Committee Backs 4 Streetcar Extensions

Two The Hop streetcars pass each on E. St. Paul Ave. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

The City of Milwaukee is preparing to move forward on four different streetcar extensions as part of the Common Council’s larger moves to respond to new state policy restrictions.

But it won’t result in any shovels in the ground anytime soon.

The Department of Public Works would be directed to pursue federal grants to fund the majority of four extensions: a Lower East Side line to Brady Street via N. Prospect Avenue and N. Farwell Avenue, a Westown line to Fiserv Forum via N. Vel R. Phillips Avenue, a new line north from Fiserv Forum to Bronzeville and a new line south from the Historic Third Ward to National Avenue in Walker’s Point.

The city would need to find local funding to partially match any federal grant. But it will need to do so with the new state-imposed restriction that it can’t spend any property tax revenue, nor its proposed sales tax, on the project.

“This is basically a resolution that directs the Commissioner to pursue what we had intended to accomplish in 2011 and 2015,” said Alderman Robert Bauman on Monday in introducing the proposal to the Steering & Rules Committee.

The Lower East Side and Westown extensions are “shovel ready,” said the streetcar advocate. They were studied and designed as part of the original streetcar project going back more than a decade, but remained unbuilt because the city’s federal grant didn’t offer enough funding.

Bauman touted the economic growth along the current corridor, including that properties within a quarter mile of the existing 2.1-mile route now represent 13.9% of the city’s property tax base. He said further encouraging growth in Downtown would increase revenue to fund services citywide.

“The bottom line that somehow the streetcar is a burden on the city is the exact opposite of reality,” said Bauman. “This is an economic engine, not an economic drain on the city.”

In 2019, with a push to get a portion of the Westown extension built in time for the Democratic National Convention, then-Mayor Tom Barrett‘s administration tried to get things moving on the larger extensions, only for the council to hold off. The COVID-19 pandemic and the city’s then-deteriorating fiscal condition then halted any further discussion.

Now the discussion is back, but not because the city has money. Instead, it’s returned primarily because Republicans in the Wisconsin State Legislature included the funding prohibition in the policy that authorized a new city sales tax.

The council also is in the process of setting aside money for potential legal challenges to other provisions in the bill, including restrictions on equity programs, minimum police staffing requirements and requirements for super-majority votes on new spending. It’s also moving to reorganize the city’s lobbying division.

The council’s looming vote isn’t to build new streetcar extensions but to seek federal money to build them.

City Engineer Kevin Muhs, who has immense transit funding knowledge from his time as the head of the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, said the city could expect to see the federal Small Starts program pay for 70% of the project costs.

He said the city would fare well in grant scoring for job density and jobs served by the extensions, but would need to mitigate other factors. An estimated cost for the extensions would also need to be developed.

But how would the city pay for the other 30% and the cost to operate the line? Bauman said the city was considering its options.

He pointed to the 31-story tower under construction in the Historic Third Ward, whose future property tax payment would be equivalent to 25% of the system’s operating budget, as an example of how the system is already working.

A new extension to The Couture, funded as part of the original $128 million plan in 2015, is slated to finally open later this year after the tower’s delays ended up delaying the project.

“That economic development tool has worked,” said Bauman.

His colleagues appeared to agree, with the committee voting 6-2 to advance the project with little discussion.

There is a benefit to including the streetcar expansion alongside all of the other policy responses: less desire for opponents to delay the process. The committee meeting Monday lasted more than five hours, with relatively little time spent on the streetcar proposal.

Ald. Mark Borkowski, a longtime opponent, was the lone individual to speak against the proposal. “I opt not to grandstand and I will stay consistent with my opposition,” said the alderman. Ald. Scott Spiker also voted in opposition.

The full council is scheduled to vote on the grant application request on July 11.

For more details on the proposed sales tax and other impacts of the state’s Act 12 law, see our earlier coverage.

2023 streetcar extension map. Image from 2040 Downtown Plan.

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Related Legislation: File 230354