Starting at 6 P.M. on St. Patrick’s Day everyone who rides MCTS rides for free. The annual free rides are again sponsored by MillerCoors, who has been sponsoring the event locally since 1994.

If you drink, please think and don’t drive.

The residents of Waukesha County will love the Madison to Milwaukee high-speed rail line once it’s up and running, and not for any reason that readily jumps out at you. Certainly residents of Waukesha County will likely use the train to get to Madison, but that’s not a big sell to the residents. Taking a train from Brookfield or Oconomowoc to the Madison Airport just isn’t all that appealing because of the distance. What is appealing though? First-class comfort from Milwaukee’s western suburbs to the heart of Chicago.

With the strong possibility that Milwaukee will be seeing streetcar service return to our streets in the coming years, we thought we should show some example systems from cities around the world.
Portland
Portland has led the way with transit infrastructure in the U.S.  For example, it was the first U.S. city to bring modern streetcars to [...]

Eight drafts, and a couple months later, the new regional transit authority plan for southeastern Wisconsin has been unveiled. Governor Jim Doyle introduced the new bill at a press conference at Bucyrus in South Milwaukee with Bucyrus President and CEO Tim Sullivan, Roundy’s CEO and Chairman Bob Mariano, Northwestern Mutual CEO Ed Zore, AT&T Wisconsin President Scott VanderSanden, S.C. Johnson & Son Chairman and CEO J. Fisk Johnson, Johnson Controls Chairman, President and CEO Steve Roell, Greater Milwaukee Committee President Julia Taylor, and Racine Mayor John Dickert.

Megabus, the no-frills intercity bus company with an intriguing pricing scheme starting at $1, has revised their service schedule between Milwaukee and Chicago. Unfortunately two trips have been eliminated in each direction. One can only assume it’s because of the economy and that January through March has always been a down travel period for Megabus (something they compensate for by giving away 100,000 tickets).

Below is a message from Kerry Thomas of Transit Now, a leading champion of mass transit for the Milwaukee region. There is a rally on Saturday in West Allis for transit funding for MCTS. We’ll be there, and we hope to see you there. Milwaukee can’t afford to have MCTS in shambles. Milwaukee needs dedicated transit funding.

For General Mitchell International Airport and the citizens of the Milwaukee-area, 2009 will certainly be a year to remember. Discussions came and went on the privatization of the airport as a means to bailout the poor fiscal position of Milwaukee County. Hometown airline Midwest Airlines changed hands for a second time, this time to Republic Airways, a company that will certainly operate the business in a much different fashion than Midwest traditionally has run. And finally, Southwest Airlines started service at the airport, triggering a pricing war with low-cost rival AirTran.

If you picked up a newspaper in Milwaukee in the past month, you would think that roundabouts were a danger to society. Headlines have ranged from “Are roundabouts dangerous? So far, yes” to “Roundabouts take off but still throw drivers a curve.” You would have missed a critical point though, roundabouts are improving safety for those on the roads.

Don’t forget that this Thursday is the open house for the Milwaukee Connector Downtown Streetcar plan. The open house runs from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Zeidler Municipal Building on the corner of Kilbourn Ave and Broadway. There will be short presentations at 3:30 and 6, come and leave a comment on the proposed system.

WisDOT and Governor Doyle announced a substantial rail investment yesterday, it wasn’t the oft-discussed KRM commuter rail line, but instead a serious upgrade to the aging railroad infrastructure that Wisconsin’s railroads and businesses depend on.