PurpleLine Bus Route Getting $21 Million Upgrade

MCTS Bus. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

The PurpleLine running through the 27th Street corridor is getting a $21 million upgrade thanks to a federal grant.

The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) grant will be used to optimize traffic signals to reduce travel times, fund 69 new bus shelters, and build new bus islands with improved lighting, bus platforms and traffic calming measures.

“I will partner and collaborate with anyone to deliver results and investments for Milwaukee County. That’s why I am proud we are bringing home federal funds to support our residents who are traveling to work, school, healthcare, and other essential services,” said County Executive David Crowley.

The grant was awarded through a federal program that has gone by several names; under the current administration it is called the Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) program.

The PurpleLine runs for 18 miles along the 27th street corridor. It’s among the most used bus routes in the system and provides transportation for more than 1 million riders a year, according to the county. It runs through five municipalities and more than 100,000 people live within a half-mile of the bus route. A majority of the residents are persons of color and roughly one-fifth are living in poverty.

In 2021, MCTS targeted the corridor for a major transit enhancement, eventually deciding to develop a second bus rapid transit line. The $148 million project would have created the Connect 2, running 18-miles through the corridor and intersecting with the nine-mile Connect 1.

In 2024, the county scuttled plans for the project. The transit system needed a cash infusion to prevent the arrival of a major fiscal cliff. MCTS has long had a structural deficit. It costs more to run the existing system than the agency receives in funding from state, local and federal government. The County applied for the grant early this year following the demise of the Connect 2 project.

“I’m very, very excited about [the grant award],” said Sup. Juan Miguel Martinez, whose district includes a long stretch of S. 27th Street from W. Howard Avenue to the Menomonee Valley. “It’s in very dire need of upgrades and I’m really happy to see that this has come to the district and to the district’s beyond mine.”

The county will work with stakeholders and design the new transit enhancements over the next two years. It’s expected they will be implemented in 2027.

The transit system is currently in the midst of a budget crisis. It recently reported a projected $10.9 million budget deficit for this year and plans to cut service by the fall. Recently, officials reported they would use funding from their remaining pool of federal COVID-19 stimulus funds to backfill the 2025 deficit.

That pool includes the funds MCTS pulled out of the Connect 2 project to keep the system solvent until at least 2028. One transit official working on the Connect 2 project called it the “canary in the coal mine,” saying it suggests what will happen to the system if new or additional funding is not secured before federal funding runs out.