MCTS Will Provide Buses for Summerfest

Long Lines at Summerfest’s 2017 opening. File photo by Alison Peterson.

It’s official, Milwaukee County Transit System (MCTS) buses will return to Summerfest this year.

Milwaukee World Festival, Inc. announced Tuesday that MCTS will operate two shuttles between Henry Maier Festival Park and park and ride lots for the annual music festival.

Festivalgoers will be able to catch shuttles from the Brown Deer Park and Ride, 851 W. Brown Deer Rd., and the College Avenue Park and Ride, 1400 W. College Ave. The shuttles will run every half-hour and be cashless, using the new WisGo recently implemented by MCTS. But riders will also be able to pay with VISA, Mastercard, American Express or Discover card. The shuttles will run from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Round-trip fares will be $10 for those 12 years an older; and $5 for those 11 years and younger, seniors 65 years and older, and riders with qualifying disabilities.

Round-trip fare is $10 for riders ages 12 and up, and $5 for Reduced Fare riders (youth 11 and under and seniors 65 and over, and those with qualifying disabilities).

This will be the first time since 2019 that MCTS operates a shuttle service to and from the Big Gig. The festival was canceled due to COVID-19 in 2020, and when it returned the next year the transit system did not have enough operators or buses to spare.

The shuttle offering this year is a shadow of the service MCTS used to provide. In 2019, it ran shuttles from 10 park-and-ride lots to the festival. But MCTS put 70 buses on Summerfest service in 2019 and it can only spare 15 this year. The system has just over 300 buses operating regular fixed-route service. In 2018 it had 400. On top of that, the system has struggled with employee retention and has been losing bus operators almost as fast as new ones can be hired, and it’s currently operating the system with well below full staffing levels.

“We hear from the community all the time that it wouldn’t be Summerfest without MCTS,” said MCTS President and Interim Managing Director Denise Wandke in the statement from Summerfest.

In March, Wandke told members of the Milwaukee Common Council that 15 buses were all the system could muster without affecting regularly scheduled service. “If there’s 10 buses that drop from the sky I would put 10 more on Summerfest,” she said.

The Summerfest service is just the tip of the iceberg of the challenges facing the transit system. The lack of buses is a result of the inadequate transit funding the system has received for more than a decade, as it used funds intended for bus purchases to backfill the cost of maintaining bus service. That crisis will come to a head in the near future when federal stimulus funding runs out and, based on early projections, MCTS will be forced to cut or reduce service for at least 50% of the system.

Don Smiley, CEO of Milwaukee World Festival, said in a statement the organization is “thrilled to partner with Milwaukee County Transit System to provide mass transit service for the 55^th anniversary of Summerfest.” He thanked Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, Board Chairwoman Marcelia Nicholson, Milwaukee County Department of Transportation Director Donna Brown-Martin and Wandke for their efforts to bring transit back to Summerfest.

“We encourage our fans to ride the bus to Summerfest,” he said, “which offers a convenient and direct route to the festival grounds.”

Other Ways to Ride the Bus to Summerfest

Beyond the shuttles, festival goers can also get near the Summerfest grounds using regular fixed-route MCTS service and the new Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) service, launching June 4, called Connect 1.

The Connect 1 BRT will run for nine miles east and west between downtown Milwaukee and the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center in Wauwatosa. The route’s eastern terminus is at the intersection of N. Van Buren and E. Wisconsin Ave., which is roughly three blocks from N. Lincoln Memorial Drive and a short walk from there to the festival grounds.

Four regular MCTS Routes will bring riders within walking distance of the festival: GreenLine, Route 15, Route 18 and Route 30.