When Gov. Jim Doyle announced in July that a high-speed rail line from Milwaukee would stop in Madison near the Monona Terrace Convention Center, Mayor Dave Cieslewicz saw vast potential for downtown.
….Susan Schmitz of Downtown Madison Inc. says her group of downtown business owners saw the rail station as a major boon for bringing in new customers, adding that the events of recent weeks have been disheartening to those business owners. Moreover, she says, the rail line would have connected Madison businesses and institutions, such as the university’s Wisconsin Institutes of Discovery, to the global economy.
“That’s such an amazing place and that’s going to be an attraction to people all over the world,” she says. “How are they going to get here and move around? Not everyone is going to rent a car. We need to think about being connected to the world.”