La Follette Avenue
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One of DOT's public involvement consultants, Caron Kloser of HNTB, said anyone with questions can contact her. She can be reached at 414-975-2030, ckloser@hntb.com.
The La Follette Avenue High-Speed Rail Corridor Group is continuing to collect questions pertinent to the portion of corridor from Anziger Court and Winnebago Street to Waubesa Street. They can be submitted to rail[at]ohioavenue[dot]com or 133 Ohio Avenue. Answers will be shared as they are collected.
The La Follette Avenue High-Speed Rail Corridor Group organized the October 21 question-and-answer session. The group had been collecting questions from neighbors since September 5 and initially submitted them to one of DOT's consultants on September 20. Upon advice from Parisi, Dan Melton, La Follette Avenue resident and member of the corridor management plan focus group, formally submitted the questions to DOT officials / consultants on October 13. A consultant returned answers to those questions on October 20. PDF of preliminary (October 13) questions and answers
The WisDOT team October 21 included WisDOT Engineer Kjirstin Roberts who has been offering to meet on site with individual landowners who directly abut the rail right-of-way if property owners have specific questions. She can be contacted at 414-220-5479, kjirstin.roberts@dot.wi.gov.
When the question of WisDOT possibly closing either Waubesa or Corry came up, Roberts said, "That's something we really want to hear from you guys, if you have a preference — closing one or the other."
Ohio Avenue neighbor Brent Sieling responded Waubesa and Corry should both remain open.
One of DOT's public involvement consultants, Chuck Wade of TranSmart, said, "Yes, We have heard that message loud and clear, that every crossing is important."
Members of the WisDOT team repeated, as they have at other meetings, that from Baldwin Street to Watertown there will be a single track. There will be double-track only between Baldwin and the Downtown station. They also said, to this point, they see no need to purchase any additional property. They're confident the Milwaukee-Madison train can be accommodated within the existing railroad right-of-way.
Farwell Street neighbor Maggie Fitzsimmons, part of the La Follette Avenue High-Speed Railroad Corridor Group kept detailed notes of the entire meeting on her laptop, and the group plans to make them available on its website as soon as possible.
Parisi said he will continue to pay close attention to how WisDOT is handling corridor details — and offered his help if individual neighbors feel they're having problems or not being listened to. Parisi said he hopes to be on a Winnebago-to-Waubesa neighborhood train corridor walk next week with Mayor's Office staff member Chris Klein organized in response to requests from the La Follette Avenue corridor group. Anyone living or ownering property on the corridor who wants attend or who cannot attend but has questions and concerns should email rail[at]ohioavenue[dot]com or write to 133 Ohio Avenue.
Members of the WisDOT team said Thursday Milwaukee-Madison trains would typically be 700 feet long — 14 cars each of which is 50 feet long. They said the trains, coming in from the east, will need to slow down to 30 miles per hour at the Dixon Greenway-Wirth Court Park curve, then speed back up again to 40 mph once they pass that curve, which is known as Junction A in railroad parlance. They said freight trains, which now lumber along because of poor track conditions, would be able to go much faster also once there's new bed and track for Milwaukee-Madison trains.
The consultants and DOT staff did not offer to recommend to the city of Madison that it pursue the addition of a pedestrian-bicycle crossing somewhere from Jackson to Talmadge Street. They could not state a recommended best practice for the longest distance for not having a railroad crossing in an urban walking neighborhood. Some residents on the north side of the tracks
The consultants and DOT staff said NO federal or state law or regulation requires a fence, but that one will be installed as the experts deem necessary for safety. No clear answer was given as to what is more unsafe about a train going 40 miles an hour except that DOT officials and consultants SAY it will be quieter, compared to the unfenced corridor and the slow (but loud) freight trains. People walking along or across the railroad corridor with or without a fence are trespassing on railroad property. The 2001 Environmental Assessment that is guiding the corridor design presents fences as a given, as does the DOT and its consultants presentations. The DOT staff and consultants acknowledge they hear the opposition to a fence.
Faster and other neighbors are concerned about a physical division of census tract 20 that segregates north from south and limits pedestrian access to businesses and public services. They are also concerned about the long-term socio-economic consequences of dividing a traditionally poorer area from a traditionally wealthier area, especially once Union Corners is developed on the old Rayovac site. With the entire south side of the Union Corners site fenced, no one will be able to access areas on opposite sides without out driving west and north out of the development and around Milwaukee or Winnebago Street to access Atwood Avenue.
A neighborhood partipant in the meeting asked people in the group to raise their hands to indicate they would sell their homes and move away if a fence was built. Eleven out of the 30 residents people raised their hands, representating about nine households.
The meeting was set up between the La Follette Avenue High-Speed Rail Corridor Group that organized in September in response to a lack of access to accurate information about the corridor and plans for bifurcating census tract 20 in the city of Madison.
The 4-5 p.m. meeting was meant to be a separate pre-meeting — to help raise questions specific to the area along the La Follette Avenue portion of the corridor, from Waubesa Street to Anziger Court and Winnebago Street — prior to a 5:30 p.m. meeting of the larger WisDOT Corridor Management Plan Focus Group. The WisDOT team cancelled the 5:30 p.m. focus group meeting because they weren't ready yet. The separate 4 p.m. meeting went ahead.
Above article posted October 23, revised October 24
La Follette Avenue High-Speed Rail Corridor Group
Web site is published by Karen Faster, 133 Ohio Avenue, Madison WI 53704
rail@ohioavenue.com
Posted October 29, 2010