Panel approves engineering for Milwaukee streetcars

A study committee voted to start preliminary engineering on a $95.8-million downtown Milwaukee modern streetcar line, the Journal Sentinel reports. The Milwaukee Connector study committee voted, 3-1, to seek Federal Transit Administration approval for the engineering work on the streetcar, which would link downtown attractions to the lower east side with trips every 10 or 15 minutes, from early morning to late at night, seven days a week, for $1 a ride.

Common Council action
would still be needed to start construction, probably next year. But if the
federal government approves preliminary engineering, it would be the biggest
step yet for a rail transit project in Milwaukee, after the failure of previous
plans for light rail and guided electric buses.

The preliminary
engineering process would flesh out more financial and operating details of the
system. If approved, construction would start in 2011 and service would start
in 2013.

Mayor Tom Barrett has
pushed for the line since 2007. Modern streetcars resemble light rail vehicles, run in streets and are
powered by overhead electric wires.

The city would use $54.9
million in long-unused federal
transit aid, matched by
$9.7 million in tax-incremental financing, to build the initial leg from the
downtown Amtrak-Greyhound station to the lower east side. At the same time, the
city is seeking another $25 million federal grant, matched by $6.5 million in
tax-incremental financing, to extend the line north to E. Brady St. and north
from the depot to the development at the former Pabst Brewery.

Those extensions would
boost operating costs from $2.6 million to $3.8 million a year. City officials
say fares and state and federal aid would pay most of those costs, with the
rest coming from the city parking fund.

Project manager Mark
Kaminski said the fixed-route streetcar line would attract downtown economic
development in a way that buses don’t. Kaminski also said modern streetcars can
carry more people more efficiently and at lower operating costs than buses.

The only opposition on
the four-member study panel came from Brian Dranzik, administration director
for the Milwaukee County Department of Transportation and Public Works. His
boss, County Executive Scott Walker, has been a steadfast opponent of rail transit.

Dranzik echoed Walker’s
fears that streetcars would steal riders and state aid from the existing
Milwaukee County Transit System.

City Public Works
Commissioner Jeff Mantes said similar systems in other cities boosted ridership
on public buses, rather than competing with them.

Milwaukee Ald. Bob
Bauman, whose district would include most of the line, noted later that the
streetcar would not duplicate any existing bus route, and the city is not
proposing to replace any bus routes. Mantes said the state transit aid
structure would not put the streetcar line in direct competition with the
county buses for dollars. Walker later said it was naïve to believe state and
federal aid to the streetcar line would not affect aid to the bus system.

"This will serve a
limited, limited number of people, predominantly in the downtown area, and
would not help the people who need the greatest help from the bus system,"
Walker said in a voice mail.

Together, the initial
line and extensions would be within a quarter-mile of every downtown hotel, 91
percent of occupied downtown retail space, 90 percent of occupied downtown
office space, 77 percent of downtown housing and 77 percent of downtown parking
lots and garages, said Kaminski and City Engineer Jeff Polenske said. The
western extension would serve the Shops of Grand Avenue, Midwest Airlines
Center and Bradley Center.

The city is seeking another
$70 million in federal dollars to extend the line north to the University of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee, as well as a separate federal grant to plan future extensions.