u/kairom13

It makes this line in the Fellowship about the snow even funnier. I can imagine Sam telling Bilbo about the snow at Caradhras and how it wasn’t like the snow in the Shire which is always a fun time, but then Bilbo had to interject with a story about this Fell Winter (which he alone remembered) as all old grandpas do.

Otherwise, the note about the Fell Winter is completely pointless

Presumably the Hong campaign volunteers in the field are more considerate with the people they talk to than the supporters who comment here (and on various social media platforms) cause y'all are terrible.

David Crowley is the only candidate with executive experience, showing how he can work within the system to deliver results.

Our governor cannot act unilaterally, they have to work with the state legislature and the bureaucrats in government to achieve success. David Crowley has done that for Milwaukee County and he’ll do it for the state of Wisconsin.

Good news fellow Hiawatha riders! According to WisDOT, a 5th car should be added by the end of August and the cab cars should be in service by October. This will result in a nearly 50% increase in available seats on those trains.

Unfortunately, this is only for the Venture trainsets. The two runs with the Superliners (which are what the Borealis uses) will be unchanged for now: 8 am SB and 8 pm NB

The OLT from the Couture south is closed off (which is quite annoying), so I’d recommend the brand new Jefferson and Corcoran bike lanes, which take you past all of the car traffic and confusion of the north gate to south lots and the south gate.

Pittsburgh, S Water, and Michigan are probably the best bets to get to Jefferson (although there are unfortunately still gaps in the bike network that will be resolved in a year or so)

A month or so I go, I posted a fantasy transit diagram for what I think could be good realistic system for Milwaukee (https://www.reddit.com/r/milwaukee/comments/1t0fcf0/my\_realistic\_dream\_transit\_map/)

Here I explore what a starter line could look like, assuming that securing funding and political support could be difficult without an existing system to prove support.

This line starts at 35th and Burleigh as a cut and cover tunnel and then proceeds down Fond du Lac (turning into street running south of North) before heading east on Walnut and then south on 6th St through downtown. At Clybourn, it turns into an elevated guideway, crossing over 6th St before going around the roundabout to head down 5th St. 5th St here is converted into a transit priority street, with no parking and only one (maybe two) driving lanes. At Washington, the light rail exits the street to go under the freeway and then pop up in the middle. There are two freeway median stations at Mitchell and Lincoln at which point the line elevates again to exit the freeway to the west, past the St. Augustine Prep football field before landing on the embankment next to 6th St. There's a station above the UP railroad tracks (where a future light rail line and transfer would hopefully be built) and then another at Holt (for a future transfer to regional rail or even Amtrak).

There would be 13 stations as part of this initial build (I added King Park, which I had previously excludes) and at 7.7 miles long (and assuming $250 million per mile, which is a liberal estimate for light rail like this) I would estimate roughly $2 billion overall. The maintenance and service facility I have at 35th and Burleigh, which would purchase a large swath of industrial land across the street from the existing MCTS garage and be next to the 30th St rail corridor.

While I'm not a transit planner, I've tried to think about many of the considerations that impact transit planning in the US and proposed something that could actually be feasible irl and not just exist in a fantasy realm where politics and money are no object. Milwaukee tried to build light rail before, 30 years ago, with the Hop being the unfortunate result. I would rather have something than nothing and this seems most likely to end up actually built compared to another superior, but more expensive and less politically viable design.

Anticipatory Questions

1) Why not continue all the way to the airport?

I would definitely like that to happen, but south of the Holt Park and Ride, the land use for supporting additional stations becomes less suitable for rail rapid transit and airports are surprisingly not actually big trip generators for transit. Most transit riders to airports are the workers, not passengers. With further developments to the system (including regional rail into the suburbs), I think including the airport would work well, but I don't think it's worth the cost as part of an initial build out. Additionally, there are some ROW issues (with the community gardens around Howard and the elevated structures around Layton) that I think would face pushback; I would rather not endanger (or delay) the project as a result.

2) Won't street running downtown make the line slow and inefficient like the Hop? Why not build a tunnel there?

This is the toughest part of the whole proposal, since street running downtown does have significant operational impacts, as can be seen in similar systems around the country (Minneapolis, Portland, San Diego). However, tunneling is very expensive, especially if cut-and-cover isn't feasible. I don't think it is here considering the various waterways around the Menomonee River as well as the railroad tracks and other obstacles that make cut-and-cover difficult. Dual bore tunnels with TBMs would likely double the overall cost of the project and the significant extent (through downtown and then probably also along Walnut and Fond du Lac) would turn this into a subway rather than light rail proposal, hurting the overall feasibility of the project (Milwaukee would not be seen as large enough to warrant an old school subway compared to light rail)

3) Why route the line in the freeway median? Freeway medians provide a terrible experience for riders, as well as being dangerously loud, and the surrounding land use and access is usually a hindrance to transit too?

This is a fair point and why my overall plan only has this relatively short portion in the freeway. The problem that I see is that there are no good N/S alternatives through the south side (west of the freeway) other than as an expensive subway. If 6th or 16th streets had been widened like their equivalents on the north side, it would be likely be feasible to run a line in their medians. But fortunately that did not occur, so a street running light rail would be little more than a street car like the Hop, which is problem for the feasibility of the proposal.

Additionally, Milwaukee's freeways are relatively small at "only" 6 lanes wide (compared to the 10, 12+ behemoths in LA, DC, or Chicago) and the land use around them is still fairly dense and well preserved. As long as the stations themselves include sound proofing (which should be required) and there's a good investment in the connecting bridge, I don't think the freeway median would be too detrimental to the line's success.

4) Why not start with a Wisconsin and Prospect Ave line, which connects two major universities, all of the downtown destinations, and serves some of the densest transit supportive corridors in the region?

There are two main reasons for this. First is practical. While 6th St is wide enough to support dedicated space for light rail in addition to car lanes, Wisconsin Ave is not (the Connect 1 BRT couldn't even get bus lanes, much less space for light rail trains); a tunnel would almost certainly be required and such expense does not seem feasible to start with. I do have a proposed Wisconsin Ave/Oak Leaf Trail line which I would love to see as a potential 2nd or 3rd expansion, but as a starter line it would be hard I think to see it realized

The 2nd concern is political. Milwaukee is a deeply segregated city, with residual mistrust between the Black north side, Latino south side, and the white east and far west sides. Building a line that threads the needle between the two major marginalized communities to build high quality transit for mostly white people would be tough to get political support for. Already there have been concerns about unfairness to prioritize either a Hop extension to Bronzeville (denying south side Latinos a connection) or an extension to Walker's Point (denying north side Blacks). This line (while being, imo, an objectively good route for ridership) provides important investment in historically marginalized communities (while also being quite transit dependent).

TIL there's a golf course directly adjacent to Monza. I wonder how popular it is on race weekends? It would be an interesting experience no doubt. Is it connected to the racing club? I'm surprised there was ever a desire and willingness to build a golf course next to the race track. Feels like the two sports are complete opposites, lol.

Shhh. Don’t tell anyone, but I tried out the new bike lane on Jefferson in the Third Ward as it nears completion. They even included bioswales! A shame it couldn’t have been built last year before those two massive storms

At first glance, I thought it might be a new railcar I didn’t know Amtrak used, but nope it’s a standard baggage car updated with Phase VII livery. I think it looks nice!

It’s a much longer walk to get to the south side of the station having to use the pedestrian bridge to the garage rather than exiting directly onto the cross street

Roosevelt Dr from Burleigh to Capitol will receiving protected bike lanes and speed tables as part of an effort to calm traffic. Here's an example of some of the design documents for this project, showing how the bike lanes will be against the curb with parking in between. Concrete islands will be used to daylight intersections while flex posts will be used along the block. To improve aesthetics, a number of the concrete islands will include plantings of a variety of flowers and shrubs (similar to what was done to Michigan downtown).

This work should be getting started in the next few weeks and continue through the summer, wrapping up in September

The city just put out a project to bid that will result some traffic impacts crossing the Milwaukee River on Water St and Young St. Not sure of the exact timeline, but I would guess a late May or June timeframe. The Water St bridge will maintain traffic, but reduced to one lane while the Young St bridge will be closed.

The project will be installing communication cables on the bridges to prepare for the installation of traffic cameras at the ends of the bridges. These traffic cameras will be used to allow for safer remote operation of the bridges, ensuring no one is on the bridges (whether cars or people) when they're raised. This is part of a series of safety improves for the downtown bridges as a result of the tragic death that occurred on the Kilbourn bridge in 2022.

I commissioned a friend of mine to make a transit diagram of my realistic idea for what rapid transit could and should look like for Milwaukee and this is the final result. I’m very happy with the way it turned out and I hope it can be a model for future plans for the region.

I posted earlier about this project and now it has begun. Traffic has been reduced to one lane in each direction on the east side, while work progresses on the west side.

It’ll be worth it though, with a brand new concrete surface and better infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists.

Excited to see these changes to support the vibrant food truck business here.

Went on a nighttime walk down Jefferson where new bike infrastructure (and some bioswales) are under construction. Excited for it to built as I bike along the corridor often, especially during the summer