First, if you offer money to someone, tip or otherwise, it's unlikely that they'll refuse it unless there's an employer ban or strings attached.
I have travelled several long distance Amtrak trains using sleeper compartment, which includes your meals in the dining car. If the service is good, I tip the Car Attendant $5.00 to $10.00 per person, per day, given as we exit the train at the last stop. I've also had Car Attendants that received no tip, not because I was cheap, but because the service was poor or nonexistant. I usually tip the wait staff in the Dining Car a couple dollars per person per meal.
The BS about "they earn union scale" is a lame excuse for your friends to be cheap.
This topic has been around a couple of times. It all boils down to what you feel comfortable with and whether or not you are cheap. Protocol would say tip whatever you would at a hotel or restaurant. But there was a lot of complaints about that. So, again, do what you feel comfortable with based on your circumstances. If it is an honest tip it will be appreciated.
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Back in the days when Pullman operated the sleepers, does anyone know what the wages were for porters? Has anyone ever read/heard any data regarding how much additional was typical in tip income?
Dakguy201 Back in the days when Pullman operated the sleepers, does anyone know what the wages were for porters? Has anyone ever read/heard any data regarding how much additional was typical in tip income?
According to the A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum, which is located at 10406 S. Maryland Avenue, Chicago, Ill 60628, Pullman Porters were dependent on tips for "much of their income". One source claims that they were dependent on tips for more than half of their income prior to the recognition of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in 1935. Porters were dependent on the whims of mostly white passengers for a significant portion of their income at a time when racism was woven deeply into the fabric of American society.
Pullman car porters were often referred to as "George", as a takeoff on George Pullman, the founder of the Pullman Company. Although the job was highly respected in the African-American community, it was not as good as it sounded, especially before the recognition of the union. According to the museum, "porters spent roughly ten percent of their time in unpaid "preparatory" and "terminal" set-up and clean-up duties, had to pay for their food, lodging, and uniforms, which might consume half of their wages, and were charged whenever their passengers stole a towel or a water pitcher. They also could not be promoted to Pullman Conductor, a job reserved for whites, even though they frequently performed many of the conductor's duties.
As a rule I tip the wait persons in the dinning car 15 per cent, unless they have a negative attitude, in which case I don't leave a tip. The same practice applies to the sleeping car attendants. On my most recent trip, which I described in some detail under "Amtrak Stats....", I encountered a dinning car wait person who was awful. I did not leave her a tip. Moreover, none of the sleeping car attendants offered to help me with my luggage or provide any extraordinary service. In fact, I rarely saw them. Accordingly, I did not leave them a tip.
Amtrak's on-board service personnel, according to one source, are compensated fairly, especially when considering their generous benefits package, i.e. health insurance, paid vacations, sick leave, retirement benefits, etc. Nevertheless, their job is not easy. They are away from home for an extended period, working on a rocking and rolling vehicle, and sometimes putting up with nasty passengers. The job can be hard on their family life and tough on the body. I don't begrudge them 15 per cent, which is a fairly standard tip, if they provide me good service.
Tip always, even on the Northeast Corridor. No reason not to. While engineers get fantastic salaries*, the conductors and 'stewards' on the NEC should be tipped if possible.
*I overheard one AMTK employee talk about $165,000 for Acela and Northeast Regional engineers.
aegrotatio Tip always, even on the Northeast Corridor. No reason not to. While engineers get fantastic salaries*, the conductors and 'stewards' on the NEC should be tipped if possible. *I overheard one AMTK employee talk about $165,000 for Acela and Northeast Regional engineers.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, annual earnings for locomotive engineers ranged from $33,430 to $88,690 per year in 2008, which is the latest validated reporting period. The mean (average) wage was $53,590, whilst the median was $47,870. The median is the point where half the distribution falls below it and half falls above it. These numbers are before any overtime and do not include the other elements of a worker's compensation package, i.e. vacation pay, health insurance, retirement benefits, etc. Moreover, given the recession, it is doubtful if there have been significant bumps in the compensation of engineers since 2008.
A senior manager at Amtrak told me that its compensation package is competitive with the Class 1 railroads. Accordingly, it is difficult to believe that engineers on the NEC are earning $165,000 per year.
Sam1Accordingly, it is difficult to believe that engineers on the NEC are earning $165,000 per year.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
Dining car ought to be what is customary these days in most restaurants: ~20% rounded to the whole dollar.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
schlimm Dining car ought to be what is customary these days in most restaurants: ~20% rounded to the whole dollar.
Customary by what standard?
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
Your remark is somewhat offensive, ignorant and asinine. A normal tip these days is about 20% rounded to the whole dollar unless you are a miser, a teenager or a penurious senior citizen.
oltmanndSam1Accordingly, it is difficult to believe that engineers on the NEC are earning $165,000 per year.But, it's probably true. Decades ago, the Metroliner engineers used to make 3 days pay for a NYP-WAS round trip. That was in the "time and mileage" days, but I'm sure those jobs were made whole when Amtrak went to straight hourly pay.
I would be amongst the first to argue that Amtrak's engineers should be paid a competitive wage. If those in the NEC are paid $165,000, all but the nation's most senior airline pilots should fold their wings and apply to be an engineer in the NEC for Amtrak. On average they make considerably less.
According to the Department of Labor, the mean wage for a commercial airline pilot in the U.S. is $119,520. The median is $106,240, and the range is from $56,620 to $188,000. However, I know from other sources that rookie co-pilots on commuter airlines earn considerably less than $56,620.
If Amtrak is paying engineers $165,000, plus benefits, it is but one more sign of how Amtrak is being mismanaged. Come to think of it, however, Amtrak is a government agency. It does not have any real competition, so maybe it can pay engineers more than airline pilots.
schlimm Your remark is somewhat offensive, ignorant and asinine.
Your remark is somewhat offensive, ignorant and asinine.
As is http://www.usastudyguide.com/customshabits.htm
Sam1 According to the Department of Labor, the mean wage for a commercial airline pilot in the U.S. is $119,520. The median is $106,240, and the range is from $56,620 to $188,000. However, I know from other sources that rookie co-pilots on commuter airlines earn considerably less than $56,620.
I don't doubt those numbers, but an officer of Colgan Air, the operator of that commuter that crashed at Buffalo, testified that their pilots range between $40k - $57k, and that their copilots start around $21k.
Sam1oltmanndSam1Accordingly, it is difficult to believe that engineers on the NEC are earning $165,000 per year.But, it's probably true. Decades ago, the Metroliner engineers used to make 3 days pay for a NYP-WAS round trip. That was in the "time and mileage" days, but I'm sure those jobs were made whole when Amtrak went to straight hourly pay. I would be amongst the first to argue that Amtrak's engineers should be paid a competitive wage. If those in the NEC are paid $165,000, all but the nation's most senior airline pilots should fold their wings and apply to be an engineer in the NEC for Amtrak. On average they make considerably less. According to the Department of Labor, the mean wage for a commercial airline pilot in the U.S. is $119,520. The median is $106,240, and the range is from $56,620 to $188,000. However, I know from other sources that rookie co-pilots on commuter airlines earn considerably less than $56,620. If Amtrak is paying engineers $165,000, plus benefits, it is but one more sign of how Amtrak is being mismanaged. Come to think of it, however, Amtrak is a government agency. It does not have any real competition, so maybe it can pay engineers more than airline pilots.
Paul Milenkovicschlimm Your remark is somewhat offensive, ignorant and asinine. As is http://www.usastudyguide.com/customshabits.htm
oltmanndPaul Milenkovic schlimm Your remark is somewhat offensive, ignorant and asinine. As is http://www.usastudyguide.com/customshabits.htm The 10/15/20% guidelines in there are pretty much how I do it, but I'm an "easy grader."
Paul Milenkovic schlimm Your remark is somewhat offensive, ignorant and asinine. As is http://www.usastudyguide.com/customshabits.htm
I guess I am perhaps somewhat disappointed that my remark was judged only somewhat offensive.
There is this meme in American culture with regard to prejudicial treatment of the ethnic minority "other." A thoroughly assimilated person of an immigrant heritage attempts to enjoy the fruits of participation in the majority culture and is challenged, "You are a Serbo-Croatian person now, aren't you? We don't serve your kind in this establishment. Now move along, please don't make a scene." I believe Gregory Peck played that role out in a famous movie scene.
So one of the "regulars" on this forum comes along and suggests, not, not suggests, insists, demands, that patrons of Amtrak dining cars tip according to a "20% rounded up to the nearest dollar" formula. So then I told a joke, "You are a man, and unmarried as well, aren't you?" On one hand, to suggest that someone around here has 'tipped' people off that they are a single guy is probably the least offensive thing a person can say. I mean, what grievance minority status do you have as a (presumed majority culture) single guy?
On the other hand, the remark I made, you bet it was offensive as it derived its humor from the most oblique of references to something that is genuinely offensive. On the other hand, making a satirical joke about buried offensive-something in our culture is "righting a wrong?" Yes, or no, or perhaps, depending if one has "standing" to make that joke. So, if a person found what I said only "somewhat offensive", I guess the joke was not understood, and the deeper cultural context of the joke was missed.
But if we are talking about taking offense, and if one is to take the whole matter of minority vs majority in American culture further along, I find the whole business of tipping offensive and patently anachronistic. When you think of it, you tip people who provide you with personal service, and the whole thing is based on a kind of master-servant relationship. So people wait on you at a restaurant table, or someone carries your bag into your room at a hotel whether you are perfectly able-bodied to carry your own bag, and you tip them as the better portion of how they are compensated for their work. Yes, people are compensated by tips, which provides incentive for your servant to attempt to satisfy you better as the tip is ultimately discretionary and you hold the amount of the tip over that person.
My personal approach out of this dilemma is to tip a flat 15% in restaurants, even for what I judge to be poor service. What am I, an orca trainer at Sea World, holding up choice morsels of fish if the orca does my bidding, and what is a service person, an orca who is going to drag me under water to drown if I am stingy with the tip? So now I am told I am a cad because "don'tcha know it, the goin' rate for tips has gone up to 20%, rounded up to the nearest dollar." No, I don't think so, and as you see, I have checked just to make sure I am not a "teenager or penurious senior."
So if I ride Amtrak, not only am I scolded that I am supposed to tip "20%, rounded up to the nearest dollar", and this higher rate of tipping is 1) the custom of single guys who flirt with the waitperson or 2) the custom in upscale restaurants according to Esquire Magazine, last I checked. Yeah right, the quality of the food and or service on a 2010 Amtrak dining car is comparable to an upscale restaurant.
And then one is supposed to tip all manner of attendants. On a corridor train, for goodness sake? I mean how "retro" is this Amtrak travel experience anyway? If I (oh, the humanity!) decide to fly, I don't tip anyone if I drag my own bag to the counter, I don't tip the gate agent. I certainly don't tip the man who asks me to take off my shoes and belt -- I might end up in jail for bribery if I attempted it. I don't tip the flight attendant serving me a Sprite and bag of pretzels. I tip the waitperson in the airport restaurant -- no upscale dining either -- a flat 15 percent. This is the starting point of what most of us are used to as the travel experience. Then as passenger train advocates, we want to encourage this traveling public to "give Amtrak" a chance, and by the way, let me "educate you" about tipping. You are the master. These other people you see are your servants. You demonstrate your social virtue by tipping these people generously.
And by the way, these are my suggestions of how to travel by this "civilized" mode, and if you dissent from these suggestions, you are a cad an a disgrace to your social class. Welcome aboard, and welcome to Victorian England land, where historical reenactors will transport you back to the glories of that era, and you as our guest, are expected to stay in character.
The subject of what a person is paid is fascinating. It seems everyone believes he is underpaid and everyone else is overpaid. We Americans are addicted to cheap labor. In my county, the salaries of teachers seems to bring out the worst in people when they're published in the newspaper. I sense the same thing from this thread about engineer salaries.
On the subject of tipping, I think someone here earlier had it right when he said, "It depends on how cheap you are." That's the only word for it. It's not about logic, or "should be" or capitalism, or anything else. People who are cheap don't tip, or only tip the bare minimum, will never be convinced to be generous. In a sense, they sponge off the rest of us, because we are subsidizing their cheapness with the same waiters, etc. If you can't afford tips of 15% -20% in restaurants, you really shouldn't eat out.
Train tipping: I always board my sleeper intending to give the attendant $15 or so at the end of my overnight trip. But if I have to lift my bags myself, especially into overhead spaces, I start to make deductions. I have had a few attendants who were so bone lazy or uninterested in their work that at the end of the ride I actually gave them nothing. But in the vast majority of cases, the attendants work hard and deserve my tip, for many reasons. In the dining car, although my meals are free, I tip $2 at breakfast, $3 at lunch and $5 for dinner.
I'll repeat what E.M. Frimbo's ("the world's greatest railfan") father told him about 1900: "A gentleman always travels First Class." Now I ask you, what sort of "gentleman" travels First Class and wants to be cheap?
Lastly, ladies always notice what kind of a tipper a gentleman is. Many think to themselves, "If he's cheap and tightfisted with waitresses, that's how he'll be with me."
Our attitudes on the subjects of tipping and salaries/wages reveal much about us, I think.
NKP guy The subject of what a person is paid is fascinating. It seems everyone believes he is underpaid and everyone else is overpaid. We Americans are addicted to cheap labor. In my county, the salaries of teachers seems to bring out the worst in people when they're published in the newspaper. I sense the same thing from this thread about engineer salaries. On the subject of tipping, I think someone here earlier had it right when he said, "It depends on how cheap you are." That's the only word for it. It's not about logic, or "should be" or capitalism, or anything else. People who are cheap don't tip, or only tip the bare minimum, will never be convinced to be generous. In a sense, they sponge off the rest of us, because we are subsidizing their cheapness with the same waiters, etc. If you can't afford tips of 15% -20% in restaurants, you really shouldn't eat out. Train tipping: I always board my sleeper intending to give the attendant $15 or so at the end of my overnight trip. But if I have to lift my bags myself, especially into overhead spaces, I start to make deductions. I have had a few attendants who were so bone lazy or uninterested in their work that at the end of the ride I actually gave them nothing. But in the vast majority of cases, the attendants work hard and deserve my tip, for many reasons. In the dining car, although my meals are free, I tip $2 at breakfast, $3 at lunch and $5 for dinner. I'll repeat what E.M. Frimbo's ("the world's greatest railfan") father told him about 1900: "A gentleman always travels First Class." Now I ask you, what sort of "gentleman" travels First Class and wants to be cheap? Lastly, ladies always notice what kind of a tipper a gentleman is. Many think to themselves, "If he's cheap and tightfisted with waitresses, that's how he'll be with me." Our attitudes on the subjects of tipping and salaries/wages reveal much about us, I think.
Indeed our attitudes on tipping reveal a lot about us as passenger train advocates -- a willingness to spend a lot of our own money and yet even more of someone else's money.
On this subject of "ladies always notice what kind of a tipper a gentleman is", in my opinion you are projecting a male perspective on the world that may only be weakly correlated with what many women today really think. I would like to ask any married guys out there. Has your partner (I am casting a broad net here not to discriminate on anyone's life situation) ever, ever, remarked that you have ever been too stingy with a tip? Does your partner tip by a larger amount when they pick up the tab? What is your partner's body language/facial expression when you have a young, vivacious, flirtatious wait person and you respond with a particularly generous tip?
As to E. M. Frimbo and this matter that a "gentleman always travels First Class", is it proper social policy to subsidize this gentlemanly First Class travel at the rate of 50 cents on every dollar of expenses? You know that sleeping cars on Amtrak long distance trains do not pay their way, even on strict definitions of avoidable or direct operating cost. What kind of style is it to throw money around when you, yourself is a "ward of the state" in this manner?
As to the discussion of what train engineers make in pay, the gist of the discussion is that airline pilot is indeed a reasonable "comparable worth" comparison given the safety responsibility (what is so offensive about that?), and that the pay of pilots can range from 20K at the very low end to perhaps 200K to pilots with seniority. So why are school teachers brought into the conversation?
I get the feeling that if this whole enterprise of government-supported passenger trains comes to an end because the public finally gets tired of it, the advocacy community will share a good deal of the blame. You chose with your own money and of your own free will to tip $5 for the inclusive dinner with an Amtrak sleeping car ticket, but I get the impression that you think that anyone else who chooses to tip less or perhaps not at all is a cad and a sponger and a free rider and an enemy of the working class? Am I misreading your words?
This is an important public policy question. As passenger-train advocates and railfans, we are in effect Amtrak's volunteer marketing department. Does Amtrak have a policy or a recommendation (tips for travel) on appropriate tips for the inclusive meals and other services? Why are we supposed to tip train personnel but we never tip airline flight crew (and the few occasions I have been "bumped" up to Business Class, boy do they fuss over you)? Do we scold people who express reservations about Amtrak travel over the tipping? Is it effective passenger train advocacy to hint that people who don't share our outlook, that is, the very people we are attempting to persuade, are tightfisted cheapskates, either for expressing reservations regarding tipping customs or skepticism regarding Amtrak subsidies?
Ahh.......I see I have touched a nerve.
To answer your question: You are most certainly not mis-reading my words. You seem to grasp them perfectly.
Neither Ann Landers nor sister Abigale Van Buren could quell the battle of tippers and tippees and that was both years ago and on terra firma and not on rails and ties. The battle rages on here unmitigated and never, verbally, to be won!
Dakguy201 Sam1 According to the Department of Labor, the mean wage for a commercial airline pilot in the U.S. is $119,520. The median is $106,240, and the range is from $56,620 to $188,000. However, I know from other sources that rookie co-pilots on commuter airlines earn considerably less than $56,620. I don't doubt those numbers, but an officer of Colgan Air, the operator of that commuter that crashed at Buffalo, testified that their pilots range between $40k - $57k, and that their copilots start around $21k.
You are correct. The Colgan Air pilots and co-pilots make less than $56,620. That is why I made reference to the fact that commuter airlines pilots and co-pilots earn considerably less than $56,620.
NKP guy Ahh.......I see I have touched a nerve. To answer your question: You are most certainly not mis-reading my words. You seem to grasp them perfectly.
Yes, you have touched a nerve, that it is passenger train advocates who are going to run the trains off the rails.
This has nothing to do with paying reasonable compensation to working people. I could not care less whether flight attendants make more money than college English professors. Or not. Airlines, technologically and culturally are a modern form of transportation. Flight attendants provide the bare minimum of service and provide an essential safety function to economy class passengers. The same flight attendants, carrying out the business practices of their employers provide rather lavish levels of service to business class. No one, or at least no one who conforms to 21st Century cultural norms of propriety tips flight attendants.
Airlines are to Amtrak as 100:1 in terms of passenger miles. For every civilized, gentlemanly man or woman who is wise to tipping customs on Amtrak, there are 100 men or women, cads, spongers, and cheapskates according to our agreed interpretation of your remarks, who are clueless to the tipping customs on Amtrak and would look askance that anyone would tip anyone apart from a waiter in the dining car, and that anyone would tip a waiter more than 15%.
So for every 1 person who is wise to the customs of train travel, the value of train travel, and appreciates the government subsidy that makes train travel available at all, there are 100 persons who are rather unaware and indifferent to train travel. So the aim of the advocacy community is to insult those other 100 persons?
This isn't an idle observation. Yearly I operate a literature table promoting train travel, and I see this in action. You bet this has touched a nerve. An activity that adheres to the customs of traditions of idle wealthy people is not going to continue to get a billion dollars plus in government support year after year.
henry6 Neither Ann Landers nor sister Abigale Van Buren could quell the battle of tippers and tippees and that was both years ago and on terra firma and not on rails and ties. The battle rages on here unmitigated and never, verbally, to be won!
The Australians have the best approach to tipping that I have experienced. They don't do it except for extraordinary service. And then it is usually only for 10 per cent. The offset, however, is that they pay wait persons a living wage.
So, if you are unsure of tipping, want to have a great train ride or two, and don't mind a long, long, long flight over the water, pack your bags, head to Australia, book a reservation on the Indian Pacific or one of the other great trains, eat in the dinning car, get up without leaving a tip, and walk away guiltless. Unless of course you ate too much, which is easy to do on the Indian Pacific. It is one of the best trains rides that I have ever experienced.
Paul MilenkovicI guess I am perhaps somewhat disappointed that my remark was judged only somewhat offensive.
All of that for suggesting 15% seems a bit cheap? My remark was not directed toward you, but you made a rather personal attack. I notice your original remark seems to have been edited so that there was nothing remotely insulting in your response. But my comment and NKP Guy's seem to have set off some other personal issues with you all over the place and I'm sorry to see that consequence. Obviously tipping is a personal choice. In my time I have seen the standard creep upward, so that in many establishments, tipping whole dollars has become pretty customary rather than fractions. If you think tips are inevitably connected to class, ethnicity, flirting, etc., well, that is how you see it. Many of us do not see the ulterior motives as you apparently do; I only wish to be sure waitstaff is compensated. The article you linked to is for international students studying here. As all students are notoriously poor tippers (and usually short on cash), they would be in a different category than working adults.
schlimm Paul MilenkovicI guess I am perhaps somewhat disappointed that my remark was judged only somewhat offensive. All of that for suggesting 15% seems a bit cheap? My remark was not directed toward you, but you made a rather personal attack. I notice your original remark seems to have been edited so that there was nothing remotely insulting in your response. But my comment and NKP Guy's seem to have set off some other personal issues with you all over the place and I'm sorry to see that consequence. Obviously tipping is a personal choice. In my time I have seen the standard creep upward, so that in many establishments, tipping whole dollars has become pretty customary rather than fractions. If you think tips are inevitably connected to class, ethnicity, flirting, etc., well, that is how you see it. Many of us do not see the ulterior motives as you apparently do; I only wish to be sure waitstaff is compensated. The article you linked to is for international students studying here. As all students are notoriously poor tippers (and usually short on cash), they would be in a different category than working adults.
Yes, I edited my original remark as is my right under how this forum is conducted. You came on like "Gangbusters" regarding a level of tipping being the new standard, and I made a joke that you must be a single guy. And you had taken offense at that remark, and for goodness gosh sakes, to crack a joke about generous tipping being the custom of the single-guy man-about-town being a "personal attack"?
Nickle Plate Guy followed with quotes of E. M. Frimbo that generous tipping is the mark of the "gentleman," So I cracked a remark about you, sir, being a "gentleman" in the E. M. Frimbo sense, but I guess you take serious enough offense at my calling you a gentleman. Yes, calling you a gentleman was a rather personal attack, and I won't call you that anymore.
As to the standards of tipping, my wife does a lot of work-related travel and entertaining by paying for restaurant meals of job interview candidates. My wife told me that her employer, a major public research university, allows up to 20% tip but not a penny more, and that she had gotten an entire reimbursement disallowed by Accounting for rounding up a 20% tip, where she had made this not-all-that-generous tip on account of lingering at a restaurant table without ordering dessert or drinks in order to continue conversations with a job interview candidate. So to the list of penurious cheapskates, you may add the State of Wisconsin, and they can be cheapskates, and given current conditions, they are certainly penurious, and you may add adult professionals on a governmental expense account to international students, teenagers, seniors, and other free riding on the generous tipping of others.
Yes my response is personal, and yes this had touched a nerve. I make a crack about being a generous tipper makes one a single male in modern culture, which I later withdraw, and I get piled on about being offensive and assinine and stingy and cheap and penurious, and I am further chastised for being thin-skinned for not thinking the two sets are remarks are equivalent? Who is being thin skinned here -- pot-kettle-black?
Yes my response is personal. If a person had said, "15% for the longest time had been the standard of tipping, but as the cost of living creeps up, 20% rounded up is perhaps a more reasonable standard, and this is what I recommend to people patronizing Amtrak dining cars" that would be one thing. For one thing, this wouldn't insult people who might still be tipping at 15% and are considering Amtrak travel.
Yes, this is personal and it is tied to larger issues. We got our 800 million in ARRA money to finally get a train in Madison, WI after some 40 years. My advocacy colleagues are so afraid something is going to change and pull it all away that they are firing off angry, scolding op-ed pieces to the local newspaper "responding" to any skepticism expressed to doing this. It seems that is the way some in the advocacy community operate, scolding, scolding, and more scolding. I wish we could just disband our advocacy group, keep quiet, keep our angry op-ed pieces out of the papers, and just let this money get spent and simply let the train happen.
Paul MilenkovicYes my response is personal, and yes this had touched a nerve.
I have enjoyed your well-reasoned posts and am sure I will in the future. So accept my apology for touching a sensitive area. Let's just chalk it up to displaced and deserved anger at your Wisconsin advocacy community. Off topic, but I heard from Rockford/Madison friends yesterday that the station will be near Monona terrace. Is that correct?
The Governor, WisDOT Transportation Secretary, Dane County Executive, and Madison City Mayor made a joint announcement that the Madison, WI train station will go near the Monona Terrace convention center, which is part of the downtown area.
This site has the advantage that inbound visitors to Madison will be taken directly downtown without change of modes (to take a bus or cab, etc.). My guess is that the political community, and an effort was made to present a united front with the joint press conference, working some differences out amongst themselves, view this as helping with economic development by encouraging the inbound traffic. The train station site, however, has the potential disadvantage for outbound passengers of having to drive into the downtown and find and pay for parking.
Our local advocacy group had been promoting the Dane County Regional Airport location some 6 miles NE of the downtown as a superior location. The view is that many of the users of the station will not only be Madisonians but people from Greater Dane and perhaps Columbia and Iowa Counties, who would drive to the station to park their car and take the train, not only to Milwaukee or Chicago, but change trains to many other destinations, either along the Illinois or Michigan corridors but also along the long-distance routes.
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