because something had to be done with the land and the city took the ball and ran with it. It is true that the land of the old American Motors (Not Chrysler) plant was worthless. It was contaminated by toxic waste nearly 20 feet down and the environmental risk of building over it was severe. Kenosha did a great job of redeveloping it, but it wasn't overnight. It took them a decade from when the last AMC smoke stack was demolished in 1988 to roughly 1998 when most of the framework of the Harbor Park was developed.

Metra has been stopping in Kenosha at least since the closure of the AMC plant. Redevelopment wasn't a result of the Metra. Redevelopment was a necessity of downtown Kenosha as teh Village of Pleasant Prairie and Town of Somers exploded outside of city limits. In the 1990s, downtown Kenosha was dead. There were numerous attempts to change the way it worked, but they all failed. They took out the through streets, they put them back in. They put in a worthless trolley system and a massive bus station. All of these were failures, until the redevelopment was finalized.

Throughout the course of Kenosha's downtown redevelopment, there was no rennovation of the Metra station. In fact, it technically isn't a station, rather the northern stop. The "station" is a convenience store that you can purchase snacks, your parking pass for the lot and get some basic information on the Metra service. The train had zero impact on Kenosha's redevelopment process. There isn't anything that connects the train station to the new Harbor Park development.

Their story is full of holes.

And travel time will increase with commuter rail...
On the same page, they list the total time from all of the various stops on the rail line. Last time I wrote about this, I came to these stats for the time for Amtrak:

And with the proposed KRM line:

And let's take a look at the proposed stops along the Wisconsin lakeshore:

My oh my, that is a lot of stops. I am trying to think of where they would put a train station in Somers that is near something useful. The tracks they will use run parallel to Wisconsin 32, aka Sheridan Road. The only logical place I can think of to put this station would be on Hwy E (12th Street). But there is a problem, there is a fire station next to the tracks. Hmm. I suppose one could be put on Hwy A. But that isn't where the population in Somers is. The population is mostly west of Green Bay Road (Wisconsin 31). If someone in Somers wanted to take a train to Chicago, they would be better off driving the 5-10 minutes to Sturtevant and taking the Amtrak. If they want to go north, they have easy access to Interstate 94 and Wisconsin 31.

Now this is where any numbers will look good. This KRM group posted this on their site:

A recent Transit NOW survey of 100 seniors from Caledonia, a potential station site on the KRM Commuter rail line, provides another good example of how commuter rail increases visitor spending in a city. Of 99 seniors surveyed, 100% said that they would take commuter rail. Of those 99, 90% would go to Milwaukee, 42% would go to Kenosha, 17% would go to Chicago, 14% would go to Racine or South Milwaukee. The stated purpose of their trips was 66% shopping, 65% musical shows, 51 % restaurants, 47% theatre, symphony or ballet, 43% would go to museums. These are trips that they would otherwise likely not have made.

Of course seniors are going to use a train. Hell, they are the primary consumer of the bus system in all three counties. Their mobility is limited because of various factors: health, drivers license, money, etc. There are other factors too. Racine buses don't run up in Caledonia, nothing does. The proper question would have been to 100 random people, not seniors. Or, 100 random people age 18-65, people that work for a living.

And what about the buses?
Seriously, this is what matters most. We can argue all we want about the trains, at least we all agree that it is a new tax. The tax shifting for the bus system will result in an increase in total taxes. That is a guarantee. Then the rural residents of Kenosha and Racine Counties will pay for something they don't have access to. Stupid.

Labels: ,

posted by Jon Hayden at 10:47 AM |

Archives: