Milwaukee Leaders Can Pave the Way for Regional Rail » Urban Milwaukee

Denver’s A Line commuter rail service in June 2022. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

Recently, it seems like Milwaukee has become the home of the bold and visionary. Home to proposals to tear down freeways, build taller and taller mass-timber skyscrapers, and a mayor with dreams of nearly doubling the city’s population, it should come at no surprise that community members see a different future for our city’s transportation system, too.

As reported this week, a group of private investors want to leverage our existing network of railroads to introduce state-of-the-art regional rail service capable of transporting Milwaukeeans between the airport, downtown, Century City, and, eventually, farther into the city’s north, west, and south sides. This would be a level of public transit service not seen in the region since the early 1900s when streetcars, interurbans, and intercity trains sailed between neighborhoods.

However, privately-built rail companies need a strong real estate component to pencil out and subsidize the lower fares needed to attract riders. Look to South Florida’s Brightline for a successful example of real estate supporting a robust, new, private rail transportation option. That’s why we’re calling on political leaders to come together and support a more equitable, sustainable, accessible, and economically-vibrant future by doing their part in supporting this, and other, privately-led efforts.

There are many levers local government can manipulate to support this project without diving into the coffers too far. The first, streamlining the development process, is already in progress as Milwaukee updates its zoning code. The City should proactively rezone along these corridors to reflect their future high-capacity transit service. This will allow buildings with the density needed to support transit and at the same time allow more people to live and work car-free near this network.

The second tool can help address a lack of demand for development on the northwest side in the Century City area. The City and County both administer the doling out of millions of dollars of federal money each year in the form of Community Development Block Grants. These two bodies of government can follow the policy goals of their elected officials and target their allocation strategies to support affordable housing, public services, and economic development initiatives based along this corridor.

A third mechanism for supporting this project would be in the form of in-kind financial support. City, County, and State-owned land should be offered up as equity for potential project capital funding sources. Similarly, the City should continue its long-held policy of supporting tax incremental finance (TIF) districts to support the funding of affordable housing and economic development projects. With these two tools, local government can ease the financial burden of developing along these rail corridors while also being a bought-in part of the projects financial success.

Lastly, this project should be taking advantage of tax-credits made available to try out new propulsion technology such as hydrogen. With the Hydrogen Hubs program ramping up throughout the U.S. and suppliers looking for institutional buyers, new hydrogen-powered trains could potentially be subsidized due to the novel nature of its use within a brand-new system. Introducing alternative fuels would also mean that routes within this system would not need new overhead electric wires to achieve snappy acceleration. Finally, the use of hydrogen-powered locomotives would mean no additional diesel fumes would be exhausted in historically disadvantaged neighborhoods along these routes.

We would be remiss not to highlight the onus that the Transit Innovations team has to take on. Not having contacted the major Canadian Pacific Kansas City railroad, as was reported, is a major oversight for a project relying on their cooperation for track usage. The team must not overlook similarly crucial steps such as exploring the use of low-income housing, historic, brownfield clean-up, and other widely available tax credits. Tax-exempt financing options through the Federal Railroad Administration will also likely be a powerful tool for making this project success (as it was for Brightline’s success in Florida). And speaking of Brightline, Transit Innovations, don’t be afraid to give its investor and Milwaukee Bucks owner Wes Edens a call for advice, or maybe an investment pitch, and get some local buy-in on this project.

This project would impact hundreds of thousands of residents in the Milwaukee area, connecting them to jobs at the medical complex, entertainment in downtown, travel at the intermodal station and airport, and affordable housing and economic development opportunities on the northwest side. However, a privately-led transit project will be an uphill battle, so it’s crucial that local leaders get behind this push and use any and all tools they have at their disposal to clear the way for it.

Michael Dunst and Sidney Kuesters are professional transportation planners with Masters degrees in city planning from the University of Pennsylvania. They have experience in rail projects, public policy analysis, and real estate development. Michael Dunst is a native of the Milwaukee area. Opinions expressed do not express the views or opinions of their employers.