How does the decision of a station location and access alignment for Madison affect the project schedule?
To facilitate the development of high-speed passenger rail service between Milwaukee and Madison by the project goal of the end of 2003, decisions on the access alignment and station location in Madison need to be made in early 2001 to allow for enough time to design the necessary infrastructure. Additionally, another goal of the project is to obtain 80% funding from the federal government. The funding source for the project would come from a bill that will be reintroduced to Congress early this year, which would fund bonds to develop designated high-speed rail corridors around the United States. Anticipating passage of this bill, Wisconsin needs to be prepared with as much of the Milwaukee-Madison corridor designed to apply for this funding; the more design that is complete, the more competitive Wisconsin will be against other rail corridors under development in Illinois and the northwestern United States in acquiring funds in time to meet the first goal of implementing passenger serv
