High speed rail line to stop near Madison's Monona Terrace near Ca

[Kramerica]

As for an east Madison stop, I don't like that idea and I don't think they'd do it, for one reason: time from downtown MKE to downtown MSN. Adding a stop in Sun Prairie for example would add five minutes to the trip. That's not going to fly. They want to minimize that downtown to downtown time.

If this is a compelling argument, then why doesn't the Acela Express skip the Route 128 Station and let only the Regionals stop there? (It turns out that there are some business travelers who live in the suburbs in places where they need a car to get anywhere who like the speed of the Acela and like the convenience of parking at RTE.)

All the NEC trains that serve Boston stop at South Station (Red Line connection), Back Bay (Orange Line connection), and Route 128 (big parking garage in the suburbs).

This is apples to oranges.

A. The Boston metro area is much bigger than the Madison metro area

B. The train time from downtown Boston to downtown New York is better than the drive time.

C. The parking situations in those downtowns are much more expensive than downtown Madison or Milwaukee.

The fact is that adding a stop in suburban Boston adds significantly to ridership while not slowing the train down enough to impact its speed advantage over driving. That would not be true of a east suburban Madison stop.

That's why I think going to the Madison airport after stopping at downtown Madison would make some sense. Doesn't affect the downtown to downtown time, but gives suburban Madisonites a convenient parking spot and gives visitors that need to rent a car a good spot to do so, all while keeping the one-seat ride.

If people going to downtown aren't going to tolerate the time involved in stopping at Sun Prairie or a station where the tracks cross I-39/I-90/I-94, I'm not sure the people who just want a convenient car rental experience or long term parking space are going to be thrilled about waiting for a backup move.

People who are using the train to connect to national trains in Chicago will be very happy to have convenient long-term parking at the expense of 10-15 minutes.

It won't be many people, but I think it would be worthwhile to add the airport stop to have a more complete system while not impacting the CORE business of downtown to downtown.

 

[Eric S]

Also, there seems to be some intercity passenger rail funding that can be used to build commuter rail infrastructure as long as it sees some intercity service as well. Extending the Amtrak service to Middleton might be a good way to get federal dollars for track upgrades and station construction for commuter rail there.

I think federal transit funding for capital improvements that happen to benefit Amtrak as well has generally been much more available than federal intercity rail funding for capital improvements that happen to benefit commuter rail as well. Although, I suppose if federal high speed rail funding continues to be available year after year, that might change.

 

[Trogdor]

There is basically no place you can fly from Madison that you cannot already fly from Milwaukee. Milwaukee's airport is by no means at or over capacity, so there really is no benefit in taking passengers from the Milwaukee area over to Madison so they can fly out of there. I don't know offhand if any low-fare carriers fly from Madison, but Milwaukee has Southwest and AirTran (and Frontier, another low-fare carrier, is being merged with what used to be Midwest Airlines, based out of Milwaukee).

So, really, there was no reason at all to stop at the Madison Airport other than "it's on the way to Minneapolis." It's too far from Chicago to serve as a relief airport for O'Hare (and anyone taking the train there would get to the Milwaukee Airport an hour or two quicker anyway). Folks boarding at stations between Milwaukee and Madison could just as easily go east as west (and, really, there aren't that many people in those in-between cities that would jump at the chance for a 20-minute train ride to the Madison airport, but would shun a 40-50 minute ride to Milwaukee...many of these folks are probably used to driving the extra distance to get better flight options out of MKE anyway).

If you want to serve the O&D market, you pretty much have to go downtown.

I agree that airport connections are important, but they are really only useful in the context of using trains to replace short-haul flights. In the case of MSN, you really only have short-haul flights in the first place. So, are folks supposed to take the train from Milwaukee to Madison to fly to Chicago to connect to the flight to their destination?

As for the issue about the availability of rental cars, if there's enough demand, then I'm sure that a rental car agency will be more than happy to put a fleet of cars and a rental desk at the station. If the demand for rental cars is only a few per day, then, really, you'd only be losing a few actual passengers per day on the train, right?

 

[volkris]

There is basically no place you can fly from Madison that you cannot already fly from Milwaukee. Milwaukee's airport is by no means at or over capacity, so there really is no benefit in taking passengers from the Milwaukee area over to Madison so they can fly out of there.

No, you hit the nail on its head. If there is no place you can fly from Madison that you can't fly from Milwaukee, and Milwaukee's airport has capacity to spare, let the HSR feed people from Madison to Milwaukee's airport and divert the funding that was going to go into supporting and expanding Madison into rail infrastructure instead.

Right now you have two fairly close by airports that offer a lot of redundancy at huge expense. HSR can effectually make that distance even shorter and let the governments and businesses cut down on overhead by focusing on only one of those airports. They could serve more customers with fewer, larger, more comfortable, and more efficient planes taking up fewer slots in air traffic control, all while freeing up money for rail improvement and expanded rail service.

Everyone wins... except a few businesses downtown that won't have customers delivered to their front door, darnit.

This is a scene that plays out across the country, and it would be really nice to see a cogent, consistent federal transportation policy to address it. Lack of cross-the-board planning that unites the various modes of transportation causes problems and infighting that ends up keeping rail down.

 

[Guest]

What's the point of having a fast train if it requires you to get off in the middle of nowhere and make a who-knows-how-long transfer to get to your destination?

The airport option isn't exactly dropping passengers off in the middle of a pasture, you know...

Too true. It's on the edge of pastureland, not the middle. The Dane County airport isn't the middle of ANYTHING. You could have seen that if you'd checked google maps satellite view before posting.

So here are your two options: get to/from the airport with no delay and the option of getting to downtown and elsewhere with transfer delays, or get to/from downtown with delays with and the option of getting to the airport and elsewhere with additional delays.

The 'delay' for the train is the same. So the delay for the train passenger heading somewhere else than that pasture-edge is substantially higher for the airport station option.

There are a number of other benefits to putting the station at the airport as well, including avoiding increased congestion in the center of the city as travelers are forced to go there for the station and integration between air and rail travel which serves to increase the utility of both modes.

7 trains a day don't increase congestion. 400 extra cars a day increase congestion downtown. The point of a downtown station is that many pax will have no need of local transportation.

But nevermind all of that, it's all just politics and not what I'm curious about.

Ah, yes, the eternal cry of the man who dislikes facts. "Anyone who gives a different picture from mine is just pushing politics." And "I'm just not curious about things that don't fit my preconceptions."

 

[volkris]

What's the point of having a fast train if it requires you to get off in the middle of nowhere and make a who-knows-how-long transfer to get to your destination?

The airport option isn't exactly dropping passengers off in the middle of a pasture, you know...

Too true. It's on the edge of pastureland, not the middle. The Dane County airport isn't the middle of ANYTHING. You could have seen that if you'd checked google maps satellite view before posting.

Good point. You'd step off the train and see, you know, cow... cow... cow... shrub... giant airport including tons of support infrastructure, services, connections to other modes of transportation, highways.... oh, and another cow. Man, what a desolate place filled with nothing useful at all!

So here are your two options: get to/from the airport with no delay and the option of getting to downtown and elsewhere with transfer delays, or get to/from downtown with delays with and the option of getting to the airport and elsewhere with additional delays.

The 'delay' for the train is the same. So the delay for the train passenger heading somewhere else than that pasture-edge is substantially higher for the airport station option.

Yes. As I stated and asked about. Oh, and don't forget that if passengers were to be dropped off at that pasture edge they could maybe take a ride on a cow. Or, you know, an airplane that can zip them at 500mph all over the country. Or maybe they could pick a thistle. Stupid pasture... good for nothing.

There are a number of other benefits to putting the station at the airport as well, including avoiding increased congestion in the center of the city as travelers are forced to go there for the station and integration between air and rail travel which serves to increase the utility of both modes.

7 trains a day don't increase congestion. 400 extra cars a day increase congestion downtown. The point of a downtown station is that many pax will have no need of local transportation.

Exactly. Pulling people in and out of downtown through mass transit doesn't increase congestion, which is why using busing, light rail, or whatever to get them to a station that can handle congestion from non-downtowners makes sense. Say, on the edge of a pasture that is empty useless land anyway... other than that airport, parking garages, and various other things that actually HELP manage the job of transportation.

But nevermind all of that, it's all just politics and not what I'm curious about.

Ah, yes, the eternal cry of the man who dislikes facts. "Anyone who gives a different picture from mine is just pushing politics." And "I'm just not curious about things that don't fit my preconceptions."

You guys have these consistently screwy ideas about what is and is not political. That you can't spend money you don't have without complication is a fact (a really, really obvious one), but you guys call it political. That one might want to put a station downtown or at an airport is a political decision based on values of the costs and benefits of both options, yet you seem to be calling it a factual disagreement.

 

[Trogdor]

Yes. As I stated and asked about. Oh, and don't forget that if passengers were to be dropped off at that pasture edge they could maybe take a ride on a cow. Or, you know, an airplane that can zip them at 500mph all over the country. Or maybe they could pick a thistle. Stupid pasture... good for nothing.

Except that the airplanes in Madison won't take people all over the country. They'll take them...to Chicago. I thought we went over this already.

Exactly. Pulling people in and out of downtown through mass transit doesn't increase congestion, which is why using busing, light rail, or whatever to get them to a station that can handle congestion from non-downtowners makes sense. Say, on the edge of a pasture that is empty useless land anyway... other than that airport, parking garages, and various other things that actually HELP manage the job of transportation.

Except that 1) the light rail doesn't exist, 2) the bus routes don't exist (or, at least, not with the level of capacity that would be required to bring a couple hundred people from the airport to downtown), and 3) more potential passengers on this train will want to go to downtown Madison than to the airport to catch a plane back to Chicago. By putting the train station at the airport and not downtown, you are killing the one main advantage that rail is supposed to have over flying. You'd lose a significant amount of riders because they won't want to catch the bus or the light rail or commuter train to go downtown. That adds hassle, it adds travel time, it adds connecting time, and on such a short trip (less than an hour and a half from Milwaukee) the added hassle can be significant and can drive away potential riders.

One of the oft-heard excuses in opposition to the route to Madison is "we already have buses from Milwaukee to Madison." If you're going to make them ride a bus just to get the rest of the way into Madison, then there's really very little benefit to them over riding a bus all the way from Milwaukee.

A downtown Madison stop would be walking distance to the State Capitol, the University, and a number of other destinations. An airport stop would be walking distance to...nothing (the rental car counter, maybe?). In other words, the only people who could possibly use the airport stop are those that have to connect to another mode of powered transportation. If they're renting a car, then, as I said earlier, Hertz or Budget or Avis or whoever could set up a desk at the train station (if they find that there's enough demand to do so, and if there isn't...then it probably isn't a significant amount of ridership anyway). If they're catching a plane, then they ought to use the airport 70 miles east of there, also served by the HSR train, which will offer flights to both coasts, plus Canada and Mexico, not just Chicago, Minneapolis and Detroit.

 

[saxman]

Just though it would be interesting to see the non-stop flights out of MSN right now. Some aren't exactly short. Chicago is by far the most popular.

Chicago ORD (13)

Milwaukee (4)

Minneapolis (5)

Detriot (6)

Memphis (2)

Dallas/Ft. Worth (2)

Denver (5)

New York LGA (1)

Washington DC (1)

Cincinnati (1)

Cleveland (2)

Newark (1)

 

[Steve4031]

That list of flights from MSN illustrates one way high speed rail can help the air traffic system. I don't know what kind of service is available out of Milwaukee Mitchell airport, but if there is reliable, fast train service from MSN to Mitchell via Milwaukee, this would alleviate the need for some of those 13 flights to O'Hare. United/Continental could do some sort of Code share with Amtrak to encourage passengers to use the train service to get to Mitchell. This would alleviate some of the traffic at O'Hare which we all know is one of the most delay prone airports.

Now if we look at the flight frequencies from ORD to STL and DTW (I think thats the code for Detroit) and consider a similar code share, then another 30 or 40 flights are removed from the air traffic system. This gives more space for longer flights to the east coast and west coast, and eases congestion at ORD.

 

[Trogdor]

Since the question was asked, the following nonstops are available from Mitchell field on a typical Monday (based on me working my way through the timetable posted on their website, so I may have miscounted in the process of trying to ignore flights that are both discontinued and effective on consecutive days/weeks, etc.):

Akron/Canton, OH 2

Atlanta 13

Boston 6

Charlotte, NC 4

Chicago O'Hare 14

Cincinnati 1

Cleveland 5

Dallas 11

Denver 9

Des Moines 2

Detroit 6

Fort Myers 1

Houston 5

Indianapolis 3

Kansas City 8

Las Vegas 4

Los Angeles 2

Manistee, MI 2

Memphis 3

Minneapolis 12

New York area (including Newark) 10

Omaha 5

Orlando 5

Philadelphia 3

Phoenix 3

Pittsburgh 3

Raleigh/Durham 2

Rhinelander, WI 2

St. Louis 3

San Francisco 1

Seattle 1

Tampa 3

Washington, DC area 12

Currently no international destinations, though until recently there was nonstop service to Toronto (and a few cities in Mexico, I think...perhaps that's seasonal service and not currently reflected in the schedule).

The flights to/from O'Hare are entirely for connecting traffic. The way to eliminate those flights would be to reroute some Chicago-Milwaukee trains past O'Hare (this would require skipping Glenview).

Now, for an idea that would require unprecedented cooperation between modes in this country, right now all of the ORD-MKE service is operated under contract by commuter carriers, rather than by the major airlines themselves. One might wonder what it would take for the airlines to actually contract with Amtrak (or another carrier) to offer passenger train service ORD-MKE. Anyone out there have any idea on the relative cost of operating a 50-seat regional jet vs. that of a passenger train on a <100-mile route.

This would be more than a code share (such as between Continental and Amtrak, where each carrier does its own thing but can sell seats on the other carrier's services). It would be an airline contracting with a railroad to operate a train on their behalf (much like they do now with regionals).

In any event, rerouting the train to serve O'Hare would be the only way to reasonably replace those 13 Madison-Chicago flights, as well, as those flights probably primarily exist for passengers connecting to other flights, and I'd wager a fairly limited amount of O&D traffic.

Really, O'Hare is the missing link in a Midwest High Speed Rail network, not Dane County Regional Airport.

 

[Steve4031]

I would agree to that too. I thought about mentioning that routing too.

 

[AlanB]

Is there currently a northern connection between the current line and the line that runs by O'Hare?

 

[Eric S]

Is there currently a northern connection between the current line and the line that runs by O'Hare?

If you are asking if Hiawatha Service trains running between MKE and CHI could be routed to serve O'Hare, then yes. North of GLN (between the Northbrook and North Glenview Metra stations; Techny in freight rail terms), there is a UP line that passes over the Metra/CP/AMTK line. Most CP freights from MKE and points west leave the "Hiawatha" line and join the UP line heading south. This line passes just west of O'Hare (where a proposed new "West Terminal" might be built someday). Then, trains could be routed on the Metra MD-W line into CHI Union Station. OR, if a turnout was constructed, Hiawatha trains could join the Metra NCS line at Des Plaines and serve the current Metra O'Hare station and then continue on to CHI. Of course, costs to improve these lines and expand capacity could be prohibitive.

 

[Steve4031]

Is there currently a northern connection between the current line and the line that runs by O'Hare?

I don't think so. The line that goes by Ohare goes to Antioch and eventually passes west of Milwaukee and goes on to Oshkosh, Wi. IIRC

I thought there was, but I just looked at a map, and I did not see anything.

 

[volkris]

Anyone out there have any idea on the relative cost of operating a 50-seat regional jet vs. that of a passenger train on a <100-mile route.

Don't forget the costs of operating and expanding the airport itself. Those costs are huge.

We see from the articles that they're talking about expanding MSN. Well, with good HSR from MSN to MKE the plans for expansion might be redundant and the airport might even be scaled back. That's quite a lot of savings--both up front and continuing--just from that.

 

[WICT106]

Milwaukee BizTimes expresses skepticism over Madison - Milwaukee - Chicago passenger train prospects:

"History waits to judge 'high-speed' rail in Wisconsin."

 

[Guest]

But nevermind all of that, it's all just politics and not what I'm curious about.
[... and then in a reply to my reply:]

You guys have these consistently screwy ideas about what is and is not political. That you can't spend money you don't have without complication is a fact (a really, really obvious one), but you guys call it political. That one might want to put a station downtown or at an airport is a political decision based on values of the costs and benefits of both options, yet you seem to be calling it a factual disagreement.

I didn't call anything politics. You called something politics. There is no benefit to bringing people from east of Madison to the Madison airport. None whatsoever. Once they get on a train that goes to Mitchell, they will get on a flight from Mitchell. This is not a political question based on values. It is a fact. No one is going to take a train to Madison for the air service.

This train will almost certainly kill the Madison-Mitchell air service, and likely make at least half the other flights no longer financially viable, because Madisonians themselves, who already frequently use Mitchell, will be that much more likely to do so.

 

[volkris]

This train will almost certainly kill the Madison-Mitchell air service, and likely make at least half the other flights no longer financially viable, because Madisonians themselves, who already frequently use Mitchell, will be that much more likely to do so.

YES! PRECISELY!

Let's put the station at the airport in part to reduce the need for a commercial airport there in the first place! All of the Madisonians who frequently use Mitchell will have a better way to get to Mitchell, people who have to share the road with people driving to and from Mitchell will see less traffic, airlines will serve more customers with fewer costs, all of the tax money that goes to support the expansion and operation of the then-unnecessarily big airport will be saved, and rail will be a real value to a larger cross section of the population, thus gaining it even more support going into the future.

The fact that there is Madison-Mitchell air service in the first place is a sign that improvement is needed. I mean seriously, it's hardly worth even taking off for such a short distance, but HSR (for this definition of "high speed", anyway) is perfect for the particular application.

So yes, the fact that this would certainly kill Madison-Mitchell air service is an indication that it's a good idea.

 

[Trogdor]

This train will almost certainly kill the Madison-Mitchell air service, and likely make at least half the other flights no longer financially viable, because Madisonians themselves, who already frequently use Mitchell, will be that much more likely to do so.

YES! PRECISELY!

Let's put the station at the airport in part to reduce the need for a commercial airport there in the first place! All of the Madisonians who frequently use Mitchell will have a better way to get to Mitchell, people who have to share the road with people driving to and from Mitchell will see less traffic, airlines will serve more customers with fewer costs, all of the tax money that goes to support the expansion and operation of the then-unnecessarily big airport will be saved, and rail will be a real value to a larger cross section of the population, thus gaining it even more support going into the future.

The fact that there is Madison-Mitchell air service in the first place is a sign that improvement is needed. I mean seriously, it's hardly worth even taking off for such a short distance, but HSR (for this definition of "high speed", anyway) is perfect for the particular application.

So yes, the fact that this would certainly kill Madison-Mitchell air service is an indication that it's a good idea.

Placing the station at the Madison Airport makes zero sense. The people who take the Madison-Milwaukee flights are not starting their trips at the Madison airport, they are starting their trips from elsewhere (such as, perhaps, the city of Madison). If they're already going to make the trek out to the airport, they might as well just fly all the way.

By placing the train station downtown, you eliminate the need for people to go to/from the airport. As noted earlier, there's nothing really around the Madison airport. So, that in and of itself means that nobody is actually going to/from the airport location. They're only going there because that's where the airport is. Since the rail service is being built from scratch, we have a choice of locations for the train station. Why not choose a location where people are/want to go rather than a location that has no significance other than that's where the airport happened to be built back in the day.

Rail's time advantage comes from downtown-to-downtown travel. When comparing airport-to-airport travel, air is going to win more often than not. Since both MSN and MKE are fairly underutilized airports, you're not subject to major ground delays, security is pretty quick, and getting to the gate is a short walk away, so flying Madison airport to Milwaukee airport is going to be faster than taking the train Madison airport to Milwaukee airport. However, Downtown Madison to Milwaukee airport might actually have an advantage for the train vs. the plane.

 

[volkris]

Placing the station at the Madison Airport makes zero sense. The people who take the Madison-Milwaukee flights are not starting their trips at the Madison airport, they are starting their trips from elsewhere (such as, perhaps, the city of Madison). If they're already going to make the trek out to the airport, they might as well just fly all the way.

People are already passing up MSN heading to MKE by road, showing that they're happy to mix forms of transportation, and since replacing the short hop from MSN to MKE with rail yields various efficiencies, they'll be even happier to not just fly all the way.

I've heard a lot of rail proponents point out that replacing these short hops with rail is a great thing, and it sounds like this HSR is an especially good application of that. So let's see it.

By placing the train station downtown, you eliminate the need for people to go to/from the airport.

Right, and you replace it with the need for people to go to/from downtown. You know, not everyone taking this train is going to be starting their trips at the downtown train station. Plenty will need to drive in to catch the train (if they accept that level of hassle in the first place), increasing congestion in the downtown area, taking up resources like space and parking needed for other things there... but space and infrastructure being things that there's plenty of out by the airport since, as you've pointed out, there's nothing really around there.

Since both MSN and MKE are fairly underutilized airports,

Even more reason to make sure the service can quickly transfer people from one to the other, so that these two wasteful, inefficient, underutilized airports can be effectively combined into a more efficient commercial airport and a cheaper backup/GA focused airport.

 

[Notelvis]

For a number of years I worked with a summer youth organization in Madison, WI and would make two or three round trips between North Carolina and Madison every year.

I tried various options - flying to Chicago and bus to Madison, train to Chicago and bus to Madison, flying to Milwaukee and bus to Madison, having someone in Madison pick me up at Rockford or Milwaukee......once even in Dubuque, IA.

The reason for all of this was that flying into Madison.....which I never did.....was price prohibitive. Very expensive little airport.

What ultimatelmy worked best for me was flying to Milwaukee and catching the Badger Coach bus.....which picked up directly at the Milwaukee airport..... into downtown Madison.

Through all of this my thinking was - "If they would just extend the Hiawatha rail service into Madison that would be ideal.....particularly with the rail station adjacent to Mitchell Field now...."

This is a rail service I would have used frequently back then. It's one I would go out of my way to use once it's up and running now. I feel like a downtown station better serves the needs of a Chicago-Milwaukee-Madison route. Add a station at what's left of the airport later IF an extension to Minneapolis ever happens.

 

[Trogdor]

By placing the train station downtown, you eliminate the need for people to go to/from the airport.

Right, and you replace it with the need for people to go to/from downtown. You know, not everyone taking this train is going to be starting their trips at the downtown train station. Plenty will need to drive in to catch the train (if they accept that level of hassle in the first place), increasing congestion in the downtown area, taking up resources like space and parking needed for other things there... but space and infrastructure being things that there's plenty of out by the airport since, as you've pointed out, there's nothing really around there.

Sure, many people will not be going to/from Downtown Madison. But many people will. That's the point. The downtown station will be within walking distance or a short transit ride away from many destinations (state capitol, the university...college students are a big market for Amtrak).

The airport stop will be close to NOTHING. That means NOBODY can walk there, from ANYWHERE. That means EVERYBODY will need some sort of motorized transportation to get to/from the station. That will inconvenience most passengers.

The real answer to serving people that currently drive past MSN airport on their way to MKE isn't to build the train station at the airport, it's to eventually get the train extended out to where they live (not where they just so happen to drive past). These extensions will not happen if the first segment isn't successful. It will not be successful if it tries to act like an airline by dropping you off in the middle of nowhere.

The service has been sold as a Milwaukee-Madison route. The airport station wouldn't serve Madison. It would serve everything but.

One other issue, which I really haven't brought up until now, but if we're going to reduce automobile dependency in this country, and enjoy the associated environmental and public health benefits that such a change will bring, then we need to start designing our transportation networks so that an automobile is not required for most trips. As we have experienced over the last half-century plus, when you design to accommodate a significant number of cars (such as large parking lots), you're basically guaranteeing that most people will need to drive (because they're built way out in the middle of nowhere, because that's where the land is available for large parking lots).

 

[MrFSS]

Long before Amtrak there were very few trains between Madison and Milwaukee. There were lots between Milwaukee and Chicago and Madison and Chicago, but I could only find these in the 50's and 60's. Bill may have access to more in his older tables.

With the Milwaukee Road you had to use a bus part of the way.

 

[fredevad]

Long before Amtrak there were very few trains between Madison and Milwaukee. There were lots between Milwaukee and Chicago and Madison and Chicago, but I could only find these in the 50's and 60's. Bill may have access to more in his older tables.

The Waukesha depot is now a Mexican restaurant called "La Estacion". You can sit at a table in the depot, or, you can be seated in one of the old passenger cars permanently attached to the depot. The food is good, and definitely worth a try when in town.

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

Long before Amtrak there were very few trains between Madison and Milwaukee. There were lots between Milwaukee and Chicago and Madison and Chicago, but I could only find these in the 50's and 60's. Bill may have access to more in his older tables.

With the Milwaukee Road you had to use a bus part of the way.

No, I actually do not have that many before the 50's. Some, sure, but not that would help with this.