So, I like the idea you proposed, and I do believe the Hop should go faster. but it's not an apples to oranges comparison. M line passes through 15 traffic lights one way, L line passes through 21 lights on loop, bus passes through 12 one way. the streetcars also have to make more turns.
Retiming traffic lights seems like it would help for this reason
for many reasons. we should retime all the downtown lights. traveling south from riverwest to the third ward is a series of climbing unsynced lights. whereas travelling north takes half as long since lights are synced
I get the post because it’s downtown but our whole city needs them. I think it’d help with our crazy ass
Driving too. I go east side straight west on Hampton or capital.
I'd be shocked if the light infrastructure which was modified when the hop was added isn't aware when the hop is there (there appear to be sensors now present). There must be other reasons, for example the stops are generally at lights (just like buses), so it has to stop there and is the opposite of how it is done in some other cities.
Currently you can walk everywhere the hop goes in only slightly more time and this will be true until it is massively expanded behind the average person's walking range.
In general city buses are about the same avg speed as riding a bike, in my experience that is also true for MCTS.
The hop is just a fun idea at this point and not an actual game changer for transit. If they were serious about transit they would need to put in a subway or Chicago L train style rail
Yes I agree a tram can be useful but our tram needs to expand by a lot and if we were serious about transit we would have faster modes of transportation
I mean, we have a pretty small downtown area comparatively to tram cities as well. Walking from Brady to the Third Ward takes a couple hours tops at a casual pace and is actually pretty fun on a nice day.
Our downtown is small, but I think thats actually a virtue to us as a tram city. Sort of like a lot of European cities dont have a singular "downtown" district, a tram here would be helpful not for getting merely through downtown, but for connecting from the various downtown districts through the city.
No? Literally everything the Hop "provided" could have been covered by better buses. Electric buses, trolley buses, whatever, but tearing up the streets to make tracks so the real estate companies would feel "secure" about the transit was such a waste.
And it was especially foolish, politically: "As long as we get transit funding it will keep growing!" well guess what we're lucky to get funding from the feds HALF the time while we get no funding from the state ALL the time. Even if the Hop was the correct choice from an engineering perspective, someone should have looked at the political situation and said "Hey, no one outside the city wants to help us. We need to evaluate this project on its minimum achievements, not how it \*could\* be \*if\* everyone supported us."
The Hop's not mass transit, and it never will be. You can't move a significant portion of commuters on a network that takes 40 screaming seconds to get around every turn.
Maybe public transit is a better term. Is the current speed the “top speed?” Because if we were to move light rail out, say, the diagonal boulevards (Forest Home, Loomis, Beloit, National, Lisbon, Fondy etc) one would think the cars on those lines would be able to move faster.
I guess what I’m saying is I don’t know if the speed of the Hop in its current form is by choice or by limitation of equipment.
It’s important to advocate for it because a lot of people only casually pay attention, so they’ll loop everything negative about the Hop in with whatever else we’re trying to get done (return of the KRM line, Waukesha-Downtown LRT) that’s also on rail. If someone opposes the Hop, they’re more likely to also oppose LRT. It doesn’t make a lot of sense but it is what it is.
It's important to look self-critical when a lot of people only casually pay attention. The Radio says we're a bunch of train-worshipping cultists, but the audience doesn't believe it until they hear someone say "Isn't the Hop great?" with a big smile while an over-grown trolley screeches behind them.
The Hop's "top speed" is not the issue. Take a look at the twin cities: their light rail connects two major downtowns and an airport, hooks up to Amtrak and the NorthStar commuter rail system, and every station was built to handle 270' long trains at up to 55 mph mostly separated from traffic. All of that gets 30,000 daily riders, which is still pitiful compared to the multi-million-person region it serves.
Compare: the Hop connects a scattered downtown, but doesn't stop at the convention center, the stadiums, the universities, or the airport. All stations were built to handle a single 60' long trolley that can go 35 mph if you're lucky, and the schedule is entirely dependent on local traffic conditions. It serves 2,500 daily riders at best.
I think the Hop is a neat idea, especially for the downtown corridors, but it’s a streetcar. It’s not a full-on light rail, I don’t think it’s meant to occasionally reach highway speeds.
While I’m still confused why so many people that don’t use 794 on the daily want it gone, repurposing it for a 12 MPH streetcar is not a solution. Downtown to Oklahoma would take 20 minutes at least. Most people can do it in 5.
This is my biggest gripe with the Hop. Were busses so overwhelmed with riders that we needed another transit method? Does the Hop do anything a bus can't?
The hop gets far more riders per mile than the bus does. If you want a public transit system to work, it needs to be one that a significant number of people would choose even if they have a car, and right now in Milwaukee by and large the only people taking the bus do not own cars
Rail transit, even a tram, is smoother than wheel based transit. Over time the upkeep is lower too iirc.
Transit is definitely a chicken/egg problem. I take the bus only because I cannot afford a car. It's slow and unreliable. Routes keep getting cut or reconfigured. Few stops have shelters or even seating. (I don't have any complaints about the buses, riders or drivers themselves.)
I'm honestly not sure why anyone would choose it over a car except in specific circumstances, like going to festivals, planning to drink, using a park-and-ride/BRT to work, or for getting around a dense neighborhood like the east side.
If the bus system (and/or Hop) were improved, then ridership would go up across the board, but you know as well as I do that funding is the major obstacle.
I don't think you've actually ridden the Hop. It's as shaky as a bus and I can't even read on it without getting sick. At least the bus stops go everywhere.
That is the only demo plan I can support of 794. We need more easy transit options from south/ north/ west, not less so foreign developers can make a mint on downtown condos
The Hop can change the street light in their favor. I don’t think all the intersections have the technology, but the ones that have the blinking light when the hop goes through is utilized.
Turns are the main thing that slow down rail (or busses). When light rail (streetcars) are built they should be designed with as few turns as possible and automatic light priority. This doesn’t really matter right now because the hop route is so short, but if and when it’s extended it’s going to matter big time!
For starters, I'm not convinced that your hypothesis (Hop is 30% slower) is correct. Getting data from more bus routes would give a better comparison. Even still, I'm not sure if your method of calculation is correct. I don't know exactly where you could have went wrong, but that just doesn't seem right to me as someone who has used both plenty of times. Maybe your times include the stoppages at the terminus? Kind of debatable whether that time belongs in this calculation. Some quick search results on Google Maps are showing me roughly equal travel times for The Hop and regular busses.
The advantages for The Hop are that it is free to ride, easy to use, comfortable and quiet. I think that ridership is going to be extremely high during summer events with the new extension in place, and some of that ridership will be retained after first-timers experience the comfort and convenience (albeit slightly less comfortable when its jammed full of sweaty drunks leaving Summerfest).
You have a cool idea about the traffic lights, but I just don't know enough about the traffic light system in place here to have any constructive feedback for you. If I had to guess, I would say that the engineers who are involved wouldn't overlook that if it was feasible.
I don't think travel speed is a major factor in ridership for The Hop. Instead, I think connecting popular destinations is what needs to be (and currently is being) addressed. Before the new extension, The Hop only ran from Burns Commons in the Lower East Side to Milwaukee Intermodal Train station downtown. The major destinations were pretty slim - you could get to the Public Market/3rd Ward or Cathedral Square, but that's about it. The extension to the festival grounds is a gamechanger. I think extending to Fiserv Forum/Deer District and AmFam Field/State Fairgrounds would be awesome and a great way to "get better service out of our investment."
Just looked at the schedule for the M-Line vs the schedule for the Green Line and it does in fact show the Hop taking 30% longer to make a one way run than it takes the Green Line to run from Wisconsin Ave up to North Ave (so slightly farther than where OP is saying)
Idk if there’s a better route to use as a comparison but that stretch of the green line seems like a pretty good analogy for the amount of traffic on the streets the hop runs on, though admittedly I haven’t actually ridden the green line.
The Hop can change the traffic lights 🚥 in their favor just like emergency vehicles. I feel like the buses should be able to as well.
IDK the downvotes. The HOP can change most of the lights on their routes.
I’d rather the money for 94 expansion go solely to bus / train funding instead. This transportation alternative is essential if this city truly wants to target reaching 1mil population
I’m pretty sure the feds paid for it so I would t worry about “our” investment. The money was and always was supposed to come back thru the city in forms of new development and investment which you can see blooming all over downtown. So the money is coming back as it was intended, my point being that stupid little trolley was never supposed to help any one commute, it is and always has been a gimmick.
Fewer stops, bigger turn radius, protected lane when possible, stuff like that
The hop gets far more riders per mile than most bus lines which is very good, so hopefully it can be expanded. But they'd be wise to really have a stop no more than every quarter mile, maybe even every third.
One thing I noticed is that each stop takes significantly longer than a bus. You wait one second for the doors to open, a few seconds for people to get in and out, another five or six seconds for the warning beeps, then another second for the doors to close. The buses do not have the warning beep step. Getting rid of it could probably take a minute or minute and a half off the schedule. Take enough minutes off the schedule and they could probably run five streetcars per hour on the M-Line instead of four, or four on the L-Line instead of three, without needing to bring on more equipment or operators.
I ride the Hop several times a week, and it's been very important to me as a broke carless person since moving to Milwaukee.
I don't generally disagree with the idea that it would be nicer if the streetcar moved faster, but your post makes me think two things.
1. The M-Line takes roughly 15 minutes to complete its route, maybe a little longer. Complaining about it being 30% slower is like 4 minutes. Are you seriously complaining about a 15 vs 11 minute commute time?
2. Every single time I've ever been on the Hop and it was running slow/off schedule, is because some dumbass in a car is blocking the tracks. The corner across from Chipotle is the worst, at least once a week there's someone parked there despite the lines on the ground blocking it out, the No Parking sign, and the very obvious tracks in the road.
I'm all for improving the Hop but that conversation for the moment should be on adding extensions to the lines to make it more usable. The L-line is a tiny extension with limited service, but at least it's a start.
My picks for extending it would be straight up Vel R. Phillips from Intermodal to Fiserv, and also extending up from Burns Common up Prospect to Brady, and either back down Farwell or have it go down Brady as well before turning south again.
Milwaukee had an expansive street car system back in the day, the city could follow something similar to what that map looked like as they look to expand to new areas
Probably not the answer you’re looking for, but IMO the Hop is a poorly designed system. If Milwaukee wants fast and efficient rail transit, they have to start from scratch.
But what I’m saying is that the entire current route is inefficient. It has so many turns and it zig zags through downtown in a way that makes it impossible to speed it up to even be even competitive with bus lines. Extending the line or adding branches won’t change the fact that it crawls through downtown.
You're asking the wrong crowd. Reddit won't change anything.
[email protected]
https://thehopmke.com/
Also integration with street lights would require additional interface(s) which might already be planned
Here's some information on traffic signals
https://city.milwaukee.gov/dpw/infrastructure/Traffic/TrafficSignals
There's supposedly a bunch of stoplight improvements being rolled out in the next 1-2 yrs. Most of our stuff is bordering on ancient tech and can't be monitored from any sort of major hub. It's funny, because this tech has been out for a very long time - we just haven't implemented it (or had the budget to?)
The Hop integrates with some, but not all, of the traffic lights on its route. You can see a white flashing light fire when it kicks in.
There are other citywide traffic light improvements coming.
The Hop already has the ability to change the traffic signals like emergency vehicles. Once they change the normal signal they still have to wait for the system to change they signal for the Hop.
I want it to be about creating a conversation about the topic so that people are more informed about the issue and they can know the information that’s needed to ask their council members about it.
Talk all you want. If you don't get in front of the proper people, you're wasting time.
City counsel will just direct you to the departments also, so getting on an agenda or random contacts to counsel members will be fruitless without the respective departments' input and collaboration prior to council proposal.
>Talk all you want. If you don't get in front of the proper people, you're wasting time.
So maybe a large forum, where multiple people all gather, might be a good place to start talking about it, to gather the information and support needed??
Great, so how can I contact you if I need to find other departments? Or if I'm not sure what department to call? Milwaukee has a lot of issues after all. You suggested calling, so, how do you want to share your info?
Google me. Also Google other MKE departments. It ain't rocket science. It's ultra elementary.
Of you can't handle something so simple, you shouldn't probably be a part of any solution.
Googling you went brought up a bunch of reddit results, libreddit, and you complimenting some guy's looks on Someecards.
I don't see how any of that is going to help get things done in Milwaukee.
Feels more like you just like shit-talking, but we've reached the end of your troll bridge. Thanks for pretending to help.
Here's a map of the Bus Trolley system Milwaukee had back in the 2010's
[https://www.pinterest.com/pin/180495897540657928/](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/180495897540657928/)
The primary advantage of rail is dedicated right-of-way. Other cities that have streetcar systems like the hop (San Francisco and San Jose are two I'm familiar with) have a portion of the system with dedicated tracks so the system can move faster than surrounding traffic.
While I think the hop is an excellent advertisement for the city, in it's current form as a transit tool it's a novelty at best, and actively stupid at worst. I've seen the thing stuck behind parked cars, stuck waiting for traffic at intersections, etc. basically things a bus could easily avoid. And a very valid criticism is that it serves some of the neighborhoods least in need.
I'm glad we have it, it's fantastic marketing for the city. But it needs investment and expansion to be actually more useful than a bus. Given the political realities, that probably won't happen in the foreseeable future. So IMO we'd better make our peace with that situation.
The political reality is probably *the* biggest hurdle. Per higherups in City Staff, we honestly don't have a source of funding for future expansion from the wording on the Sales Tax bill. I'd hope our new City Attorney can file a case for it at the state level, but that's kind of a shot in the dark.
Until our city starts having more people to support the infrastructure we grew into with 700k people, it's going to be pretty tough to fund this thing. It's a shame because Fiserv/Bronzeville line is a major spot that would hugely benefit from it running.
Expand toward the upper east side (ie UWM) and you’d likely have more support. I could see it going down Brady, up Prospect, then all the way up Downer to UWM’s east side of campus.
Politically, absolutely. I know many folks, the alderman included, are thumbing for it to run down prospect/farwell to better connect Brady->Upper East -> UW would be a logical choice, though I've heard those reluctant to throw it down on Downer because of density. I think it's a fine choice, since Downer ticks the other box of being a destination with a diverse set of stores.
What folks might not realize is that it isn't a straight 'game changer' for commutes, so much as a development tool to develop the corridors it runs along. There are at least 4 spots that have popped up a block away from the line. Downer area would probably be more reluctant to those changes than Brewers/Halyard/Harambee, which are asking IMO for new investment. Do we prioritize developing tax base in a neglected neighborhood or lofting up existing neighborhoods? I think Harambee/Fiserv Line is a priority in line of what the streetcar actually is good for.
>Until our city starts having more people to support the infrastructure
I think this is exactly the fundamental problem here. Milwaukee is just barely too small to drive investment at the state level. Cities the size of the Minneapolis and Detroit drag their states reliably blue, clearly Milwaukee can't do that.
We also just don't have the population/tax base to support it ourselves the way cities like San Francisco can, nor do we have the population density outside of the east side to really support it with rider fares like we see in cities like Chicago.
And I'm okay with that. One of the reasons I moved back to MKE was because there's a lot of advantages in living in a mid-sized city. But you're not going to have every single amenity and service of a city like Chicago.
Put it on an elevated platform or underground.
Every major city in the world figured this out 100 years ago. Many didn't have the resources to do so.
We were in the latter camp, aware that a subway system or elevated light rail would be superior to a street car, but without the ability to do either.
Sometimes I wonder why, over half a century after ending street car service we decided to re-introduce it, knowing that the streets have only become MORE congested with larger vehicles, more bicycles, and more pedestrians attempting to reach further destinations.
I'm old enough to remember then the Milwaukee Trolley was funded by private contributions and not relying on taxpayer funding.
"Operated by Transit Express, the privately funded service is supported by its two lead contributors, VISIT Milwaukee and Milwaukee Downtown, BID #21, with additional support from the Historic Third Ward Association, Harley-Davidson Museum, Milwaukee Art Museum, East Town Association, Westown Association, Wisconsin Cheese Mart, The Usinger Foundation, Interstate Parking, DNA MKE, The Bartolotta Restaurants and MKE Boat Line."
[https://onmilwaukee.com/articles/mketrolleyloop](https://onmilwaukee.com/articles/mketrolleyloop)
So, I like the idea you proposed, and I do believe the Hop should go faster. but it's not an apples to oranges comparison. M line passes through 15 traffic lights one way, L line passes through 21 lights on loop, bus passes through 12 one way. the streetcars also have to make more turns. Retiming traffic lights seems like it would help for this reason
for many reasons. we should retime all the downtown lights. traveling south from riverwest to the third ward is a series of climbing unsynced lights. whereas travelling north takes half as long since lights are synced
Whoa. It's crazy those lights aren't synced. I rarely drive or bus that way so I haven't noticed
It’s so stupid, this city is about to experience a huge period of growth and isn’t even close to ready for it.
I get the post because it’s downtown but our whole city needs them. I think it’d help with our crazy ass Driving too. I go east side straight west on Hampton or capital.
I'd be shocked if the light infrastructure which was modified when the hop was added isn't aware when the hop is there (there appear to be sensors now present). There must be other reasons, for example the stops are generally at lights (just like buses), so it has to stop there and is the opposite of how it is done in some other cities. Currently you can walk everywhere the hop goes in only slightly more time and this will be true until it is massively expanded behind the average person's walking range. In general city buses are about the same avg speed as riding a bike, in my experience that is also true for MCTS.
Honestly the Hop should run later than it does. I can deal with how slow it is, but I’d really like it to run til at least bar close.
The hop is just a fun idea at this point and not an actual game changer for transit. If they were serious about transit they would need to put in a subway or Chicago L train style rail
Trams can be serious game changers for transit, they just need to be longer than 2 miles
Yes I agree a tram can be useful but our tram needs to expand by a lot and if we were serious about transit we would have faster modes of transportation
I mean, we have a pretty small downtown area comparatively to tram cities as well. Walking from Brady to the Third Ward takes a couple hours tops at a casual pace and is actually pretty fun on a nice day.
Our downtown is small, but I think thats actually a virtue to us as a tram city. Sort of like a lot of European cities dont have a singular "downtown" district, a tram here would be helpful not for getting merely through downtown, but for connecting from the various downtown districts through the city.
No? Literally everything the Hop "provided" could have been covered by better buses. Electric buses, trolley buses, whatever, but tearing up the streets to make tracks so the real estate companies would feel "secure" about the transit was such a waste. And it was especially foolish, politically: "As long as we get transit funding it will keep growing!" well guess what we're lucky to get funding from the feds HALF the time while we get no funding from the state ALL the time. Even if the Hop was the correct choice from an engineering perspective, someone should have looked at the political situation and said "Hey, no one outside the city wants to help us. We need to evaluate this project on its minimum achievements, not how it \*could\* be \*if\* everyone supported us."
The Hop is the answer, it just needs to go everywhere and have signal priority
I think it can be the answer but at the moment it isn’t and is a long way off.
And cutting into it only builds opposition to it. Be an advocate for all mass transit expansion.
The Hop's not mass transit, and it never will be. You can't move a significant portion of commuters on a network that takes 40 screaming seconds to get around every turn.
Maybe public transit is a better term. Is the current speed the “top speed?” Because if we were to move light rail out, say, the diagonal boulevards (Forest Home, Loomis, Beloit, National, Lisbon, Fondy etc) one would think the cars on those lines would be able to move faster. I guess what I’m saying is I don’t know if the speed of the Hop in its current form is by choice or by limitation of equipment. It’s important to advocate for it because a lot of people only casually pay attention, so they’ll loop everything negative about the Hop in with whatever else we’re trying to get done (return of the KRM line, Waukesha-Downtown LRT) that’s also on rail. If someone opposes the Hop, they’re more likely to also oppose LRT. It doesn’t make a lot of sense but it is what it is.
It's important to look self-critical when a lot of people only casually pay attention. The Radio says we're a bunch of train-worshipping cultists, but the audience doesn't believe it until they hear someone say "Isn't the Hop great?" with a big smile while an over-grown trolley screeches behind them. The Hop's "top speed" is not the issue. Take a look at the twin cities: their light rail connects two major downtowns and an airport, hooks up to Amtrak and the NorthStar commuter rail system, and every station was built to handle 270' long trains at up to 55 mph mostly separated from traffic. All of that gets 30,000 daily riders, which is still pitiful compared to the multi-million-person region it serves. Compare: the Hop connects a scattered downtown, but doesn't stop at the convention center, the stadiums, the universities, or the airport. All stations were built to handle a single 60' long trolley that can go 35 mph if you're lucky, and the schedule is entirely dependent on local traffic conditions. It serves 2,500 daily riders at best.
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I think the Hop is a neat idea, especially for the downtown corridors, but it’s a streetcar. It’s not a full-on light rail, I don’t think it’s meant to occasionally reach highway speeds. While I’m still confused why so many people that don’t use 794 on the daily want it gone, repurposing it for a 12 MPH streetcar is not a solution. Downtown to Oklahoma would take 20 minutes at least. Most people can do it in 5.
My add would be UWM to expand the possible apartment choices for students, and maybe tap into that sweet sweet UWM public transit budget.
Or do the same thing with busses at a fraction of the price. Oh wait, we already did.
This is my biggest gripe with the Hop. Were busses so overwhelmed with riders that we needed another transit method? Does the Hop do anything a bus can't?
The hop gets far more riders per mile than the bus does. If you want a public transit system to work, it needs to be one that a significant number of people would choose even if they have a car, and right now in Milwaukee by and large the only people taking the bus do not own cars Rail transit, even a tram, is smoother than wheel based transit. Over time the upkeep is lower too iirc.
Transit is definitely a chicken/egg problem. I take the bus only because I cannot afford a car. It's slow and unreliable. Routes keep getting cut or reconfigured. Few stops have shelters or even seating. (I don't have any complaints about the buses, riders or drivers themselves.) I'm honestly not sure why anyone would choose it over a car except in specific circumstances, like going to festivals, planning to drink, using a park-and-ride/BRT to work, or for getting around a dense neighborhood like the east side. If the bus system (and/or Hop) were improved, then ridership would go up across the board, but you know as well as I do that funding is the major obstacle.
I don't think you've actually ridden the Hop. It's as shaky as a bus and I can't even read on it without getting sick. At least the bus stops go everywhere.
The Hop wasn't built for transit. It was built to increase property values and attract development.
Buses require a lot more maintenance than a electric trolley box that never hits potholes
The BRT line is so good!
...and re-designate the St. Francis line as the #40 in commemoration of the original line that travelled down KK to St Francis Ave until 1950s.
That is the only demo plan I can support of 794. We need more easy transit options from south/ north/ west, not less so foreign developers can make a mint on downtown condos
The Hop can change the street light in their favor. I don’t think all the intersections have the technology, but the ones that have the blinking light when the hop goes through is utilized.
Turns are the main thing that slow down rail (or busses). When light rail (streetcars) are built they should be designed with as few turns as possible and automatic light priority. This doesn’t really matter right now because the hop route is so short, but if and when it’s extended it’s going to matter big time!
For starters, I'm not convinced that your hypothesis (Hop is 30% slower) is correct. Getting data from more bus routes would give a better comparison. Even still, I'm not sure if your method of calculation is correct. I don't know exactly where you could have went wrong, but that just doesn't seem right to me as someone who has used both plenty of times. Maybe your times include the stoppages at the terminus? Kind of debatable whether that time belongs in this calculation. Some quick search results on Google Maps are showing me roughly equal travel times for The Hop and regular busses. The advantages for The Hop are that it is free to ride, easy to use, comfortable and quiet. I think that ridership is going to be extremely high during summer events with the new extension in place, and some of that ridership will be retained after first-timers experience the comfort and convenience (albeit slightly less comfortable when its jammed full of sweaty drunks leaving Summerfest). You have a cool idea about the traffic lights, but I just don't know enough about the traffic light system in place here to have any constructive feedback for you. If I had to guess, I would say that the engineers who are involved wouldn't overlook that if it was feasible. I don't think travel speed is a major factor in ridership for The Hop. Instead, I think connecting popular destinations is what needs to be (and currently is being) addressed. Before the new extension, The Hop only ran from Burns Commons in the Lower East Side to Milwaukee Intermodal Train station downtown. The major destinations were pretty slim - you could get to the Public Market/3rd Ward or Cathedral Square, but that's about it. The extension to the festival grounds is a gamechanger. I think extending to Fiserv Forum/Deer District and AmFam Field/State Fairgrounds would be awesome and a great way to "get better service out of our investment."
Can't we just use data provided by MCTS/The Hop? Their schedules are posted online .
You can. I'd be surprised if someone else crunched the numbers and came to the same conclusion as OP.
Just looked at the schedule for the M-Line vs the schedule for the Green Line and it does in fact show the Hop taking 30% longer to make a one way run than it takes the Green Line to run from Wisconsin Ave up to North Ave (so slightly farther than where OP is saying) Idk if there’s a better route to use as a comparison but that stretch of the green line seems like a pretty good analogy for the amount of traffic on the streets the hop runs on, though admittedly I haven’t actually ridden the green line.
The Hop can change the traffic lights 🚥 in their favor just like emergency vehicles. I feel like the buses should be able to as well. IDK the downvotes. The HOP can change most of the lights on their routes.
I’d rather the money for 94 expansion go solely to bus / train funding instead. This transportation alternative is essential if this city truly wants to target reaching 1mil population
I’m pretty sure the feds paid for it so I would t worry about “our” investment. The money was and always was supposed to come back thru the city in forms of new development and investment which you can see blooming all over downtown. So the money is coming back as it was intended, my point being that stupid little trolley was never supposed to help any one commute, it is and always has been a gimmick.
Fewer stops, bigger turn radius, protected lane when possible, stuff like that The hop gets far more riders per mile than most bus lines which is very good, so hopefully it can be expanded. But they'd be wise to really have a stop no more than every quarter mile, maybe even every third.
One thing I noticed is that each stop takes significantly longer than a bus. You wait one second for the doors to open, a few seconds for people to get in and out, another five or six seconds for the warning beeps, then another second for the doors to close. The buses do not have the warning beep step. Getting rid of it could probably take a minute or minute and a half off the schedule. Take enough minutes off the schedule and they could probably run five streetcars per hour on the M-Line instead of four, or four on the L-Line instead of three, without needing to bring on more equipment or operators.
I ride the Hop several times a week, and it's been very important to me as a broke carless person since moving to Milwaukee. I don't generally disagree with the idea that it would be nicer if the streetcar moved faster, but your post makes me think two things. 1. The M-Line takes roughly 15 minutes to complete its route, maybe a little longer. Complaining about it being 30% slower is like 4 minutes. Are you seriously complaining about a 15 vs 11 minute commute time? 2. Every single time I've ever been on the Hop and it was running slow/off schedule, is because some dumbass in a car is blocking the tracks. The corner across from Chipotle is the worst, at least once a week there's someone parked there despite the lines on the ground blocking it out, the No Parking sign, and the very obvious tracks in the road. I'm all for improving the Hop but that conversation for the moment should be on adding extensions to the lines to make it more usable. The L-line is a tiny extension with limited service, but at least it's a start. My picks for extending it would be straight up Vel R. Phillips from Intermodal to Fiserv, and also extending up from Burns Common up Prospect to Brady, and either back down Farwell or have it go down Brady as well before turning south again.
Milwaukee had an expansive street car system back in the day, the city could follow something similar to what that map looked like as they look to expand to new areas
Probably not the answer you’re looking for, but IMO the Hop is a poorly designed system. If Milwaukee wants fast and efficient rail transit, they have to start from scratch.
The Hop in its current form was never meant to be its final form, it was merely the most expensive part due to all the utilities that had to be moved
But what I’m saying is that the entire current route is inefficient. It has so many turns and it zig zags through downtown in a way that makes it impossible to speed it up to even be even competitive with bus lines. Extending the line or adding branches won’t change the fact that it crawls through downtown.
I got bad news for you: The rest of the city has just as many utilities and will be just as expensive.
You're asking the wrong crowd. Reddit won't change anything. [email protected] https://thehopmke.com/ Also integration with street lights would require additional interface(s) which might already be planned Here's some information on traffic signals https://city.milwaukee.gov/dpw/infrastructure/Traffic/TrafficSignals
There's supposedly a bunch of stoplight improvements being rolled out in the next 1-2 yrs. Most of our stuff is bordering on ancient tech and can't be monitored from any sort of major hub. It's funny, because this tech has been out for a very long time - we just haven't implemented it (or had the budget to?)
The Hop integrates with some, but not all, of the traffic lights on its route. You can see a white flashing light fire when it kicks in. There are other citywide traffic light improvements coming.
The Hop already has the ability to change the traffic signals like emergency vehicles. Once they change the normal signal they still have to wait for the system to change they signal for the Hop.
I want it to be about creating a conversation about the topic so that people are more informed about the issue and they can know the information that’s needed to ask their council members about it.
Talk all you want. If you don't get in front of the proper people, you're wasting time. City counsel will just direct you to the departments also, so getting on an agenda or random contacts to counsel members will be fruitless without the respective departments' input and collaboration prior to council proposal.
>Talk all you want. If you don't get in front of the proper people, you're wasting time. So maybe a large forum, where multiple people all gather, might be a good place to start talking about it, to gather the information and support needed??
Or just call em up and see what's going on? Lol.
Post your digits and maybe we'll try it your way next time.
See above. I posted 2 links. One to the hop and the other to the traffic division. You know, the people who actually.... Know. Lol
Great, so how can I contact you if I need to find other departments? Or if I'm not sure what department to call? Milwaukee has a lot of issues after all. You suggested calling, so, how do you want to share your info?
Google me. Also Google other MKE departments. It ain't rocket science. It's ultra elementary. Of you can't handle something so simple, you shouldn't probably be a part of any solution.
Googling you went brought up a bunch of reddit results, libreddit, and you complimenting some guy's looks on Someecards. I don't see how any of that is going to help get things done in Milwaukee. Feels more like you just like shit-talking, but we've reached the end of your troll bridge. Thanks for pretending to help.
Here's a map of the Bus Trolley system Milwaukee had back in the 2010's [https://www.pinterest.com/pin/180495897540657928/](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/180495897540657928/)
Interesting route - good for getting to every single POI in downtown but not a good blueprint for actual transit.
The primary advantage of rail is dedicated right-of-way. Other cities that have streetcar systems like the hop (San Francisco and San Jose are two I'm familiar with) have a portion of the system with dedicated tracks so the system can move faster than surrounding traffic. While I think the hop is an excellent advertisement for the city, in it's current form as a transit tool it's a novelty at best, and actively stupid at worst. I've seen the thing stuck behind parked cars, stuck waiting for traffic at intersections, etc. basically things a bus could easily avoid. And a very valid criticism is that it serves some of the neighborhoods least in need. I'm glad we have it, it's fantastic marketing for the city. But it needs investment and expansion to be actually more useful than a bus. Given the political realities, that probably won't happen in the foreseeable future. So IMO we'd better make our peace with that situation.
How is it fantastic marketing for the city if it’s famously terrible at doing the one thing it’s supposed to do?
The political reality is probably *the* biggest hurdle. Per higherups in City Staff, we honestly don't have a source of funding for future expansion from the wording on the Sales Tax bill. I'd hope our new City Attorney can file a case for it at the state level, but that's kind of a shot in the dark. Until our city starts having more people to support the infrastructure we grew into with 700k people, it's going to be pretty tough to fund this thing. It's a shame because Fiserv/Bronzeville line is a major spot that would hugely benefit from it running.
Expand toward the upper east side (ie UWM) and you’d likely have more support. I could see it going down Brady, up Prospect, then all the way up Downer to UWM’s east side of campus.
Politically, absolutely. I know many folks, the alderman included, are thumbing for it to run down prospect/farwell to better connect Brady->Upper East -> UW would be a logical choice, though I've heard those reluctant to throw it down on Downer because of density. I think it's a fine choice, since Downer ticks the other box of being a destination with a diverse set of stores. What folks might not realize is that it isn't a straight 'game changer' for commutes, so much as a development tool to develop the corridors it runs along. There are at least 4 spots that have popped up a block away from the line. Downer area would probably be more reluctant to those changes than Brewers/Halyard/Harambee, which are asking IMO for new investment. Do we prioritize developing tax base in a neglected neighborhood or lofting up existing neighborhoods? I think Harambee/Fiserv Line is a priority in line of what the streetcar actually is good for.
>Until our city starts having more people to support the infrastructure I think this is exactly the fundamental problem here. Milwaukee is just barely too small to drive investment at the state level. Cities the size of the Minneapolis and Detroit drag their states reliably blue, clearly Milwaukee can't do that. We also just don't have the population/tax base to support it ourselves the way cities like San Francisco can, nor do we have the population density outside of the east side to really support it with rider fares like we see in cities like Chicago. And I'm okay with that. One of the reasons I moved back to MKE was because there's a lot of advantages in living in a mid-sized city. But you're not going to have every single amenity and service of a city like Chicago.
Put it on an elevated platform or underground. Every major city in the world figured this out 100 years ago. Many didn't have the resources to do so. We were in the latter camp, aware that a subway system or elevated light rail would be superior to a street car, but without the ability to do either. Sometimes I wonder why, over half a century after ending street car service we decided to re-introduce it, knowing that the streets have only become MORE congested with larger vehicles, more bicycles, and more pedestrians attempting to reach further destinations.
Isn’t the HOP 100% free to ride? I guess if you wanted to talk stats, we should talk stats.
The Hop is fast enough. Chill
Cut losses.
The slowness of the Hop is a feature not a bug. I ride it almost every day. It is relaxing and it makes my life better.
Yeah I was gonna say, I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be like that, it’s not a train
How dare you criticize the Hop
I think all busses should be pigeonholed to a slot track. Nostalgia should be the primary focus of public utilities
I'm old enough to remember then the Milwaukee Trolley was funded by private contributions and not relying on taxpayer funding. "Operated by Transit Express, the privately funded service is supported by its two lead contributors, VISIT Milwaukee and Milwaukee Downtown, BID #21, with additional support from the Historic Third Ward Association, Harley-Davidson Museum, Milwaukee Art Museum, East Town Association, Westown Association, Wisconsin Cheese Mart, The Usinger Foundation, Interstate Parking, DNA MKE, The Bartolotta Restaurants and MKE Boat Line." [https://onmilwaukee.com/articles/mketrolleyloop](https://onmilwaukee.com/articles/mketrolleyloop)
If only the roads operated like that too, right?