Seattle's Link system is an example of a system that very much punches above its weight with its downtown underground stations, TOD, speeds, and grade-separation. Not to mention the modes it complements like streetcar, the monorail, BRT, express buses, etc. If Milwaukee got the love it deserved from the state, it can look at Seattle as a role model. And as someone else mentioned, it's incredibly ironic for them to use taxpayer money on a ballpark, but not on a light-rail that could help people reach said ballpark! Like, other ballparks can be reachable by rail! Yankee Stadium and Citi Field both have their own subway and commuter rail stations, and Yankee Stadium is served by three MNR services on game days! Milwaukee facts: Milwaukee's Hoan Bridge is named after Daniel Hoan, one of the longest serving mayors of Milwaukee. He was Milwaukee's Sewer Socialist mayor from 1916 to 1940! As mayor, Hoan implemented progressive reforms, including the country's first public housing project, Garden Homes, started in 1923. He also led the successful drive towards municipal ownership of the stone quarry, street lighting, sewage disposal, and water purification. Milwaukee implemented the first public bus system in the US when he was mayor as well. Juneau Town and Juneau Ave are named after Solomon Juneau, one of the founding fathers of Milwaukee alongside Byron Kilbourn and George H. Walker. Solomon Juneau's cousin Joseph Juneau founded the city in Alaska. Solomon Juneau was the first of the three to come in 1818 where he founded Juneautown. In competition, Byron established Kilbourntown west of the Milwaukee River, and made sure the roads running toward the river did not join with those on the east side, and this is why there are a large number of angled bridges that still exist in Milwaukee! Kilbourn also distributed maps which only showed Kilbourntown, implying Juneautown did not exist. Walker claimed land to the south of the Milwaukee River where he built a log house in 1834, and this became known as Walker's Point. Christopher Latham Sholes, alongside his colleagues Carlos Glidden and Samuel Soule, developed the prototype of the modern typewriter in Milwaukee during the 1860s. With its origins rooted in the heart of the Midwest, the typewriter’s impact rippled across the globe, shaping the way we write. Since 1908, Holler House has beckoned bowlers to its quaint two-lane alley, embodying its sporting heritage as the oldest sanctioned bowling alley in the US. They are still tended by human pinsetters. Back in the 1930s, a simple kitchen became the birthplace of something extraordinary: Carmex lip balm. It was Alfred Woelbing’s ingenious concoction, brewed with care to help his dry lips. Milwaukee earns the nickname “Cream City,” not for its dairy production, but for the distinctive cream-colored bricks that adorn its buildings. These bricks, crafted from clay abundant in the region, lend a warm and timeless aesthetic to the cityscape, preserving its unique architectural heritage. When it comes to Milwaukee's original streetcars, in 1860, Milwaukee opened the first line of its original streetcar using horse-drawn streetcars like other cities did. It wasn’t until 1890 when Henry Villard, a New York multi-millionaire, and Henry Clay Payne created a company called the Milwaukee Electric Railway Company. In the first year of operation, the electric system provided 28 million rides, he says. A couple decades later, the number had ballooned to 132 million. It only cost a nickel to ride the original streetcar system and at one point, it boasted of 190 miles of track! Milwaukee's last original streetcar line closed in 1958. Milwaukee also once had an interurban called the Electroliner which connected it with Chicago, designed to operate with high platforms, sharp curves, and narrow clearances of the Chicago Loop, to run at speeds of 80 mph (130 km/h) or more on the North Shore's main line, and to use city streets to downtown Milwaukee!
Oh so we can use taxpayer money to renovate the Brewers ballpark, but god forbid we use taxpayer money to give people a way to get to the ballpark they paid for 🙄
@@CallMeInfinite0000 the preferable mode of transport for people who like spending their paycheck on insurance, gas, and maintenance; like wasting time in traffic; enjoy risking their lives; and support big government funding their completely dependent lifestyles maybe.
@@CallMeInfinite0000 “preferable” by most people who have been brought up in American suburbia and falsely led to believe there are no other practical options. Car ownership should not be a necessity, but are cities are designed to force that to be the case.
The Potawatomi Hotel & Casino is owned and operated by the Forest County Potawatomi Community tribe. The Potawatomi historically lived around the western Great Lakes and upper Mississippi, though many were forcibly relocated to Kansas and Oklahoma. They are part of a long-term alliance called the Council of Three Fires, with the Ojibwe and Odawa/Ottawa peoples, and a part of the bigger group of culturally-related indigenous peoples called the Anishinaabe that live around the Great Lakes. Nice to see it get ridership and honestly as slow as it is, for a climate like Milwaukee, I'd rather ride that streetcar if I was there in the winter, I can't imagine trying to walk around there in the winter when it's like snowing or raining! It helps The Hop that not only does it have bikeshare stations by Hop stations, the transit center at the Couture TOD, and the Lakefront station is close to the Discovery World museum and Henry Maier Festival Park where Summerfest is held, but also the fact it connects to Amtrak and intercity bus services at the Milwaukee Intermodal Station. I like the design of the modern trainshed at Milwaukee Intermodal Station. Well lit at night with lots of natural light during the day and offering respite from the elements while being well ventilated. The trainsheds at Coney Island-Stillwell Ave and Jamaica LIRR were also built in the 2000s. LIRR's Jamaica station built a big curved canopy (doesn't cover the whole station but still cool) in 2006 as part of a renovation for the AirTrain that added a pedestrian bridge, a central elevator bank to the street and subway, and a new mezzanine .Coney Island-Stillwell Ave has a massive trainshed that was completed in 2005 with solar panels, 2,730 of them which provide about 15 percent of the station's power, making it the first solar-powered subway station in NYC! The panels were tested to handle hurricanes in a lab in York, PA! If systems in the US got the love and support that they deserve from state and city governments, then systems like The Hop could easily reach their full potential. Look at Pyongyang in the DPRK for example. After US raids during the war in the 1950s, the city was effectively destroyed and needed to be rebuilt. Pyongyang was redesigned to become the ideal socialist city. Before the war, the city had trams, but said tram system was destroyed, so it built a new system from scratch. Before this system was built, trolleybus lines and a metro system were created. The trolleybus system first opened in 1962, with opening of a line from the Three Revolutions Exhibition at Ryonmot-dong to the Pyongyang railway station. Today, the system has 12 lines with a length of 56.6 km, serving Pyongyang and its suburbs. The Pyongyang Metro has two lines, the Chollima Line and the Hyŏksin Line, with the lines opening 1973 and 1978 respectively. This means the Pyongyang Metro opened one year before the Seoul Subway Line 1 did in 1974. The trams finally opened in 1991 as a solution for overcrowded trolleybuses, with three lines, and the Kumsusan shuttle that connects Samhung station with the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun. A ban on bikes was lifted in 1992, and now many people also bike alongside taking transit, and the government has built bike lanes and even introduced Ryomyong bikeshare. DPRK urban-planning includes limited urban sprawl, as new developments in DPRK cities tend to take the place of older areas of the city, rather than building new developments further out. In Pyongyang, this is the case with the developments of Mirae (Future) Scientists Street in 2015, Changjon Street in 2012, Songhwa Street in 2022, Hwasong Street in 2024, and Ryomyong (Dawn) Street in 2023. Micro-districts are made up of residences alongside their supporting amenities like public spaces, offices, shops, and schools. A key aspect is both the equality of the residential buildings and the encouragement of people to spend more time in the community, hence the focus on parks and playgrounds. People shouldn't be making excuses for keeping cities car-dominant. It should be the goal to go from car required to car optional. Everyone should have access to all life has to offer regardless of whether you own a multi ton hunk of metal. Getting to school, medical appointments, and visiting family/friends shouldn't hinge on needing a car. If critics against urbanism actually cared about affordability/the working class, then they would know by not relying on a car, you're saving so much money not having to care about tolls, gas, maintenance, etc because you're taking a train or bus instead
Baltimore's light-rail lines from Hunt Valley to BWI and Glen Burnie are....something. In Q1 2024, it had a weekday ridership per mile of just 436, and it doesn't take long to see why (worse than SacRT's 506 riders per mile but better than St Louis MetroLink's 409). The Red Line expansion is very much needed. The light-rail system was an alternative to a south line of the subway system to Glen Burnie and BWI, but Anne Arundel County fought against it, so it was eliminated from the subway plan in 1975. The light-rail uses ROW once used by interurban streetcar lines and the commuter rail routes of the Northern Central Railway, Washington, Baltimore and Annapolis Electric Railway, and Baltimore and Annapolis Railroad. It was built quickly and inexpensively without federal funds so it could be built in time for Orioles Park's opening at Camden Yards, thus because of that, to save money, much of the system was built with only a single track. While this allowed the system to be constructed and opened quickly, it limited the system's flexibility, and so federal money was later acquired to double track most of the system. Shortly before Warren Road Station (heading north), the light rail splits from the former mainline at a wye (the original mainline disappears into trees and the remaining rail ends at the next road crossing). The light rail then follows the route of a former freight spur which was constructed in the 1970s to serve the industrial park the line now travels through. There were actually some spurs off this spur to various industries, some of which are still partially in-place and can be seen curving away from the right of way when riding. The freight line ended at McCormick Spice, which obviously wasn't ideal for light-rail, so beyond this point, the tracks follow the existing street grid (hence the single-track section with tight curves). Freight service actually lasted until around 2006 to Cockeysville, and 2012 to a couple of industries between North Avenue and Falls Road. Station placement and design were intended to be flexible and change over time, as stations could be built or closed at low cost. However, they were at times dictated by politics rather planning, as proposed stops in Ruxton, Riderwood, and Cross Keys were not built due to local opposition, while Mt. Royal and Timonium stations were built despite nearly being removed from the plan because the University of Baltimore and a local business group funded them. And then there's the location of Cold Spring Lane, which looks quite bad but there is a bus stop for two different routes when you exit onto Cold Spring Lane, there's a connection to the Jones Falls Trail, and students also use the station as if you walk east of the station, it serves Western High School and Baltimore Polytechnic Institute. MTA tried to build "TOD" for this station with a 16-acre parcel with 284 units called "The Woodberry" but it ironically has poor connectivity to the station. So yeah, the light-rail goes through the least-densely populated parts for much of the journey, there was a lot of opposition to stations (which is also why they opted not to build one at Glen Burnie town center), and freight right of way limited the connectivity of the stations to the areas where they are located. Compare that with the HBLR in New Jersey which also mainly uses repurposed right-of-way but they go through packed neighborhoods, there's Citi Bike bikeshare stations at HBLR stops, has great connections to jitneys, ferries, buses, PATH, and NJT rail (the latter at Hoboken Terminal), and when in downtown Jersey City, it's still in its own right-of-way (except Essex Street where it's street running) and have priority signals (though Baltimore also has transit priority signals between Camden and Mount Royal, implemented in 2007 and resulted in time savings of 25%). In Q1 2024, the HBLR had 2,964 weekday riders per mile, in a 17-mile system! Second place behind the Link system in Seattle with 3,461.
Exactly, Thom! Transit is inherently political. I know people say they don't like politics or don't want to get involved with politics, but whether they like it or not, politics controls everything, our lives are decided by politics, and you might as well get involved to fight for the ideal environment you want! And we shouldn't be compromising with anti-transit conservatives on transit and urbanism. Urbanism is about human rights, environment, increasing access to housing and transit for people of ALL backgrounds, and the right have shown time and time again they don't care about low income, disabilities, people of color, LGBTQ+, etc! So why should we welcome fascists to our movement? Instead of compromising, you show up to meetings, knock doors for the candidates you want and vote to push the opposing candidates out. It's a shame this streetcar in Milwaukee has so much stacked up against it. I really like the setup of Lakefront station. Having bikeshare, TOD, and connections between The Hop and BRT, it's a great start! A system having different connections has been proven to be success for light-rail ridership, as shown with the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail having connections to PATH, NJT trains, ferries, NJT buses, jitneys, and bikeshare, and the HBLR has led to a TOD boom in Hudson County. If a system is expanded, have great frequencies and speed, priority, serves many activity centers throughout a city, grade separation, TOD, and different connections, it can lead to a wonderful system that'll benefit everyone. The QLine is another system that has so much potential. In the case of the QLine in Detroit that opened in 2017, the QLine is useful, it serves Wayne State University, Fox Theatre, Amtrak, Little Caesars Arena, and is walking distance from the Lions and Tigers stadiums as well from Grand Circus Park. But being curbside and not being in the median for most of its length hurts it and slows it down, and when asked by transit advocates during the planning, the QLine people were like "Yeah so?", they didn't care, they didn't want it to be true transit, they just wanted a casual touristy streetcar to attract development. And then you realize that back in the 1970s, Detroit wanted a city and metro-wide light rail transit system with the Detroit People Mover as a downtown distributor for these routes. Plans included an underground subway that would've been built from downtown to New Center, where it would transition into an elevated rail line running to McNichols (Six Mile). From there, it would've been a street-level light rail and extend beyond Detroit and into Royal Oak, and possibly later into Pontiac (this "Woodward-Michigan service" would've included lines to Detroit Metropolitan Airport and a Fort line towards Pennsylvania Rd in Southgate), with additional rail lines running on Grand River Ave, Mound Road, Harper Ave, and Gratiot Ave, and commuter lines from Detroit to Ann Arbor and Port Huron. However, it and the suburbs couldn't decide on anything for the 600 million promised by Gerald Ford, and so only the circulator got built and the money was withdrawn by Reagan. In 2016, a plan was put forward that included lots of BRT, cross-county connector routes, more frequent routes, and even commuter rail to Ann Arbor. 894K approved and 911K rejected, but it shows more people are willing to fight for transit! And Detroit officials have considered a reconfiguration of the DPM to connect more of the city like Corktown, and Midtown, as more apartments are built downtown. The DPM uses the same tech as the Vancouver SkyTrain, and Vancouver has of course truly pushed that tech to its limits! Besides that 1970s plan I mentioned, Detroit has tried many other times to build a subway or an L, like in 1920 when the proposal was vetoed by the mayor (and the council failed to override the veto by JUST ONE VOTE), the vote for a subway (this one was envisioned to be an extensive 21-mile system) was put off the ballot last minute in 1927, 72 percent rejected it in 1929, 68 percent approved in 1933 but the federal government refused to fund it, a scaled-down system was proposed in July 1941 but after Pearl Harbor happened, it fell off the radar, a 1945 plan envisioned subway lines along Woodward and Grand River, but it too didn't happen...yeah. And before this, Detroit had an insane interurban network and streetcar network! By the 1910s, Detroit was the hub of one of the largest unified electrical transportation systems in the world. Detroit United Railways operated what may have been the largest regional electric rail system in the world. It had more than 800 miles of track, more than 200 of them in the city limits of Detroit, where one fare would get you across town, and 600 miles in the high-speed interurban lines. The streetcars were 24 hours a day and ran every few minutes!
Perhaps that is why the City of Hialeah Commission, Florida, in a city with 96.9% ethnic-Cuban population, has voted name a local street to "Donald J Trump Avenue"?
Republicans are the cause of all of America's problems and are the one thing keeping Cuba stuck in a rut. They at worst need the same grace we give Vietnam.
You can easily live car free on Milwaukee's lower east side and downtown thanks to the Hop. There are multiple grocery stores, medical facilities, gyms, entertainment venues, and any type of restaurant you can imagine on the line. Not to mention the fact that you can go from the Hop to the Intermodal, meaning you can be in Chicago all via public transport.
The brief card of sanity at 3:34 absolutely made my day. Interesting video as well, as ever. And to anybody who takes the Hiawatha regularly, hello! Theres a decent chance I've waved to you down here in suburban Chicago while walking
It is sad that the State Legislature assumes that they know what is best for the cities. The other example of that thinking is the State of Indiana not allowing any city in the state to build Light Rail.
The Indiana state law doesn’t ban every city. Just Indianapolis. Which is still a huge shame because Indianapolis could easily become a better city if it had a good light-rail system
one more great video. Milwaukee is a great city and growing. My Mother was born there so we have been there many times via train, airplane and car. The Hiawatha Train is a solid system between Chicago and Milwaukee. Thanks for all the info dwb
Thank you for showing this. I like your ideas for route expansion. As a Milwaukee baseball fan, I'm irritated that the popular 90 Stadium bus was cancelled a few years ago without any replacement other than bar shuttle buses.
@@Thom-TRAbudget cuts! Sadly. MCTS is facing an extreme budget shortfall due to funding cuts so any special services are hard to fund. Though we still have special services for the summerfest music festival still!
Republicans have consistently opposed passenger train service. I guess those who travel in private jets and limos don't see the need for mass transit. Good report, well done!
The one suggested expansion you give that I disagree with is the stadium. There’s no demand to American Family Field outside of 3-4 hours/day, 80-ish days per year. The real mistake was building the stadium where it is. Because politics, it got built next to the old stadium rather than downtown a few blocks north of the other arenas/convention center. But, given where it is, a streetcar to the stadium would be overwhelmed 1% of the time, and essentially empty the other 99% of the time. The University and Bay View extensions could be good, but the main thing is it has to be measurably better than existing bus routes. Unfortunately, 21st century US streetcars generally suck at accomplishing that. The Hop is the kludgy result of political spite fighting against a good plan that turned into desperation. You didn’t mention it in your video, but the federal money that went to building it is actually the same money that was supposed to have built the 1990s system until state politicians killed it. The Connect is actually the result of that same money. Neither of them are true to the original vision of the system, but rather two factions (the City of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County, the latter which was previously run by County Executive Scott Walker…yes, that Scott Walker). The County wanted all of the money for buses (basically so they wouldn’t have to put up any money themselves to fund public transit), and the city had some fairly pro-streetcar supporters, including former mayor John Norquist and Alderman Bob Bauman. Eventually the federal government, under the Obama administration, decided to settle it “once and for all” by splitting what remained of the grant between the County (BRT) and City (Hop). What we get as a result is a bus route that is no faster than the route 10/Gold Line it replaced, and a streetcar whose route looks like it was designed with a spirograph, and the centerpiece of it all was the Couture building whose construction and developer financing delays are the reason the L line was several years late to begin with.
I'd still think a light rail running frequent, long trains for games would be better crowd control than the traffic a game generates. Not to mention there's a hospital next door.
Robust public transit is a reason Chicago blossomed into urban paradise and MKE did not. When I visited Milwaukee, I didn't ride the Hop at all because there was a parallel bus route that ran more frequent service to my destination. I hope they'll get it together!
Aside from a subway-metro, years-ago Milwaukee could claim many streetcar and suburban electric transit operations. That said, the elimination of the electric lines in Wisconsin was faster and more complete than in Illinois.
So the only reason the L line exists is because the Couture highrise used to sit on top of a bus depot and the city needed to create a transit center or give USDOT a bunch of money back. (And then got delayed for years because the entire thing was tied to the Couture’s construction.) The 3 main proposed extensions, if the money was there, would have been done years ago. They’ve been approved by the city council and are shovel ready. You can even see the path laid out for the streetcar in the newly finished Vel R Phillips plaza near the convention center.
@@Thom-TRA The state even changed a law that forces utility companies to pay to move their own equipment out of the way of public works projects to not apply to milwaukee just to make the hop construction more expensive. It’s wild out here.
I personally feel like Milwaukee should have a commuter rail system from Intermodal Station to Watertown. The tracks already exist as they are used by both the Empire Builder and Borealis and they go through directly the city centers of plenty of decent sized communities like Wauwatosa - Brookfield - Pewaukee - Oconomowoc, etc with plenty of opportunities of Transit Oriented Development. Not to mention the amount of unused platform space they have and possibly making transfers to Amtrak easier!
While I’d absolutely love living in a building with its own tram stop, this line is just insane. The original line was a loop, which isn’t a great start, but at least it seemed to run a noticeable distance in adjacent streets, so it could actually serve some transportation use in addition to being a tourist attraction. But what is a 0.4mil, so 640m smaller loop extension supposed to do? If I understand this correctly, since its a 600m loop the already existing station on the other line is a maximum of 300m away from the lakefront station. That’s not even a 5min walk, not to mention there are stations between these. And since the entire thing is a loop you can’t even take the tram towards the train station, you’d need to go around both loops to get there. I get that the political climate is very hostile to this project, but I honestly don’t think this is going to improve any of that. If anything it’s proof „trams are slow and a waste of money“.
It really feels like it was built to serve the building and to add frequency to the shared core. Which is great, if there was more incentive for people to use the building.
@@Thom-TRA It was built so they didn't have to give money back. They made an excuse to keep it (to serve the building) and create some jobs. The original Transit center also was built as an infrastructure project (For the same reason) and to create construction jobs too. (More edits) We all knew the placement of the original building wasn't in the 'center' of anything. It was made into the end of a lot of bus lines.
I have never been to Milwaukee. However, when I watch this video I get the same impression with what I got when I rode the Kansas City streetcar. If there is a regional rail running on the existing railway, the streetcar would work great as a connection between the railway stop and other areas in the downtown. But neither city has a regional rail, only the streetcar lines. Hmm.
The problem with the Hop is that it *slowly* meanders from an underutilized transit center, through half of the CBD, to the edge of the first neighborhood. Meaning, it’s really only helpful for people who are already within walking distance, or small number of people getting off the handful of intercity buses and trains who want to go to that part of the CBD. To make the Hop work, they really need to have commuter/regional trains coming into the intermodal station. Then people would transfer from the trains to the Hop to get to their businesses in the CBD. The next best thing would be to extend the M-line of the Hop further north into the East Side neighborhoods. That way the line actually helps people get from somewhere to downtown. However, the city’s expansion plans focus on short extensions radiating from the underused train station: to the convention center and Buck’s arena north, and just over the river to the edge of the neighborhood south. But those extensions won’t fix anything, because it doesn’t fix the underutilization of the train station or meaningfully serve neighborhoods!!! TL;DR the Hop is doomed to suck until the city learns how a transit system works and magically comes up with a bunch of money to make major investments.
We rode the Hiawatha to Milwaukee this past summer and had a delightful ride on the awesome free and clean Hop thanks to your previous video about it. We would love for it to go more places by the time we return to visit. That would be awesome!!! Happy Thanksgiving, Thom!!! We are thankful for you and your awesome channel!!!
im always weary of battery trains because i know where i work our trains chronically have bad batteries. but unless they are off power for more than a couple minutes at a time, they work perfectly fine. so because of that management does not want us to bo batteries because theyre expensive and hard to get. and the downside of a bad battery is the car is more likely to not be able to start the inverter, so itll need to be manually started or it will fault out and that car wont be providing propulsion. on a system like this, a bad battery is a critical issue because it will strand you in a place with no power.
Love the video as always! I lived in Milwaukee for 7 years until COVID and was just back recently for the first time since moving. I would just want to point out that while the downtown feels empty compared to major east coast cities like DC where I live now (metrobar sometime?), it is vibrant and walkable by Midwest standards. I'm not sure exactly what the downtown population is since it can vary based on methodology, but based on population around a point of 3km set on city hall, Milwaukee has around 70k. For comparison, Indy has 43k within that radius of it's central square, Cleveland has less than 30k and Kansas City has 27k. I'm not trying to diminish those cities, just provide context for how populated Milwaukee downtown is compared with regional peers. It also has neighborhoods adjacent to downtown with population densities over 30k psm. Outside of Chicago and Minneapolis, no Midwest City has that kind of density unless you count Pittsburgh as Midwest. I was also shocked at the amount of nice bike infrastructure and speed reduction/road diets added in the last 4 years. It made me jealous coming from DC! You alluded to this but Milwaukee is trying it's hardest despite the fact that people with no Milwaukee connections in the state legislature keep telling how citizens of the city can spend the citizens' own tax payer money. Just trying to add a bit more positivity here. Anyone watching this channel considering heading to Milwaukee, do it! And DM me for recommendations. I've got plenty!
I’d still say it’s much less lively than even Grand Rapids MI, where even if it’s less dense it doesn’t feel devoid of people. Not that it’s a bad place, but everyone I’ve ever spoken who’s visited has wondered where everyone is.
@@Thom-TRA That's fair. I encourage you to keep going back though as the city continues to add housing in and near the center. Maybe you could do a revisit series where you go to places with new transit you've been before and "check in" on how it's doing.
Streetcars are just a more expensive bus that still has to follow road rules. I feel like if it was underground or elevated people would ride it more but that’s just me.
Thom as an east side resident of Milwaukee. The buses are used quite a bit in Milwaukee and streetcar got an incredible amount of usage during Summerfest our big music festival. They combined for 2 weeks into the festival line that incorporated every stop on the line. It worked really well to get home. I think Milwaukee has a better chance at getting another BRT line established before the street car expansion. Our state GOP is hostile to anything running on rails. MCTS isn’t perfect transit, but it’s decent overall.
MCTS was going to turn the Purple Line running from Bayshore to IKEA along 27th into a BRT line, but because of the budget shortfalls the system is facing, it cannibalized the funding set aside for that to fund operations. We need more funding!
I took the hop earlier this year. I felt that it was VERY slow, it didn't really go near many places I wanted to go, and the frequency wasn't great, at least on a Sunday. Like, I don't think I ever felt it go faster than 15 mph. The vehicles also just feel kind of cheap, but that may be because i'm used to heavier rail.
@@Thom-TRAWe have Brookville for streetcars, and KinkiSharyo and Siemens for light rail here in Arizona. The Brookville cars feel MASSIVELY cheaper, the software seems unfinished for the passenger information, and never mind the fact that it is constantly broken down, I would say that KS and Siemens are MUCH better choices for rail vehicles.
@@TransitAndTeslas Here in Denver our light rail is 100% Siemens rolling stock and they're definitely dated (the newest ones entered service 20 years ago) but overall feel solid, and are apparently reasonably reliable. Our new commuter rail (opened in 2016) uses Hyundai-Rotem Silverliner 5s which are very nice, fast and smooth riding and feel like they're built like a bank vault, they're 8 years old but still feel practically brand new.
Not the only swing state that can't do anything transit wise. Pennsylvania is in the same boat. SEPTA is one of the most underfunded of the major transit agencies of the northeast and Pittsburg, despite having a metro area of 2.5mil has a paltry 2 light rail lines.
Light Rail would be better for Milwaukee’s needs (hopefully they preserve a ROW for it if they follow through on Highway removal), but the streetcar is a decent start in some ways and nice for certain intra-downtown trips. The expansion is kinda useless due to a lack of frequency. This summer, they spent several months using a different routing they served the lake more often though
Exactly. If the money ever comes, it could become like Portland’s system, where the street running sections downtown extend to faster sections. But we’re years from that if ever…
It may be factual that previous Republican administrations may be the reason for underfunding, but understand that Wisconsin has many crazies in Mad Town who would spend on all sorts of projects that would be less beneficial than the Hop. There ends up being a lot of splitting the baby, with some projects being funded that are total boondoggles and should have a stake driven through them, while truly worthwhile projects can suffer guilt by association with the boondoggles. If a State Legislature or other body says, " Here's X bucks, make do with what you get" because they need to placate everybody, you get the half-fast way the Hop is being funded and built.
Looks like the extension was set up to fail - the near-empty tram says it all. Pathetic frequency, slow operation, nothing to encourage the residents of the tower to use it, doesn't really go anywhere, and they can't even get the times on Google Maps, the number one place people go to look for transit times! I'm not even taking about real-time info (though that should be available too), but only some stops have times and the ones that do have a bus symbol, route number "M123/M321" and have both the weekday and Sunday trip times shown!!! How is anyone supposed to know that those are the times for the Streetcar and to use the "MF V2" times and ignore the "Sun V2" times if they're travelling on a weekday???
Great video! It’s nice to see somebody actually talking about the struggles of transit expansion in Milwaukee. A republican controlled government has prevented any real transit expansion for the last few decades. We can’t even expand our BRT system anymore due to budget cuts! Milwaukee has experienced so many transit disappointments due to our government with commuter rail, high speed rail and BRT projects all being pushed down the drain in the last decade. Even with all these pushbacks I still have hope for the future for transit in this city.
@3:35 A message that is so needed at these times!! Remember, public transportation also involves politics, unfortunately!! Thank you for this PSA Thom!! ETA:Republicans are purposely trying to make this fail, so people won't ride it, and they can say that it was a total failure, so they can scrap it. But small transit projects like this are in a way successful it might the ridership might not be as high as say, chicago or even new york, but it gets people not driving everywhere and using public transportation for getting somewhere in the city, even if it's not the exact places where they want to go to. Most importantly, this is where the people need to vote for people that can promote more public transit and put in the policies in place. We have an uphill battle with NIMBY's and Republicans wanting to kill something that will benefit normal people instead that there are benefactors.** Mini rant over!** Otherwise great video on Milwaukee and I know other cities are adopting these small street cars that could get people around from a downtown area and eventually serve the entire city and beyond!!
Omaha’s streetcar is also facing major challenges, with one of the main challengers to the mayor in next year’s election potentially wanting to halt it, plus the costs will be difficult to find in a pretty red state and with who is coming into the White House in January
@ Here’s fair: when proposing new transit routes, don’t have them hug a lake or utilize existing train ROWs without appropriate walksheds. I still love your videos… especially how enthusiastic you are about the topic.
@ so fun fact. My “proposed” routes go through some of the most walkable parts of the city. And they make so much sense, they’re almost identical to the actual proposed light rail map from the 1990s, even though I didn’t look at that map until after I had created my “proposal.” So they make more sense after all… Maybe be fair and look at a map first?
@ Maybe understand that fish in lakes don’t ride transit? Fun fact: You run transit through the middle of walkable neighborhoods with walksheds on all sides of stops or stations. I’m only a transit planner by trade… what do I know?
@ about as much as you know about having a civil discussion apparently. Never mind the fact that these routes closely follow some of Milwaukee’s most popular bus routes (funny how that works when a city is built on water). Do you wanna be the one to tell the people who built: -the Muni N and T lines -the San Diego trolley -the Coaster -Vancouver’s Canada line -the Metra Electric District -Toronto’s 509 and 511 -GO Transit Lakeshore East -the MBTA blue line -New York’s A train -the Hudson-Bergen light rail -Philadelphia Girard Ave trolley #15 -WMATA Blue and Yellow lines -Miami metro and metromover Because all of these systems have stations mere blocks from or directly on the water. Yet they seem to be doing quite well. Maybe some cities just have dense areas near water. Nah, that can’t be it. Must be the fish. After all, you’re the transit planner…
These tiny american streetcar systems just end up feeling like the adult version of those tiny mall trains that just run in a 4m long circle, i struggle to see any benefit at all from using streetcars rather than just running 2x as many buses on the same route.. Like yes, rail transport is great! But it's great because it can be absurdly high capacity and can cover long distances quickly and comfortably while carrying tons of people, it's not just magical. If they could secure access to the existing railways in the urban area and buy enough vehicles to run at least one line with hourly service that would be such a wildly better usage of rail transport.
Always money for motorists and their endless roads and car parks and I have a nasty feeling it's going to get a lot worse for public transport in the USA ?
I've never been to Milwaukee, but from your video it appears to be uninhabited. Was it hit by a neutron bomb? Is it locked down, or is it illegal to walk there?
The Manchester Tram was called the ABBA system by locals for many years as you could only go from Altrincham to Bury and Back Again. But it grew and became very useful. See also the Edinburgh trams. Hopefully the Hop can do the same.
Does London really need that many trams? From what I've experienced there, the tube and national rail create a transit system that rivals or exceeds NYC, and the existing tram lines and DLR fill a gap where there isn't as good a tube or commuter rail coverage.
Dude, it's not that the "prioritization of the automobile" is the reason the HOP isn't used much, it's because people don't want to ride on a super slow streetcar in a cold and humid city like Milwaukee, where point-to-point transportation is often necessary.
Seems to work fine in other cold cities around the world. Some of the coldest cities in the world have big tram networks. And they’re “super slow” BECAUSE of the prioritization of the automobile. It’s like you’re trying so hard to disagree with me when you’re actually agreeing.
@@Thom-TRA There's also not quite enough density along the corridor.. the main problem is it doesn't take people to grocery stores, or work etc.. and the demographic in that tall building aren't the type that would want to take light rail it appears.
I don't understand why conservatives seem to be so opposed to any type of rail transit. Almost all other countries seem to embrace it and it is effective. Could it be il/gas or some other lobbies? Enjoyed the vid; always do!!
@@ggreg2258 It comes down to money. When projects end up like this where it either goes nowhere or no one uses it, it turns out to be a waste. My suggestion is to start out a service as a bus. If the ridership shows up, then it becomes proper BRT. If ridership remains high, it becomes rail. And not street running trams. We have to stop that.
As a life long Wisconsinite, the politics are not avoidable. They are improving but as I crossed what was supposed to be the high speed rail line between Madison and Milwaukee a couple times today alone, the progress of the hop and Bus Rapid Transit (in Madison and Milwaukee) compliments the new Amtrak Borealis line. We are getting there, one election at a time.
Wisconsin has the same issue as every other swing state. Nothing ever gets done. The party that hates cities and transit lacks the power to simply kill off all the transit. The party that loves cities and transit lacks the support to actually build nice things but is also afraid to try bold things for fear of alienating the suburban "swing voters"
@ that’s a bad take. Politics are necessary and should be improved. Only a privileged person whose rights are not dependent on politics would ever suggest abolishing them.
@@Thom-TRA All politics is is a roadblock to making things better. Everything nice will be defeated in politics. And the best part? Because there’s no way I can advocate for nice things to happen, I can just form the wildest opinions I can and say them without it having any consequences anywhere. Politics will do the worst thing imaginable anyway.
Perhaps the recollection of Wisconsin's past Gov who cancelled the contract with Talgo, lost a court suit losing millions of state taxpayer dollars and having those trains sold for pennies on the dollar to the Province of Lagos, Nigeria where they operate as a commuter service, may add to the collective embarrassment?
It’s entirely due to Wisconsin’s political climate. State republicans who are very anti-transit have maintained full control of the legislature since about 2010 and have kneecapped any such efforts in Milwaukee or Madison- they hate those cities. It’s likely to change with Wisconsin’s new state electoral maps, but not for several years still.
@@jonathanstensberg because it’s a law that seems entirely pointless other then to spite a group of people they don’t like. That’s not how government works, that’s how tyranny works.
I forgot about the existing L line. I didn’t even remember if it already opened or not but now I know. When I was visiting Chicago over the summer, I went on a day trip to Milwaukee but I stayed in downtown near the Amtrak station where I took the hop there to catch the train back to Chicago. I flew there from O’hare though on a short flight.
@ I know they are. It’s just like how my hometown of Chattanooga is two hours away from both Nashville and Atlanta. Same goes with Knoxville, Huntsville and Birmingham.
@ ooooooh. Things better than when I was at Marquette then. We literally had a stop in front of McCormick and one in front of Johnston Hall. Like…it was not useful at all.
1. The number one reason that I hear from people who don’t support the streetcar is that it doesn’t go anywhere. Naturally, they don’t wanna spend the money to make it go anywhere. Self-fulfilling prophecies are popular among conservatives in this state. 2. One of the biggest private donor bodies in the state is the Bradley Foundation (as are the individual families involved with it), famous for its support of the arts (good!). Unfortunately, they are *infamously conservative*, therefore anything remotely for the public good at large is a non-starter.
@@Thom-TRA I did listen. You said 1.5 million people in the region. The hop is in the city of Milwaukee. Residents who don't live in the city are not using this stupid glorified bus.
That’s a great question! It certainly isn’t easy. It helps to remind people of economic benefits. Money arguments always work better. And of course, voting for people you know are pro-transit.
Acquainted with an engineering-background person who grew up in the Washington DC area during its streetcar era, the news that you are working on a video about DC streetcars is heartfelt. I anticipate your forthcoming video!
It was simply not possible to build a tram in Milwaukee and this should not have been done because empty trams give a bad reputation. Before doing so they should have made sure that they were building a successful passenger line even if it did not become economically profitable.
The hop is a complete waste of taxpayer money and should have never been built. Nobody rides it anymore. It was a fad when it first came out and now is a bust.
The question is: can the L line be upgraded to a W line?
Seattle's Link system is an example of a system that very much punches above its weight with its downtown underground stations, TOD, speeds, and grade-separation. Not to mention the modes it complements like streetcar, the monorail, BRT, express buses, etc. If Milwaukee got the love it deserved from the state, it can look at Seattle as a role model. And as someone else mentioned, it's incredibly ironic for them to use taxpayer money on a ballpark, but not on a light-rail that could help people reach said ballpark! Like, other ballparks can be reachable by rail! Yankee Stadium and Citi Field both have their own subway and commuter rail stations, and Yankee Stadium is served by three MNR services on game days! Milwaukee facts: Milwaukee's Hoan Bridge is named after Daniel Hoan, one of the longest serving mayors of Milwaukee. He was Milwaukee's Sewer Socialist mayor from 1916 to 1940! As mayor, Hoan implemented progressive reforms, including the country's first public housing project, Garden Homes, started in 1923. He also led the successful drive towards municipal ownership of the stone quarry, street lighting, sewage disposal, and water purification. Milwaukee implemented the first public bus system in the US when he was mayor as well. Juneau Town and Juneau Ave are named after Solomon Juneau, one of the founding fathers of Milwaukee alongside Byron Kilbourn and George H. Walker. Solomon Juneau's cousin Joseph Juneau founded the city in Alaska. Solomon Juneau was the first of the three to come in 1818 where he founded Juneautown. In competition, Byron established Kilbourntown west of the Milwaukee River, and made sure the roads running toward the river did not join with those on the east side, and this is why there are a large number of angled bridges that still exist in Milwaukee! Kilbourn also distributed maps which only showed Kilbourntown, implying Juneautown did not exist. Walker claimed land to the south of the Milwaukee River where he built a log house in 1834, and this became known as Walker's Point.
Christopher Latham Sholes, alongside his colleagues Carlos Glidden and Samuel Soule, developed the prototype of the modern typewriter in Milwaukee during the 1860s. With its origins rooted in the heart of the Midwest, the typewriter’s impact rippled across the globe, shaping the way we write. Since 1908, Holler House has beckoned bowlers to its quaint two-lane alley, embodying its sporting heritage as the oldest sanctioned bowling alley in the US. They are still tended by human pinsetters. Back in the 1930s, a simple kitchen became the birthplace of something extraordinary: Carmex lip balm. It was Alfred Woelbing’s ingenious concoction, brewed with care to help his dry lips. Milwaukee earns the nickname “Cream City,” not for its dairy production, but for the distinctive cream-colored bricks that adorn its buildings. These bricks, crafted from clay abundant in the region, lend a warm and timeless aesthetic to the cityscape, preserving its unique architectural heritage. When it comes to Milwaukee's original streetcars, in 1860, Milwaukee opened the first line of its original streetcar using horse-drawn streetcars like other cities did. It wasn’t until 1890 when Henry Villard, a New York multi-millionaire, and Henry Clay Payne created a company called the Milwaukee Electric Railway Company. In the first year of operation, the electric system provided 28 million rides, he says. A couple decades later, the number had ballooned to 132 million. It only cost a nickel to ride the original streetcar system and at one point, it boasted of 190 miles of track! Milwaukee's last original streetcar line closed in 1958. Milwaukee also once had an interurban called the Electroliner which connected it with Chicago, designed to operate with high platforms, sharp curves, and narrow clearances of the Chicago Loop, to run at speeds of 80 mph (130 km/h) or more on the North Shore's main line, and to use city streets to downtown Milwaukee!
First public bus? Cool! Didn’t know that.
I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: BRING BACK THE NORTH SHORE LINE
Oh so we can use taxpayer money to renovate the Brewers ballpark, but god forbid we use taxpayer money to give people a way to get to the ballpark they paid for 🙄
This
That's what CARS are for! The preferable mode of transport.
@@CallMeInfinite0000 the preferable mode of transport for people who like spending their paycheck on insurance, gas, and maintenance; like wasting time in traffic; enjoy risking their lives; and support big government funding their completely dependent lifestyles maybe.
@@Thom-TRA Plus surely there’s no room to park the cars there, or road capacity to get the cars out.
@@CallMeInfinite0000 “preferable” by most people who have been brought up in American suburbia and falsely led to believe there are no other practical options.
Car ownership should not be a necessity, but are cities are designed to force that to be the case.
The Potawatomi Hotel & Casino is owned and operated by the Forest County Potawatomi Community tribe. The Potawatomi historically lived around the western Great Lakes and upper Mississippi, though many were forcibly relocated to Kansas and Oklahoma. They are part of a long-term alliance called the Council of Three Fires, with the Ojibwe and Odawa/Ottawa peoples, and a part of the bigger group of culturally-related indigenous peoples called the Anishinaabe that live around the Great Lakes. Nice to see it get ridership and honestly as slow as it is, for a climate like Milwaukee, I'd rather ride that streetcar if I was there in the winter, I can't imagine trying to walk around there in the winter when it's like snowing or raining! It helps The Hop that not only does it have bikeshare stations by Hop stations, the transit center at the Couture TOD, and the Lakefront station is close to the Discovery World museum and Henry Maier Festival Park where Summerfest is held, but also the fact it connects to Amtrak and intercity bus services at the Milwaukee Intermodal Station. I like the design of the modern trainshed at Milwaukee Intermodal Station. Well lit at night with lots of natural light during the day and offering respite from the elements while being well ventilated. The trainsheds at Coney Island-Stillwell Ave and Jamaica LIRR were also built in the 2000s. LIRR's Jamaica station built a big curved canopy (doesn't cover the whole station but still cool) in 2006 as part of a renovation for the AirTrain that added a pedestrian bridge, a central elevator bank to the street and subway, and a new mezzanine .Coney Island-Stillwell Ave has a massive trainshed that was completed in 2005 with solar panels, 2,730 of them which provide about 15 percent of the station's power, making it the first solar-powered subway station in NYC! The panels were tested to handle hurricanes in a lab in York, PA!
If systems in the US got the love and support that they deserve from state and city governments, then systems like The Hop could easily reach their full potential. Look at Pyongyang in the DPRK for example. After US raids during the war in the 1950s, the city was effectively destroyed and needed to be rebuilt. Pyongyang was redesigned to become the ideal socialist city. Before the war, the city had trams, but said tram system was destroyed, so it built a new system from scratch. Before this system was built, trolleybus lines and a metro system were created. The trolleybus system first opened in 1962, with opening of a line from the Three Revolutions Exhibition at Ryonmot-dong to the Pyongyang railway station. Today, the system has 12 lines with a length of 56.6 km, serving Pyongyang and its suburbs. The Pyongyang Metro has two lines, the Chollima Line and the Hyŏksin Line, with the lines opening 1973 and 1978 respectively. This means the Pyongyang Metro opened one year before the Seoul Subway Line 1 did in 1974. The trams finally opened in 1991 as a solution for overcrowded trolleybuses, with three lines, and the Kumsusan shuttle that connects Samhung station with the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun. A ban on bikes was lifted in 1992, and now many people also bike alongside taking transit, and the government has built bike lanes and even introduced Ryomyong bikeshare. DPRK urban-planning includes limited urban sprawl, as new developments in DPRK cities tend to take the place of older areas of the city, rather than building new developments further out. In Pyongyang, this is the case with the developments of Mirae (Future) Scientists Street in 2015, Changjon Street in 2012, Songhwa Street in 2022, Hwasong Street in 2024, and Ryomyong (Dawn) Street in 2023. Micro-districts are made up of residences alongside their supporting amenities like public spaces, offices, shops, and schools. A key aspect is both the equality of the residential buildings and the encouragement of people to spend more time in the community, hence the focus on parks and playgrounds. People shouldn't be making excuses for keeping cities car-dominant. It should be the goal to go from car required to car optional. Everyone should have access to all life has to offer regardless of whether you own a multi ton hunk of metal. Getting to school, medical appointments, and visiting family/friends shouldn't hinge on needing a car. If critics against urbanism actually cared about affordability/the working class, then they would know by not relying on a car, you're saving so much money not having to care about tolls, gas, maintenance, etc because you're taking a train or bus instead
It's been a while, nice to see you again glorious supreme leader!
Comparing Milwaukee to Pyongyang is wild 😂 2024, what a time to be alive
Baltimore's light-rail lines from Hunt Valley to BWI and Glen Burnie are....something. In Q1 2024, it had a weekday ridership per mile of just 436, and it doesn't take long to see why (worse than SacRT's 506 riders per mile but better than St Louis MetroLink's 409). The Red Line expansion is very much needed. The light-rail system was an alternative to a south line of the subway system to Glen Burnie and BWI, but Anne Arundel County fought against it, so it was eliminated from the subway plan in 1975. The light-rail uses ROW once used by interurban streetcar lines and the commuter rail routes of the Northern Central Railway, Washington, Baltimore and Annapolis Electric Railway, and Baltimore and Annapolis Railroad. It was built quickly and inexpensively without federal funds so it could be built in time for Orioles Park's opening at Camden Yards, thus because of that, to save money, much of the system was built with only a single track. While this allowed the system to be constructed and opened quickly, it limited the system's flexibility, and so federal money was later acquired to double track most of the system. Shortly before Warren Road Station (heading north), the light rail splits from the former mainline at a wye (the original mainline disappears into trees and the remaining rail ends at the next road crossing). The light rail then follows the route of a former freight spur which was constructed in the 1970s to serve the industrial park the line now travels through. There were actually some spurs off this spur to various industries, some of which are still partially in-place and can be seen curving away from the right of way when riding. The freight line ended at McCormick Spice, which obviously wasn't ideal for light-rail, so beyond this point, the tracks follow the existing street grid (hence the single-track section with tight curves). Freight service actually lasted until around 2006 to Cockeysville, and 2012 to a couple of industries between North Avenue and Falls Road.
Station placement and design were intended to be flexible and change over time, as stations could be built or closed at low cost. However, they were at times dictated by politics rather planning, as proposed stops in Ruxton, Riderwood, and Cross Keys were not built due to local opposition, while Mt. Royal and Timonium stations were built despite nearly being removed from the plan because the University of Baltimore and a local business group funded them. And then there's the location of Cold Spring Lane, which looks quite bad but there is a bus stop for two different routes when you exit onto Cold Spring Lane, there's a connection to the Jones Falls Trail, and students also use the station as if you walk east of the station, it serves Western High School and Baltimore Polytechnic Institute. MTA tried to build "TOD" for this station with a 16-acre parcel with 284 units called "The Woodberry" but it ironically has poor connectivity to the station. So yeah, the light-rail goes through the least-densely populated parts for much of the journey, there was a lot of opposition to stations (which is also why they opted not to build one at Glen Burnie town center), and freight right of way limited the connectivity of the stations to the areas where they are located. Compare that with the HBLR in New Jersey which also mainly uses repurposed right-of-way but they go through packed neighborhoods, there's Citi Bike bikeshare stations at HBLR stops, has great connections to jitneys, ferries, buses, PATH, and NJT rail (the latter at Hoboken Terminal), and when in downtown Jersey City, it's still in its own right-of-way (except Essex Street where it's street running) and have priority signals (though Baltimore also has transit priority signals between Camden and Mount Royal, implemented in 2007 and resulted in time savings of 25%). In Q1 2024, the HBLR had 2,964 weekday riders per mile, in a 17-mile system! Second place behind the Link system in Seattle with 3,461.
I need to ride the Baltimore light rail north of Mt. Royal! I’ve been on everything else
Exactly, Thom! Transit is inherently political. I know people say they don't like politics or don't want to get involved with politics, but whether they like it or not, politics controls everything, our lives are decided by politics, and you might as well get involved to fight for the ideal environment you want! And we shouldn't be compromising with anti-transit conservatives on transit and urbanism. Urbanism is about human rights, environment, increasing access to housing and transit for people of ALL backgrounds, and the right have shown time and time again they don't care about low income, disabilities, people of color, LGBTQ+, etc! So why should we welcome fascists to our movement? Instead of compromising, you show up to meetings, knock doors for the candidates you want and vote to push the opposing candidates out. It's a shame this streetcar in Milwaukee has so much stacked up against it. I really like the setup of Lakefront station. Having bikeshare, TOD, and connections between The Hop and BRT, it's a great start! A system having different connections has been proven to be success for light-rail ridership, as shown with the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail having connections to PATH, NJT trains, ferries, NJT buses, jitneys, and bikeshare, and the HBLR has led to a TOD boom in Hudson County. If a system is expanded, have great frequencies and speed, priority, serves many activity centers throughout a city, grade separation, TOD, and different connections, it can lead to a wonderful system that'll benefit everyone.
The QLine is another system that has so much potential. In the case of the QLine in Detroit that opened in 2017, the QLine is useful, it serves Wayne State University, Fox Theatre, Amtrak, Little Caesars Arena, and is walking distance from the Lions and Tigers stadiums as well from Grand Circus Park. But being curbside and not being in the median for most of its length hurts it and slows it down, and when asked by transit advocates during the planning, the QLine people were like "Yeah so?", they didn't care, they didn't want it to be true transit, they just wanted a casual touristy streetcar to attract development. And then you realize that back in the 1970s, Detroit wanted a city and metro-wide light rail transit system with the Detroit People Mover as a downtown distributor for these routes. Plans included an underground subway that would've been built from downtown to New Center, where it would transition into an elevated rail line running to McNichols (Six Mile). From there, it would've been a street-level light rail and extend beyond Detroit and into Royal Oak, and possibly later into Pontiac (this "Woodward-Michigan service" would've included lines to Detroit Metropolitan Airport and a Fort line towards Pennsylvania Rd in Southgate), with additional rail lines running on Grand River Ave, Mound Road, Harper Ave, and Gratiot Ave, and commuter lines from Detroit to Ann Arbor and Port Huron. However, it and the suburbs couldn't decide on anything for the 600 million promised by Gerald Ford, and so only the circulator got built and the money was withdrawn by Reagan.
In 2016, a plan was put forward that included lots of BRT, cross-county connector routes, more frequent routes, and even commuter rail to Ann Arbor. 894K approved and 911K rejected, but it shows more people are willing to fight for transit! And Detroit officials have considered a reconfiguration of the DPM to connect more of the city like Corktown, and Midtown, as more apartments are built downtown. The DPM uses the same tech as the Vancouver SkyTrain, and Vancouver has of course truly pushed that tech to its limits! Besides that 1970s plan I mentioned, Detroit has tried many other times to build a subway or an L, like in 1920 when the proposal was vetoed by the mayor (and the council failed to override the veto by JUST ONE VOTE), the vote for a subway (this one was envisioned to be an extensive 21-mile system) was put off the ballot last minute in 1927, 72 percent rejected it in 1929, 68 percent approved in 1933 but the federal government refused to fund it, a scaled-down system was proposed in July 1941 but after Pearl Harbor happened, it fell off the radar, a 1945 plan envisioned subway lines along Woodward and Grand River, but it too didn't happen...yeah. And before this, Detroit had an insane interurban network and streetcar network! By the 1910s, Detroit was the hub of one of the largest unified electrical transportation systems in the world. Detroit United Railways operated what may have been the largest regional electric rail system in the world. It had more than 800 miles of track, more than 200 of them in the city limits of Detroit, where one fare would get you across town, and 600 miles in the high-speed interurban lines. The streetcars were 24 hours a day and ran every few minutes!
Preach! And can you believe that despite having lived in Michigan for 4 years, I still haven’t been on the Q Line? 😅
Perhaps that is why the City of Hialeah Commission, Florida, in a city with 96.9% ethnic-Cuban population, has voted
name a local street to "Donald J Trump Avenue"?
Republicans are the cause of all of America's problems and are the one thing keeping Cuba stuck in a rut. They at worst need the same grace we give Vietnam.
@@michaelsmith9590Cuban exiles will worship anyone who will let them get their way. Trump did just that.
Castro was a better man than Trump.
@@michaelsmith9590 We don't talk about Batista-loving Miami Cubans (NY/NJ Cubans like Avery are cool though, except Bob Menendez)
You can easily live car free on Milwaukee's lower east side and downtown thanks to the Hop. There are multiple grocery stores, medical facilities, gyms, entertainment venues, and any type of restaurant you can imagine on the line. Not to mention the fact that you can go from the Hop to the Intermodal, meaning you can be in Chicago all via public transport.
The brief card of sanity at 3:34 absolutely made my day. Interesting video as well, as ever.
And to anybody who takes the Hiawatha regularly, hello! Theres a decent chance I've waved to you down here in suburban Chicago while walking
Unfortunately these days it’s necessary! All I have to do is show even a glimpse of the Capitol and people get all up in arms (no pun intended)
It is sad that the State Legislature assumes that they know what is best for the cities. The other example of that thinking is the State of Indiana not allowing any city in the state to build Light Rail.
When the cities bring in so much money for the state...
I have to assume the South Shore Line is on borrowed time at this point, even if they can manage to fund it without the state's help.
The Indiana state law doesn’t ban every city. Just Indianapolis. Which is still a huge shame because Indianapolis could easily become a better city if it had a good light-rail system
one more great video. Milwaukee is a great city and growing. My Mother was born there so we have been there many times via train, airplane and car. The Hiawatha Train is a solid system between Chicago and Milwaukee. Thanks for all the info dwb
I wish the Hiawatha would run even more. They’d fill it.
Milwaukee is losing population.
Thank you for showing this. I like your ideas for route expansion. As a Milwaukee baseball fan, I'm irritated that the popular 90 Stadium bus was cancelled a few years ago without any replacement other than bar shuttle buses.
They got rid of the stadium bus? That’s dumb!
@@Thom-TRAbudget cuts! Sadly. MCTS is facing an extreme budget shortfall due to funding cuts so any special services are hard to fund. Though we still have special services for the summerfest music festival still!
@ I know I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes. Keep up the good work.
@@Thom-TRA Right?!
Per track expansion: another idea might be to view a route map of streetcar lines from 1910.
Republicans have consistently opposed passenger train service. I guess those who travel in private jets and limos don't see the need for mass transit. Good report, well done!
The one suggested expansion you give that I disagree with is the stadium. There’s no demand to American Family Field outside of 3-4 hours/day, 80-ish days per year. The real mistake was building the stadium where it is. Because politics, it got built next to the old stadium rather than downtown a few blocks north of the other arenas/convention center. But, given where it is, a streetcar to the stadium would be overwhelmed 1% of the time, and essentially empty the other 99% of the time.
The University and Bay View extensions could be good, but the main thing is it has to be measurably better than existing bus routes. Unfortunately, 21st century US streetcars generally suck at accomplishing that.
The Hop is the kludgy result of political spite fighting against a good plan that turned into desperation. You didn’t mention it in your video, but the federal money that went to building it is actually the same money that was supposed to have built the 1990s system until state politicians killed it. The Connect is actually the result of that same money. Neither of them are true to the original vision of the system, but rather two factions (the City of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County, the latter which was previously run by County Executive Scott Walker…yes, that Scott Walker). The County wanted all of the money for buses (basically so they wouldn’t have to put up any money themselves to fund public transit), and the city had some fairly pro-streetcar supporters, including former mayor John Norquist and Alderman Bob Bauman.
Eventually the federal government, under the Obama administration, decided to settle it “once and for all” by splitting what remained of the grant between the County (BRT) and City (Hop). What we get as a result is a bus route that is no faster than the route 10/Gold Line it replaced, and a streetcar whose route looks like it was designed with a spirograph, and the centerpiece of it all was the Couture building whose construction and developer financing delays are the reason the L line was several years late to begin with.
I'd still think a light rail running frequent, long trains for games would be better crowd control than the traffic a game generates. Not to mention there's a hospital next door.
Robust public transit is a reason Chicago blossomed into urban paradise and MKE did not. When I visited Milwaukee, I didn't ride the Hop at all because there was a parallel bus route that ran more frequent service to my destination. I hope they'll get it together!
Aside from a subway-metro, years-ago Milwaukee could claim many streetcar and suburban electric transit operations. That said, the elimination of the electric lines in Wisconsin was faster and more complete than in Illinois.
Chicago is much larger than Milwaukee (pop. over 1 million since at least 1890) and much more economically important, those are two bigger reasons
Loved loved LOVED your whiteboard message. We Wisconsinites need to change the laws.
I rode the M Line a few days ago
Nice
So the only reason the L line exists is because the Couture highrise used to sit on top of a bus depot and the city needed to create a transit center or give USDOT a bunch of money back. (And then got delayed for years because the entire thing was tied to the Couture’s construction.)
The 3 main proposed extensions, if the money was there, would have been done years ago. They’ve been approved by the city council and are shovel ready. You can even see the path laid out for the streetcar in the newly finished Vel R Phillips plaza near the convention center.
The way American public money works is so weird.
@@Thom-TRA The state even changed a law that forces utility companies to pay to move their own equipment out of the way of public works projects to not apply to milwaukee just to make the hop construction more expensive. It’s wild out here.
@ did the lawmakers’ wives leave them for the hop? lol
I personally feel like Milwaukee should have a commuter rail system from Intermodal Station to Watertown. The tracks already exist as they are used by both the Empire Builder and Borealis and they go through directly the city centers of plenty of decent sized communities like Wauwatosa - Brookfield - Pewaukee - Oconomowoc, etc with plenty of opportunities of Transit Oriented Development. Not to mention the amount of unused platform space they have and possibly making transfers to Amtrak easier!
While I’d absolutely love living in a building with its own tram stop, this line is just insane.
The original line was a loop, which isn’t a great start, but at least it seemed to run a noticeable distance in adjacent streets, so it could actually serve some transportation use in addition to being a tourist attraction. But what is a 0.4mil, so 640m smaller loop extension supposed to do?
If I understand this correctly, since its a 600m loop the already existing station on the other line is a maximum of 300m away from the lakefront station. That’s not even a 5min walk, not to mention there are stations between these. And since the entire thing is a loop you can’t even take the tram towards the train station, you’d need to go around both loops to get there. I get that the political climate is very hostile to this project, but I honestly don’t think this is going to improve any of that. If anything it’s proof „trams are slow and a waste of money“.
It really feels like it was built to serve the building and to add frequency to the shared core. Which is great, if there was more incentive for people to use the building.
@@Thom-TRA It was built so they didn't have to give money back. They made an excuse to keep it (to serve the building) and create some jobs. The original Transit center also was built as an infrastructure project (For the same reason) and to create construction jobs too. (More edits) We all knew the placement of the original building wasn't in the 'center' of anything. It was made into the end of a lot of bus lines.
Great video on hap train
Thank you very much!
@Thom-TRA your welcome are you coming back to la in maybe in 2025 for the a line extension to Pomona it will be opening up an early January?
I have never been to Milwaukee. However, when I watch this video I get the same impression with what I got when I rode the Kansas City streetcar. If there is a regional rail running on the existing railway, the streetcar would work great as a connection between the railway stop and other areas in the downtown. But neither city has a regional rail, only the streetcar lines. Hmm.
there is a chance Milwaukee might someday get regional rail to Kenosha. I for one think it's an absolute necessity.
The problem with the Hop is that it *slowly* meanders from an underutilized transit center, through half of the CBD, to the edge of the first neighborhood. Meaning, it’s really only helpful for people who are already within walking distance, or small number of people getting off the handful of intercity buses and trains who want to go to that part of the CBD.
To make the Hop work, they really need to have commuter/regional trains coming into the intermodal station. Then people would transfer from the trains to the Hop to get to their businesses in the CBD.
The next best thing would be to extend the M-line of the Hop further north into the East Side neighborhoods. That way the line actually helps people get from somewhere to downtown.
However, the city’s expansion plans focus on short extensions radiating from the underused train station: to the convention center and Buck’s arena north, and just over the river to the edge of the neighborhood south. But those extensions won’t fix anything, because it doesn’t fix the underutilization of the train station or meaningfully serve neighborhoods!!!
TL;DR the Hop is doomed to suck until the city learns how a transit system works and magically comes up with a bunch of money to make major investments.
Yep. The Hiawatha should be hourly too
We rode the Hiawatha to Milwaukee this past summer and had a delightful ride on the awesome free and clean Hop thanks to your previous video about it. We would love for it to go more places by the time we return to visit. That would be awesome!!! Happy Thanksgiving, Thom!!! We are thankful for you and your awesome channel!!!
@ ck4426: I'd like for the line to go to the baseball stadium and area.
Happy Thanksgiving! Hope you can celebrate with people you love!
Unrelated but what happened to your other video about the metra machs engines?
they should let people donate to the light rail extensions.
Ah yes, I too am an aspiring adult
We’ll all get there someday
Nice!
Thanks!
As usual, a thoughtful, informative video. Happy Thanksgiving!!
Happy Thanksgiving to you too!
Can you make a video about what is cities have the most comprehensive bus networks
The cta bus network in Chicago is pretty good
Hi Thom, how are you doing
Good how are you
@@Thom-TRA Doing fine.
Excellent video Thom. Can't get over the fact that tax payer money is used for a ball park but for an expansion of the LRT is a no go.
Thanks! I’m very pleased with how it turned out (the video, not the LRT haha)
im always weary of battery trains because i know where i work our trains chronically have bad batteries. but unless they are off power for more than a couple minutes at a time, they work perfectly fine. so because of that management does not want us to bo batteries because theyre expensive and hard to get. and the downside of a bad battery is the car is more likely to not be able to start the inverter, so itll need to be manually started or it will fault out and that car wont be providing propulsion.
on a system like this, a bad battery is a critical issue because it will strand you in a place with no power.
Love the video as always! I lived in Milwaukee for 7 years until COVID and was just back recently for the first time since moving.
I would just want to point out that while the downtown feels empty compared to major east coast cities like DC where I live now (metrobar sometime?), it is vibrant and walkable by Midwest standards. I'm not sure exactly what the downtown population is since it can vary based on methodology, but based on population around a point of 3km set on city hall, Milwaukee has around 70k. For comparison, Indy has 43k within that radius of it's central square, Cleveland has less than 30k and Kansas City has 27k. I'm not trying to diminish those cities, just provide context for how populated Milwaukee downtown is compared with regional peers. It also has neighborhoods adjacent to downtown with population densities over 30k psm. Outside of Chicago and Minneapolis, no Midwest City has that kind of density unless you count Pittsburgh as Midwest.
I was also shocked at the amount of nice bike infrastructure and speed reduction/road diets added in the last 4 years. It made me jealous coming from DC!
You alluded to this but Milwaukee is trying it's hardest despite the fact that people with no Milwaukee connections in the state legislature keep telling how citizens of the city can spend the citizens' own tax payer money.
Just trying to add a bit more positivity here. Anyone watching this channel considering heading to Milwaukee, do it! And DM me for recommendations. I've got plenty!
I’d still say it’s much less lively than even Grand Rapids MI, where even if it’s less dense it doesn’t feel devoid of people. Not that it’s a bad place, but everyone I’ve ever spoken who’s visited has wondered where everyone is.
@@Thom-TRA That's fair. I encourage you to keep going back though as the city continues to add housing in and near the center.
Maybe you could do a revisit series where you go to places with new transit you've been before and "check in" on how it's doing.
Good video
Thanks!
@@Thom-TRA you're welcome
Why is nobody listening to you thom? These places really need to take your logical and practical advice
Maybe politicians need to spend more time on UA-cam.
Scratch that, bad idea.
@Thom-TRA 😂 very true
Are you planning to come to los Angeles maybe in 2025 for the new a line extension to Pomona
I definitely need to come back to LA soon
@@Thom-TRA Maybe once that LAX People Mover opens.
Streetcars are just a more expensive bus that still has to follow road rules. I feel like if it was underground or elevated people would ride it more but that’s just me.
But with higher capacity, higher chance of investment, and the ability to go faster.
Thom as an east side resident of Milwaukee.
The buses are used quite a bit in Milwaukee and streetcar got an incredible amount of usage during Summerfest our big music festival. They combined for 2 weeks into the festival line that incorporated every stop on the line. It worked really well to get home.
I think Milwaukee has a better chance at getting another BRT line established before the street car expansion. Our state GOP is hostile to anything running on rails.
MCTS isn’t perfect transit, but it’s decent overall.
I heard about the festival service! Sounds like it was popular
MCTS was going to turn the Purple Line running from Bayshore to IKEA along 27th into a BRT line, but because of the budget shortfalls the system is facing, it cannibalized the funding set aside for that to fund operations. We need more funding!
I took the hop earlier this year. I felt that it was VERY slow, it didn't really go near many places I wanted to go, and the frequency wasn't great, at least on a Sunday. Like, I don't think I ever felt it go faster than 15 mph. The vehicles also just feel kind of cheap, but that may be because i'm used to heavier rail.
Yeah, I don't really know what the quality of the Brookville cars is.
@@Thom-TRAWe have Brookville for streetcars, and KinkiSharyo and Siemens for light rail here in Arizona. The Brookville cars feel MASSIVELY cheaper, the software seems unfinished for the passenger information, and never mind the fact that it is constantly broken down, I would say that KS and Siemens are MUCH better choices for rail vehicles.
@@TransitAndTeslas Here in Denver our light rail is 100% Siemens rolling stock and they're definitely dated (the newest ones entered service 20 years ago) but overall feel solid, and are apparently reasonably reliable. Our new commuter rail (opened in 2016) uses Hyundai-Rotem Silverliner 5s which are very nice, fast and smooth riding and feel like they're built like a bank vault, they're 8 years old but still feel practically brand new.
Looks Like Politics Will Keep Milwaukee In A Bad Predicament 👎 🙄 Outstanding Video As Usual 😊😊Thanks Thom😊
Not the only swing state that can't do anything transit wise. Pennsylvania is in the same boat. SEPTA is one of the most underfunded of the major transit agencies of the northeast and Pittsburg, despite having a metro area of 2.5mil has a paltry 2 light rail lines.
Suppose they created a sort of lottery scratch ticket game called Commuter Cash to help raise money to support transit needs?
Great Video, Thom! Have a great Thanksgiving , to you and your family .
Happy Thanksgiving!
my question is why the heck do they have battery sections? Wires aren't that expensive.
Probably pinching every penny
Huh. You would think that developing bespoke dual mode vehicles would be more expensive @@Thom-TRA
It would be worth converting the system to proper light rail!
Light Rail would be better for Milwaukee’s needs (hopefully they preserve a ROW for it if they follow through on Highway removal), but the streetcar is a decent start in some ways and nice for certain intra-downtown trips.
The expansion is kinda useless due to a lack of frequency. This summer, they spent several months using a different routing they served the lake more often though
Exactly. If the money ever comes, it could become like Portland’s system, where the street running sections downtown extend to faster sections. But we’re years from that if ever…
HAPPY THANKSGIVING THOM
Happy Thanksgiving!
I'm an aspiring adult : ) Appreciated the reminder to breathe especially when politics become frustrating!
Aren’t we all? 😂
@@Thom-TRA : )
It may be factual that previous Republican administrations may be the reason for underfunding, but understand that Wisconsin has many crazies in Mad Town who would spend on all sorts of projects that would be less beneficial than the Hop. There ends up being a lot of splitting the baby, with some projects being funded that are total boondoggles and should have a stake driven through them, while truly worthwhile projects can suffer guilt by association with the boondoggles. If a State Legislature or other body says, " Here's X bucks, make do with what you get" because they need to placate everybody, you get the half-fast way the Hop is being funded and built.
Looks like the extension was set up to fail - the near-empty tram says it all.
Pathetic frequency, slow operation, nothing to encourage the residents of the tower to use it, doesn't really go anywhere, and they can't even get the times on Google Maps, the number one place people go to look for transit times! I'm not even taking about real-time info (though that should be available too), but only some stops have times and the ones that do have a bus symbol, route number "M123/M321" and have both the weekday and Sunday trip times shown!!! How is anyone supposed to know that those are the times for the Streetcar and to use the "MF V2" times and ignore the "Sun V2" times if they're travelling on a weekday???
It’s so half-baked it’s not even funny
Another Obama Era Streetcar, Hopefully these cities improve on these services
Great video! It’s nice to see somebody actually talking about the struggles of transit expansion in Milwaukee. A republican controlled government has prevented any real transit expansion for the last few decades. We can’t even expand our BRT system anymore due to budget cuts! Milwaukee has experienced so many transit disappointments due to our government with commuter rail, high speed rail and BRT projects all being pushed down the drain in the last decade. Even with all these pushbacks I still have hope for the future for transit in this city.
What's the latest on the revival of commuter rail?
@3:35 A message that is so needed at these times!! Remember, public transportation also involves politics, unfortunately!! Thank you for this PSA Thom!!
ETA:Republicans are purposely trying to make this fail, so people won't ride it, and they can say that it was a total failure, so they can scrap it. But small transit projects like this are in a way successful it might the ridership might not be as high as say, chicago or even new york, but it gets people not driving everywhere and using public transportation for getting somewhere in the city, even if it's not the exact places where they want to go to. Most importantly, this is where the people need to vote for people that can promote more public transit and put in the policies in place. We have an uphill battle with NIMBY's and Republicans wanting to kill something that will benefit normal people instead that there are benefactors.** Mini rant over!**
Otherwise great video on Milwaukee and I know other cities are adopting these small street cars that could get people around from a downtown area and eventually serve the entire city and beyond!!
Imagine running into Rich Evans on The Hop!
Unfortunately pantograph is a much harder to pronounce word than folding chable.
Public transportation in America is pa the tic
Omaha’s streetcar is also facing major challenges, with one of the main challengers to the mayor in next year’s election potentially wanting to halt it, plus the costs will be difficult to find in a pretty red state and with who is coming into the White House in January
Yikes. You are not a transit planner. I appreciate your enthusiasm though.
I have no idea why that comment was called for. I am very fair in this review, I’d ask you be fair to me.
@ Here’s fair: when proposing new transit routes, don’t have them hug a lake or utilize existing train ROWs without appropriate walksheds. I still love your videos… especially how enthusiastic you are about the topic.
@ so fun fact. My “proposed” routes go through some of the most walkable parts of the city. And they make so much sense, they’re almost identical to the actual proposed light rail map from the 1990s, even though I didn’t look at that map until after I had created my “proposal.” So they make more sense after all…
Maybe be fair and look at a map first?
@ Maybe understand that fish in lakes don’t ride transit? Fun fact: You run transit through the middle of walkable neighborhoods with walksheds on all sides of stops or stations. I’m only a transit planner by trade… what do I know?
@ about as much as you know about having a civil discussion apparently.
Never mind the fact that these routes closely follow some of Milwaukee’s most popular bus routes (funny how that works when a city is built on water).
Do you wanna be the one to tell the people who built:
-the Muni N and T lines
-the San Diego trolley
-the Coaster
-Vancouver’s Canada line
-the Metra Electric District
-Toronto’s 509 and 511
-GO Transit Lakeshore East
-the MBTA blue line
-New York’s A train
-the Hudson-Bergen light rail
-Philadelphia Girard Ave trolley #15
-WMATA Blue and Yellow lines
-Miami metro and metromover
Because all of these systems have stations mere blocks from or directly on the water. Yet they seem to be doing quite well. Maybe some cities just have dense areas near water. Nah, that can’t be it. Must be the fish. After all, you’re the transit planner…
They can’t even use TIF?? Ugh! It is impressive how much The Hop has been able to do with so little. Thank you for the excellent extension overview!!!
Thinking of starting a GoFundMe hahaha
@ 🤣
These tiny american streetcar systems just end up feeling like the adult version of those tiny mall trains that just run in a 4m long circle, i struggle to see any benefit at all from using streetcars rather than just running 2x as many buses on the same route..
Like yes, rail transport is great! But it's great because it can be absurdly high capacity and can cover long distances quickly and comfortably while carrying tons of people, it's not just magical.
If they could secure access to the existing railways in the urban area and buy enough vehicles to run at least one line with hourly service that would be such a wildly better usage of rail transport.
Always money for motorists and their endless roads and car parks and I have a nasty feeling it's going to get a lot worse for public transport in the USA ?
Fingers crossed it's not as bad as we fear...
I've never been to Milwaukee, but from your video it appears to be uninhabited. Was it hit by a neutron bomb? Is it locked down, or is it illegal to walk there?
That’s what I think every time I’m there. Every street is empty.
The Manchester Tram was called the ABBA system by locals for many years as you could only go from Altrincham to Bury and Back Again. But it grew and became very useful. See also the Edinburgh trams. Hopefully the Hop can do the same.
I guess the ABBA tram just needed someone to lay all their love on them. We don’t want good transit slipping through our fingers.
But why does it run in this weird 8? Couldn't it just go to the Intermodal station?
Probably capacity issues. The intermodal stub is only one track.
Tom, even though you look like one of my grade 9 students, you will always be a fully-fledged adult to me.
How many 9th graders do you have who are 25? 😂
To be fair, the various London tram extension plans have long since been abandoned (Sutton, Uxbridge Road, Cross River).
Does London really need that many trams? From what I've experienced there, the tube and national rail create a transit system that rivals or exceeds NYC, and the existing tram lines and DLR fill a gap where there isn't as good a tube or commuter rail coverage.
Dude, it's not that the "prioritization of the automobile" is the reason the HOP isn't used much, it's because people don't want to ride on a super slow streetcar in a cold and humid city like Milwaukee, where point-to-point transportation is often necessary.
Seems to work fine in other cold cities around the world. Some of the coldest cities in the world have big tram networks.
And they’re “super slow” BECAUSE of the prioritization of the automobile. It’s like you’re trying so hard to disagree with me when you’re actually agreeing.
@@Thom-TRA There's also not quite enough density along the corridor.. the main problem is it doesn't take people to grocery stores, or work etc.. and the demographic in that tall building aren't the type that would want to take light rail it appears.
I don't understand why conservatives seem to be so opposed to any type of rail transit. Almost all other countries seem to embrace it and it is effective. Could it be il/gas or some other lobbies? Enjoyed the vid; always do!!
@@ggreg2258 It comes down to money. When projects end up like this where it either goes nowhere or no one uses it, it turns out to be a waste. My suggestion is to start out a service as a bus. If the ridership shows up, then it becomes proper BRT. If ridership remains high, it becomes rail. And not street running trams. We have to stop that.
As usual, I found this quite an informative video! I hope that someday, the issues with the Hop can be fixed.
Thanks for the video!
Happy Thanksgiving!
As a life long Wisconsinite, the politics are not avoidable. They are improving but as I crossed what was supposed to be the high speed rail line between Madison and Milwaukee a couple times today alone, the progress of the hop and Bus Rapid Transit (in Madison and Milwaukee) compliments the new Amtrak Borealis line. We are getting there, one election at a time.
Keep voting!
Wisconsin has the same issue as every other swing state. Nothing ever gets done. The party that hates cities and transit lacks the power to simply kill off all the transit. The party that loves cities and transit lacks the support to actually build nice things but is also afraid to try bold things for fear of alienating the suburban "swing voters"
Politics are awful and should be abolished.
@ that’s a bad take. Politics are necessary and should be improved. Only a privileged person whose rights are not dependent on politics would ever suggest abolishing them.
@@Thom-TRA All politics is is a roadblock to making things better. Everything nice will be defeated in politics.
And the best part? Because there’s no way I can advocate for nice things to happen, I can just form the wildest opinions I can and say them without it having any consequences anywhere. Politics will do the worst thing imaginable anyway.
That turn was painful
Construct 450Km of Tram Tracks by 2045.
That’s ambitious!
I'll say it, they voted against efficient transit, That's idiotic. I'd be emberassed to ve from there.
Perhaps the recollection of Wisconsin's past Gov who cancelled the contract with Talgo, lost a court suit losing millions of state taxpayer dollars and having those trains sold for pennies on the dollar to the Province of Lagos, Nigeria where they operate as a commuter service, may add to the collective embarrassment?
Counterpoint: Culver’s. Haha
Why is Act 12 even a thing? Did the people not even get to vote on it? They just got to do it without the people speaking? How the heck is that okay?!
Because people are mean, I don't know haha
It’s entirely due to Wisconsin’s political climate. State republicans who are very anti-transit have maintained full control of the legislature since about 2010 and have kneecapped any such efforts in Milwaukee or Madison- they hate those cities. It’s likely to change with Wisconsin’s new state electoral maps, but not for several years still.
The (formerly) gerrymandered state legislature decides they know what’s best for everyone.
Why are you confused? That’s literally just how government works.
@@jonathanstensberg because it’s a law that seems entirely pointless other then to spite a group of people they don’t like. That’s not how government works, that’s how tyranny works.
I forgot about the existing L line. I didn’t even remember if it already opened or not but now I know. When I was visiting Chicago over the summer, I went on a day trip to Milwaukee but I stayed in downtown near the Amtrak station where I took the hop there to catch the train back to Chicago. I flew there from O’hare though on a short flight.
The two cities are so close!
@ I know they are. It’s just like how my hometown of Chattanooga is two hours away from both Nashville and Atlanta. Same goes with Knoxville, Huntsville and Birmingham.
I would say that you need to go down Wisconsin. Because…Marquette University.
But the BRT already does that
@ ooooooh. Things better than when I was at Marquette then. We literally had a stop in front of McCormick and one in front of Johnston Hall. Like…it was not useful at all.
Why so empty ?
Keep watching
1. The number one reason that I hear from people who don’t support the streetcar is that it doesn’t go anywhere. Naturally, they don’t wanna spend the money to make it go anywhere. Self-fulfilling prophecies are popular among conservatives in this state.
2. One of the biggest private donor bodies in the state is the Bradley Foundation (as are the individual families involved with it), famous for its support of the arts (good!). Unfortunately, they are *infamously conservative*, therefore anything remotely for the public good at large is a non-starter.
Yep, the vicious circle of American streetcars
The city of milwaukee has around 600,000 people. Not 1.5 million people.
I said metropolitan region. Learn to listen.
@@Thom-TRA I did listen. You said 1.5 million people in the region. The hop is in the city of Milwaukee. Residents who don't live in the city are not using this stupid glorified bus.
@ I brought up population when introducing the region and the transportation options. So you didn’t listen. Big surprise.
they just should have left the old street car , and interurban lines in place
Yes absolutely
Hey Tom! How do you propose a way to convince conservative law makers that transit options like this are worth the money!
That’s a great question! It certainly isn’t easy. It helps to remind people of economic benefits. Money arguments always work better.
And of course, voting for people you know are pro-transit.
@Thom-TRA You should do a video on the political arguments for and against public transportation
@ yeah I probably won’t do that. Don’t want the negative reactions.
Acquainted with an engineering-background person who grew up in the Washington DC area during its streetcar era, the news that you are working on a video about DC streetcars is heartfelt. I anticipate your forthcoming video!
It will be great!
It was simply not possible to build a tram in Milwaukee and this should not have been done because empty trams give a bad reputation. Before doing so they should have made sure that they were building a successful passenger line even if it did not become economically profitable.
Did you hear the part where I said I generally never find them empty?
The hop is a complete waste of taxpayer money and should have never been built. Nobody rides it anymore. It was a fad when it first came out and now is a bust.
You’re exactly the kind of person I’m talking about
So ugly trams. In USA just cars matters