MCTS Announces Service Cuts

MCTS bus. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

The Milwaukee County Transit System (MCTS) will cut bus frequency in August in an effort to close a projected $10.9 million budget gap.

The transit system announced that low passenger revenue and “unexpected expenses” have left the system with a projected budget gap by the end of the year. Buses will arrive more infrequently along a number of “non-peak weekday high-frequency routes with the lowest ridership mid-day, and frequency levels on Saturdays” amounting to a 20,000-hour cut to bus service.

MCTS did not name the “unexpected expenses” in a statement released Tuesday. The system said it would announce which routes are facing frequency cuts at a later date and that it “plans to give riders as much advance notice as possible.”

“Reducing the frequency of buses is the last thing we want to do but it will have the least impact on our riders,” said Julie Esch, MCTS Interim Managing Director.

In 2021, MCTS finished a major route overhaul called MCTS Next that rebalanced the system in favor of more high-frequency bus routes. In May, planners finalized a smaller series of route changes, called MOVE 2025, which are planned to take effect in the fall. Those will still be going forward, according to the statement.

MCTS has long had a structural deficit, with the system costing more to operate than it collects in revenue. In recent years, the budget gaps were plugged with federal stimulus funds released during the COVID-19 pandemic. The temporary fix left budget deficits looming in the future over the past five years, and despite efforts to forestall the inevitable, they have returned much sooner than anticipated.

Last year, the system cancelled plans to continue developing a much anticipated second bus rapid transit line. The nine-mile route would have run north and south along the 27th Street Corridor. Shelving the project was supposed to save the transit budget until at least 2028.

The system has been reducing service hours and cutting routes for more than a decade. In recent years, the Freeway Flyers and special event shuttles disappeared. In 2025, the system implemented a modest fare increase.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, MCTS narrowly avoided a 10% cut to bus routes when faced with an approximately $8 million budget deficit. It was considered a temporary fix, with cuts expected in future years. Then it received a windfall of pandemic stimulus funding and those decisions were further put off.

But the underlying revenue structure has remained the same, and without long-term, sustainable funding or a massive jump in fare revenue, the cuts will continue.