35th Street Could Get Bike-Bus Lane

Bike-bus lane in downtown Pittsburgh. (CC BY-SA 2.0)

The Milwaukee County Department of Transportation (MCDOT) has begun plans to build Milwaukee’s first shared lane dedicated to just bikes and buses.

Lanes dedicated to shared bike and bus use are intended to create safer, more efficient right-of-ways for these modes of transit. The county is looking at developing one along N. 35th Street between W. Vliet Street and W. National Avenue “connecting” Milwaukee’s “North and South Sides,” according to an MCDOT report.

35th Street is owned and maintained by the City of Milwaukee, according to MCDOT’s road maintenance responsibility map, but the bus system is run by the county. The  Milwaukee County Transit System runs two buses on the 35th St. with Route 35 running across the city and Route 30 running north of W. Wisconsin Ave. The 35th street corridor is a four-lane road with much of the stretch between Vliet and National on a bridge spanning the Menomonee Valley.

To implement the project, MCDOT has applied for $850,000 in funding from the Areas of Persistent Poverty grant program. This grant program, managed by the Federal Transit Administration, has $20 million in funding available this year for transit-related projects in areas that meet the federal definition of “Areas of Persistent Poverty” or “Historically Disadvantaged Communities.” If awarded, the county could be required to match up to 10% of the grant amount.

A 2022 study on Shared Bike/Bus Lanes (SBBLs) commissioned by the Urban Mobility & Equity Center at Morgan State University in Maryland found that, “When properly implemented and enforced, SBBLs offer the potential for increased speed, safety, reliability, and on-time performance for transit vehicles.”

The study noted that enforcement is key to successfully implementing a bike and bus lane, as they “are frequently violated by general motorists.”

These types of lanes work well along roads where there is a curbside or offset lane for buses but no dedicated bicycle facilities, and, importantly, in areas where traffic moves slowly, according to the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO).

“Special care must be taken not to require bicycle and bus traffic to mix at high speeds. As bus operational speeds and volumes increase, the number of passing events increases, eroding the comfort and, potentially, the safety of the facility for bicyclists,” according to NACTO guidelines.

The Morgan State University report found that cyclists “have little impact on buses due to low volumes” along these types of lanes. “Allowing cyclists to use these facilities appears to be a win-win on the surface; however, more work is needed to ensure that cyclists, an extremely vulnerable roadway group, aren’t put in undue harm in an attempt to provide them access without removing right-of-way from vehicles,” the report states..

While roadways with dedicated lanes for each mode of transit are ideal, a bike and bus lane does confer “increased space and visibility for active street users while improving transit service reliability,” according to NACTO.

A spokesperson for the county executive’s office, which oversees MCDOT, told Urban Milwaukee that if the project along 35th Street is successful, shared bike and bus lanes could be implemented in other areas of the county.