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 [...]

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).

On the flight out to Portland we met UWM School of Architecture and Urban Planning graduate student Kevin Duffy. He was out visiting Portland for the same reason we were, urban exploration.

We’ve had a good run here at UrbanMilwaukee.com, but we’re shutting our doors, packing up the U-Haul, and moving to Portland, OR. Well, no. We spent last weekend exploring the great city of Portland, and the thought did cross our minds but we’re not going anywhere. In fact we’ve just moved into UrbanMilwaukee.com’s new office in downtown Milwaukee, and are doubling down on our efforts to Champion Life in the Cream City.

Ride the Drive? Just seventy miles to the west, a successful car-free day, often referred to as a Ciclovía or in the U.S. Sunday Streets, brought thousands of people out of their homes, and into the street to enjoy their city. At its simplest one of these events, closes off a few miles of city streets to automobile traffic for the day, much like a street festival does, but larger and it doesn’t focus on food, beer, and music.

Things look good for high-speed rail (110mph max speed) to be connecting Milwaukee and Madison courtesy of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. The state has actively drafted plans for the route and conducted environmental assessments to put Wisconsin as close to first in line as possible if and when capital funding were to become available. The stimulus package provides just the perfect opportunity.

Milwaukee Talkie, the blog of the Public Policy Forum, examined the urban retail market and how to best utilize the hiring of Deanna Inniss as a business recruiter by BID #21, Milwaukee’s Downtown Business Improvement District. They noted that one large thing wasn’t on her task list, the inside of Grand Avenue Mall.

Over the past forty years Copenhagen has implemented bicycle infrastructure components that have helped make it one of the most bike friendly cities in the world. This transformation wasn’t quick, but it offers many lessons and ideas that can be utilized in making Milwaukee not just more of a bicycle friendly city, but a better city.

The production of renewable energy continues to move forward in the Midwest as new projects are proposed and government adjusts to make construction of new developments easier. The most noteworthy is the planned 39 acre urban solar power plant in the City of Chicago’s West Pullman neighborhood.