Look for the sleek metal transit shelter displaying a bold yellow logo with block letters and a circular, geometric emblem right in the center.
Milwaukee has this wild habit of erasing its own blueprints just to draw them all over again. When this modern streetcar system opened up to the public in 2018, it was really just the newest chapter in a long history of tearing down and building back up. A whole new set of tracks for a city that refuses to stand still.
Back in 1860, the city's very first transit system used horse drawn cars, which eventually grew into a massive, electric streetcar network. But after World War II, the federal government started pouring money into the new interstate highway system while simultaneously raising taxes on private railway operators. Those heavy financial burdens on the operators, combined with the push for sprawling highways, essentially crushed the original public transit network. The final nail in the coffin came on March 2, 1958, when the last electric line on Wells Street was shut down.
Check out your phone for a second to see what the modern version looks like cruising down the street.
For exactly 60 years, the city streets were entirely free of rails. Then, in March of 2018, an 83,000 pound Liberty model streetcar, built by Brookville, finally rolled into town. Local leader Robert Bauman actually pointed out the crazy irony of that timing. Sixty years to the month after the old system was killed off, the new one arrived to take its place.
If you want a peek inside, take a glance at your app to see the spacious interior that can comfortably fit up to 150 passengers.
This system is actually pretty clever. Because almost a third of the 2.1 mile original route does not have overhead wires, these cars are designed to run purely on battery power for those stretches. They just charge right back up once they reconnect to the grid. The whole thing is operated by Transdev and remains completely free to ride, thanks in large part to an initial 10 million dollar sponsorship from the local Potawatomi Native American community. Getting this project off the ground was a massive political battle, with critics calling it a 1900s style trolley just for yuppie entertainment. But the city pushed through anyway, tearing up the pavement to lay down the future.
It is funny how we always seem to circle back to where we started, just with shinier wheels. Speaking of things that keep moving forward, let us shift our focus from the rails of transit to the historic hub of commerce. We are going to head toward the old merchant center, which is about a 9 minute walk away, down at The Avenue.
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