Council Kills Streetcar’s ‘Festivals Line’

The Hop Festivals Line route map. Image from The Hop.

A selling point of Milwaukee’s streetcar system was permanence, but its operation is now anything but.

The Common Council voted unanimously Tuesday to end the Festivals Line route configuration, in which the two lines operate as one looping service.

The Festivals Line makes it easier to access the lakefront and Henry Maier Festival Park, but imposes delays on riders heading north from the Historic Third Ward to Downtown and the Lower East Side.

The council had previously encouraged the Department of Public Works (DPW) to pilot combining the lines during the three-weekend Summerfest music festival.

However, DPW modified an initial Thursday-Friday-Saturday plan to be an everyday option until the end of Summerfest and then extended it “throughout the summer.”

“We felt that the increased trip time given the Summerfest opportunity was probably worth it, but, on a regular basis, I had questions, as do many people in the community,” said Ald. Robert Bauman during a special Public Works Committee meeting on July 25.

The selling point is that riders unfamiliar with the system can get on any station and end up at the lakefront. But northbound riders getting on at the Historic Third Ward stop or Milwaukee Intermodal Station and heading north of Wisconsin Avenue experience a 10-minute delay as the vehicle loops to the lakefront and back.

“We inconvenience the riders we have four days a week to deal with potential ridership three days a week, which has seen somewhat of an increase,” said Bauman, summarizing a DPW report on ridership.

“It was a pretty good increase,” said DPW streetcar manager Andrew Davis-Lockward. He said June 2024 ridership was up 16% (to 1,948 trips per day) over 2023, but the nine days of Summerfest saw a 30% increase (to 3,154 trips per day). “Of course, we have the lakefront stop now, which helps a lot.”

This summer is the first with the lakefront streetcar extension. The L Line extension opened to daily service in April.

The L Line runs on existing M Line tracks along N. Milwaukee Street and N. Broadway, but when going north follows an eastern extension along E. Michigan Street to the lakeside The Couture tower before returning to the north-south route on E. Clybourn Avenue. The longer M Line, which opened in 2018, runs from the Milwaukee Intermodal Station through the northern end of the Historic Third Ward and much of East Town before ending at E. Ogden and N. Prospect avenues at the southern tip of the Lower East Side.

The Festival Lines eliminates the two routes in favor of one looping route. “There is no confusion of transferring from one line to the other,” said Davis-Lockward.

The vehicle operators prefer the Festivals Line said Terry Mulcahy, operations and contract manager for Transdev. The company is the private operator of The Hop.

“The operators like it a lot,” said Mulcahy. “It’s cleaner.”

He said the L Line requires operators to switch at a Milwaukee Street station. Operators must inspect the vehicle to start operating it, while operators going on a break or off work must find a ride back to the Intermodal Station. M Line operators change at the Intermodal Station stop at the end of the line.

Additionally, switching between the lines imposes a scheduling and payroll challenge for Transdev.

“We had to call an audible to deal with the operational issues,” said Davis-Lockward of the switch from a weekend-only Festivals Line to a full week effort.

Bauman suggested extending the L Line west to the Intermodal Station to alleviate the operator issue. It would also expand the utility of the route.

“I have never considered that,” said Mulcahy of the operational impacts.

Davis-Lockward said the bridge crossing could add substantial delays and reduce L Line frequency, currently 20 minutes.

“It’s pretty clear to me there are no good solutions to any of this,” said Bauman.

On Tuesday, the council voted 14-0-1 to end the F Line service. As she did at the committee hearing, Alderwoman Milele A. Coggs abstained without explaining her position.

A spokesperson for The Hop said it does not have an exact date for when the two lines will be restored.

Attached to the council resolution, a series of letters from citizens, including urban advocates Cade Gerlach, David Loken and Aaron Moriak, asked the city to switch back.

The streetcar system remains free to ride, due in part to corporate sponsorship by Potawatomi Hotel & Casino. The 2024 city budget calls for $5.8 million to be spent on operating the system. That expense is to be offset by $4.5 million in direct revenue, with the remainder coming from the city’s parking revenue. Direct revenue sources include Potawatomi ($850,000), other sponsors ($100,000), a federal pandemic-related transit grant ($2.4 million), a congestion mitigation startup grant ($880,000) and a federal transit support grant ($279,000).

Festivals Line

The Hop Festivals Line route map. Image from The Hop.

Existing System Map

The Hop’s M Line (blue) and L Line (yellow). Image from The Hop.

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Related Legislation: File 240482