Dearth of bus lanes slows service
Bus Rapid Transit would provide 20% time savings
Revised plans for Bus Rapid Transit service from the lakefront and downtown Milwaukee to the Milwaukee Regional Medical Complex in Wauwatosa show it will be several minutes slower than earlier promised.
While slightly longer route times likely would discourage some potential users each day, the proposed BRT service could attract 31% more riders than existing bus routes that use much of the same east-west corridor, according to an updated grant request to the Federal Transit Administration.
The new service is expected to save up to eight minutes one-way, or 16 minutes round-trip, a 20% time savings compared to existing bus routes, Milwaukee County Transit System officials said Friday.
More than 9,500 riders are projected to use BRT service each week day by 2035, the revised plan says. Fares will be the same as regular MCTS buses: adults pay $2.25 in cash for one ride or $1.75 with M-Card. A sevenday pass costs $19.50 and offers unlimited rides.
The planned nine-mile route extends west from the lakefront along Wisconsin Ave. through downtown and the Marquette University campus to N. Hawley Road where it turns south to Blue Mound Road. The route follows Blue Mound Road west to N. 95th St. where it turns north through the medical center and then west to the Swan Blvd. parkand-ride lot.
A one-way commute on the entire length of the route is expected to take 37 minutes on weekdays, MCTS chief marketing and communications officer Brendan Conway said. That would be competitive with the time required to drive a car from the lakefront to the park-and-ride lot during weekday morning and evening rush hours, he said.
The BRT will offer frequent daily service with buses every 10 minutes during peak hours and midday, and every 20 to 30 minutes in early morning and evening.
One year ago, MCTS and county transportation officials were describing one-way time savings of 13 minutes, or 26 minutes round-trip, and projecting 10,100 riders or more each weekday.
But those earlier estimates were based on dedicated BRT bus-only lanes along nearly all of the route.
In July, the Milwaukee Common Council unanimously opposed dedicated BRT lanes on W. Blue Mound Road.
The revised plan includes BRT bus-only lanes on 53% of the route, none on Blue Mound, with as many as 19 stations for riders to board the BRT or exit to make connections with more than a dozen other MCTS routes.
The percentage of bus-only lanes proposed for Milwaukee County’s BRT is in line with other communities offering the service, according to Conway.
Cleveland’s Healthline BRT offers dedicated lanes on 60% of the seven-mile route. About 30% of the route for the Grand Rapids (Mich.) Silver Line BRT is in dedicated lanes, he said.
Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele proposed BRT service along the east-west corridor in June 2015.
Construction is expected to begin in 2019 with service planned to begin in 2021, officials said.
The project’s cost is estimated at $50 million and includes constructing stations and dedicated lanes, buying special buses and ticket kiosks. Those features are the heart of BRT service and they are needed to cut transit times along the route and attract more riders.
Milwaukee County is seeking federal grants to pay up to 80% of the cost, or $40 million. The county’s 20% share of project costs would amount to $10 million.
The county has set aside $1.2 million for installing traffic signal priority technology for the service. This technology would enable a bus on the route to extend periods of green lights at signals so it could pass through an intersection.
Milwaukee is one of the few metropolitan areas in the United States with more than 1 million residents that does not offer an enhanced transit system, such as BRT, Abele said Friday.
“The east-west BRT will get more people to work and school than ever before,” he said. “The route will improve service for riders that rely on the bus while getting people out of cars and onto transit.”
Said Abele: “The BRT will cut congestion on the roads and spark economic development from end to end.”