Committee on Transportation and Transit - Regular Meeting

THE TIME OF 9.30 HAS ARRIVED. THE COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND TRANSIT WILL COME TO ORDER. ANY MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC WISHING TO ADDRESS THE COMMITTEE MAY PROVIDE PUBLIC COMMENT BY EITHER FILLING OUT A PUBLIC COMMENT CARD, THAT SHOULD BE THE LITTLE BLUE CARDS IN BACK THERE, or visiting milwaukee.gov slash public comment and following the instructions provided to participate via Microsoft Teams. Mr. Clerk, did you want to call the roll?

Supervisors Martinez? Here. Cogs Jones?

Here.

Bilinski? Here. Eckblad? Mr. Chairman. Here. There are five members present, four appearing virtually. We have a quorum. Please call the first item. Item one, from the county executive reappointing Isaac Rowlett to the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission for a term ending on October 1st, 2032.

Please identify yourselves.

Good morning, Chair, Supervisors. Jeremy Lucas, Acting Deputy Chief of Staff in the Office of the County Executive.

Isaac Rowland, Strategy Director, Strategy, Budget, and Performance.

Good morning. I'm pleased to be here on behalf of County Executive to reappoint Isaac Rowlett to the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission. Director Rowlett has served on sewer PAC since the fall of 2025 and brings deep experience in public sector leadership and regional collaboration to his appointment. He, of course, currently serves as the Milwaukee County Strategic Planning Director and has two decades of experience in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors, leading strategic planning, organizational development, stakeholder engagement, and change management projects. He is a systems thinker focused on bringing people together to improve organizational culture, performance, and impact. Director Rowlett is a Sherman Park resident, and he brings both professional expertise in regional planning and a personal commitment to his community into his role, helping guide land use, transportation, and environmental planning across the seven-county southeastern Wisconsin region. Again, I'm pleased to nominate Director Rowlett for reappointment to sewer pack for a term ending October 1st, 2032.

Members, any questions? Supervisor Belinsky.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So it looks like you worked for contractors in D.C. during both Republican and Democratic administrations. What was that like?

Good morning, Chair, Supervisors, Isaac Wallace, Strategy Director. It was really interesting. My time in DC spanned both Republican and Democratic administrations. I will say most of the work that I did, although it involved senior executive service appointees, Tended to be not very political, if you will, because it was like much of the work we do at the county, whether it was a FEMA or USPS, it was more a matter of like operations. But, you know, it it. politics you know enters the equation and i think it it was interesting to see both things that continued to be of focus as well as things that were that shifted um intended to be distracting at times happy to elaborate but that's kind of an overall yeah takeaway from the experience no just curious um thanks for your continued work and um look forward to voting for the appointment

Any other questions? Do we have a motion?

Mr. Chair, I make a motion to approve the confirmation.

All right, we have a motion.

Ethan, you want to? On the motion by Supervisor Martinez that item number one be recommended for confirmation. Supervisors Martinez? Aye. Cogs Jones?

Aye.

Belinsky? Aye. Beckblad? Aye. Mr. Chairman? Aye. Five ayes, zero noes. The motion prevails.

Thank you. Congratulations. The next item please.

Item two, a resolution slash ordinance from the Executive Director, Department of Transportation, requesting amendments to the Milwaukee County Code of General Ordinances, Chapter 71, Section 71.10 and 71.25 to change the speed limit from 40 miles per hour to 35 miles per hour.

Good morning, Mr. Chair and Supervisors.

Good morning.

My name is... Good morning. My name is Andrea Weddle Henning. I'm the Director of Transportation Engineering at Milwaukee County DOT. THE RESOLUTION BEFORE YOU IS A SPEED LIMIT CHANGE THAT IS ALONG THE COUNTY TRUNK HIGHWAY WHICH REQUIRES APPROVAL FROM THE COUNTY BOARD. WE CURRENTLY HAVE A CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECT IN THE CONSTRUCTION PHASE ON NORTH TYTONIA AVENUE AND WHICH IS COUNTY TRUNK HIGHWAY D AND NORTH SHERMAN BOULEVARD WHICH IS COUNTY TRUNK HIGHWAY G FROM WEST BRADLEY ROAD TO WEST GREEN BAY ROAD WHICH IS STATE TRUNK HIGHWAY 57 IN THE VILLAGE OF BROWN DEER. As part of safety improvements along the roadway, we will reduce the speed limit from 45 miles an hour to 35 miles an hour on Titonia Avenue from Good Hope Road to Bradley Road, which is in both the City of Milwaukee and Village of Brown Deer, and then also on Sherman Boulevard from West Bradley Road to Green Bay Road, which is all in the Village of Brown Deer. Where the speed limit is reduced, we'll be installing new speed limit signs AS PART OF THE CONSTRUCTION PROJECT. YOU CAN ALSO REFER TO THE MAP THAT'S IN YOUR PACKET WHICH CLEARLY ILLUSTRATES THE SPEED LIMIT REDUCTION CHANGES. SO DURING THE SPEED LIMIT REDUCTION DETERMINATION, WE DID OUR DUE DILIGENCE IN GATHERING INPUT FROM OUR CONSTITUENTS by holding two public information meetings for the capital improvement project, and we sent mailers to the residents asking them for their input about the speed limit reduction. In addition, we received support from the city of Milwaukee, the village of Brown Deer, and kept our county supervisor informed. So with the speed limit reduction, it requires an ordinance modification, and I'm requesting approval by the board for this. Thank you.

Supervisors, any questions? Supervisor Belinsky.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. You mentioned in your remarks that the speed limit was changing from 45 to 35, but the report says 40 to 35. What is the current speed limit there?

The current speed limit is different with Titonia Avenue. Right now that's 40. Yeah, both of them are 40 miles an hour. So we're reducing them down to 35. So if there's something in the report that's incorrect, we can correct that.

Okay, and you mentioned there's changes to parking. What is the current parking utilization on these sections? Like what percent of those spots are filled usually?

Okay, so the parking part of it, I think there's another ordinance that we'll have to discuss.

Okay, we'll talk about it separately.

So if you could, yeah, if you could hold your question on that and we can. So I will review the report and if it needs to be modified, if there is something wrong with the parking information in there, we'll correct it. But right now it is 40 miles an hour.

Okay, thank you. And then just a final question. Is there any commitment by Brown Deer Police that they would increase enforcement along these stretches? Just because... We all know that people view speed limits as kind of like suggestions and if we're, you know, if these are targeted corridors because of excessive speed, like it'd be nice if we had some kind of commitment that that would happen.

Yeah, Mr. Chair and County Supervisor, yes, that is something we really, I mean, without, we can put up the speed limit signs, but without enforcement, it's going to be very difficult to reduce that. So, yes, we have a very good relationship with the Village of Brown Deer, and yes, they're going to increase their enforcement as they can with their available budgets.

Thank you. Supervisor Martinez. I just want to say that I find it very surprising that it would be 40, because I know that stretch of Titonia that you're talking about, and the fact that such a high speed limit there is pretty shocking, so I want to make a motion to approve to reduce to 35. I mean, 30 might be even better, but yeah, 35, I mean, yeah, I make a motion to approve.

Super... Supervisor Ekblad, did you still have a question?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. No, Supervisor Walensky actually got to my question. Okay.

All right.

No other questions? All right.

Let's take the roll. On the motion by Supervisor Martinez that item number two be recommended for adoption, Supervisors Martinez... Aye. Cogs Jones?

Aye.

Belinsky? Aye. Ekblad? Aye. Mr. Chairman? Aye. Five ayes, zero noes. The motion prevails. The next item, please. Item 3, a resolution slash ordinance from the Executive Director, Department of Transportation relative to an amendment to Chapter 68, Section 68.01, Chapter 68, Section 68.01 to rename County Trunk Highway CTHD North Titonia Avenue from West Bradley Road to North Green Bay Road State Trunk Highway 57.

Again, good morning, Mr. Chair and Supervisors. Andrew Weddle Henning, Director of Transportation Engineering at Milwaukee DOT. THIS RESOLUTION ITEM BEFORE YOU IS A RENAME OF A SEGMENT OF A COUNTY TRUNK HIGHWAY WHICH REQUIRES APPROVAL BY THE COUNTY BOARD. AS MENTIONED IN THE LAST ITEM, WE CURRENTLY HAVE A CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECT IN THE CONSTRUCTION BASE ON NORTH TYTONIA AVENUE WHICH IS COUNTY TRUNK HIGHWAY D AND NORTH SHERMAN BOULEVARD WHICH IS COUNTY TRUNK HIGHWAY G FROM WEST BRADLEY ROAD TO WEST GREEN BAY ROAD WHICH IS STATE TRUNK HIGHWAY 57 IN THE VILLAGE OF BROWN DEER. AGAIN, AS A SAFETY IMPROVEMENT ALONG THE ROADWAY, WE HAVE REALIGNED THE NORTHBOUND LANES TO BE OPPOSITE OR ADJACENT TO THE SOUTHBOUND LANES. THIS REMOVES THE MERGER OR THERE'S A JUNCTION OF NORTH SHERMAN BOULEVARD WITH NORTH TYTONIA AVENUE, LEAVING TWO COUNTY TRUNK HIGHWAY NAMES ALONG A VERY SMALL STRETCH OF ROADWAY. FOR STREET NAME CONSISTENCY, And to avoid street name conflicting issues, we will remove the North Titonia Avenue name and continue with the North Sherman Boulevard name for the entire length between Bradley and Green Bay Road. YOU CAN ALSO REFER TO ONE OF YOUR MAPS IN THE PACKET WHICH CAN CLEARLY ILLUSTRATE THAT REALIGNMENT AND THAT RENAME. SO DURING THE RENAME DECISION, WE WORKED VERY CLOSELY WITH THE VILLAGER BROWN DEER OVER THE PAST TWO YEARS AND THEIR BOARD APPROVED TO RENAME THE ROADWAY TO NORTH SHERMAN BOULEVARD AND REQUESTED THAT WE MOVE FORWARD WITH COUNTY BOARD APPROVAL. THE VILLAGER BROWN DEER CONTINUES TO WORK WITH THEIR RESIDENTS TO COORDINATE THE RENAME AS THE RESIDENTS IMPACTED WOULD HAVE TO CHANGE HER ADDRESS from North Titonia to North Sherman Boulevard. You can also refer to the second map in your packet and that clearly illustrates the impact of properties that are there. So again, we did our due diligence. We gathered input from our constituents through holding the two public information meetings for the capital improvement project. We worked very closely with the Village of Brown Deer AND IN KEEPING OUR COUNTY SUPERVISOR INFORMED. IN ADDITION, WE REACHED OUT TO THE WISCONSIN DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION TO ENSURE WE PROVIDE THE CORRECT DOCUMENTATION FOR UPDATING THEM ON THE RENAME. SO, AGAIN, THIS RENAME REQUEST REQUIRES ORDINANCE MODIFICATION, AND I'M REQUESTING APPROVAL BY THE BOARD. THANK YOU.

SUPERVISOR BELINSKI?

Hi, thank you, Mr. Chair. So the properties that are impacted by the address change, are they rental properties, owner-occupied, commercial? Do we know?

MR. CHAIR AND SUPERVISORS, YES. THERE ARE SOME RESIDENTIAL PROPERTIES. I THINK THERE ARE ABOUT 10 OR 11. AND THEN THERE IS SOME COMMERCIAL PROPERTY BUSINESSES, COMMERCIAL BUSINESSES ALSO, PROBABLY ABOUT, I WOULD SAY, FOUR OR FIVE BUSINESSES. AND WE DO HAVE AN APARTMENT COMPLEX, VERY SMALL. condo complex that is within that impacted area as well. So it's, you know, a diverse area when it comes to those that are impacted.

And so when this kind of thing happens, what is done to ensure that the landlords are informing their tenants about the change so that they can update any of their like online billing or anything so they don't end up getting charged late fees for stuff?

The Village of Brown Deer worked very closely with the residents. We weren't very involved in that because it is their constituents. They've been working with them and keeping them informed the last two years. They've been working with the U.S. Post Office. They're also giving them a stipend to help with the change as well. So they, I think they've done a good job. And that's one of the things that we wanted to get started early on. And that's why it's been almost like a two year process for that change to happen. So they've done a great job with their constituents. You know, some, you know, you're going to get some that are, you know, don't want it to happen. But at the end of the day, they're looking towards the future and making sure that there's not a lot of confusion with the street naming. And they would be the ones to make sure that it is fulfilled. And I think it's going to happen by the end of this year that things are going to be closed out. So this is just a process that we need to do for them to finish the process that they've been working on for the last two years.

Gotcha. Thank you.

You're welcome. Mr. Chair, thank you. I must say that the renaming of the street is helpful, especially when traveling out there, because I travel out there frequently, and with the GPS, sometimes I'm questioning GPS, like, is this the correct street? So with that being said, Mr. Chair, I would make a motion for approval.

Any other questions? Seeing none, Mr.

Clerk, please call the roll. On the motion by Supervisor Cogs-Jones that item number three be recommended for adoption. Supervisors Martinez? Aye. Cogs-Jones? Aye. Belinsky? Aye. Ekblad? Supervisor Ekblad?

Apologies to technical difficulties, aye.

Mr. Chairman?

Aye.

Five ayes, zero noes. The motion prevails. Item number four, please. Item four, a resolution slash ordinance from the Executive Director, Department of Transportation, requesting amendments to the Milwaukee County Code of General Ordinances, Chapter 69, Section 69.02, to prohibit parking in certain areas of North Sherman Boulevard, County Trunk Highway G.

Good morning again, Mr. Chair and supervisors. This is the last time here. This is Andrea Weddle-Henning, Director of Transportation Engineering at Milwaukee County DOT. RESOLUTION ITEM BEFORE YOU IS FOR NO PARKING CHANGES ALONG COUNTY TRUNK HIGHWAYS, WHICH REQUIRES APPROVAL FROM THE COUNTY BOARD. AS MENTIONED BEFORE, IN THE PAST TWO PREVIOUS ITEMS, THIS IS BECAUSE OF A CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECT IN THE CONSTRUCTION PHASE OF NORTH TYTONIA AVENUE AND SHERMAN BOULEVARD FROM BRADLEY ROAD TO GREEN BAY ROAD. And as part of another safety improvement, we have removed the shoulder area, the parking lane on the east side of the roadway, which is the northbound, and some on the west side of the roadway, which is southbound. We kept the shoulder parking lane along the areas where the residents live and have driveway access to the roadway on the west side, which is southbound again, where the shoulder parking lane is removed. We'll be installing new no parking signs as part of the construction project to prohibit or restrict parking in the live traffic lanes. SO YOU CAN ALSO REFER TO YOUR MAP IN YOUR PACKET AND IT WILL SHOW THOSE AREAS OF NO PARKING THAT WE'RE REQUESTING. DURING THE NO PARKING DETERMINATION, WE AGAIN DID OUR DUE DILIGENCE THROUGH HOLDING THE TWO PUBLIC INFORMATION MEETINGS AND WE SENT MAILERS OUT TO THE RESIDENTS AND IN ADDITION WE RECEIVED SUPPORT FROM THE VILLAGE OF BROWN DEER AND OUR COUNTY SUPERVISOR. WE KEPT HIM INFORMED AS WELL. So with the no parking request, it requires an ordinance change, and I'm requesting approval by the board for that. Thank you.

Supervisors, any questions?

Supervisor Belinsky. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just wanted to reiterate my question from before. Do you recall what the utilization of those spots is currently?

with the utilization of the spots that we are currently keeping? Could you?

No, the ones that you're making no parking. How many of those are typically used now?

Oh, they're low utilization. Okay. There's not really a lot of residents out there or businesses that utilize parking along the way. So we did look at the park, and we always do a parking utilization study just to make sure that we're, you know, in the right direction moving forward. But then the input from the public is what is really important for us to determine how we move forward as well. So, yes, it's very low. at this time. And if things change, you know, parking can be added with developments that come about or with whatever comes historically.

Sounds good. Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Any other questions? Seeing none, would anyone like to make a motion?

Mr. Chair, I make a motion.

All right. We have a motion. Mr.

Clerk, please call the roll. On the motion by Supervisor Cogs-Jones that item number four be recommended for adoption. Supervisors Martinez? Aye. Cogs-Jones?

Aye.

Belinsky? Aye. Ekblad? Aye. Mr. Chairman? Aye. Five ayes, zero noes. The motion prevails. Thank you. Item number five? Item 5, from the Executive Director, Department of Transportation, requesting retroactive authorization to apply for and accept implementation funding if awarded through the Federal Fiscal Year 2025-2026 Advanced Transportation Technology and Innovation Program Attain Discretionary Grant Program. This file is also referred to the Committee on Finance and is before your committee today for action.

Good morning. Chairman Shea and County Supervisor Sandy Kellner. I am the Chief Planning and Strategy Officer for MCTS.

And I'm Rachel Dietzman, Grant Writer and Administrator for MCTS. So this morning we... Excuse me.

Oh, your mics are on. Could you speak a little closer to the microphone, please?

Yes. I'm Rachel Dietzman, Grant Writer and Administrator for MCTS. Okay.

This morning, we are here to request authorization, actually retroactive authorization, to apply for and accept, if awarded, some funding through a federal program called the ATTAIN program. And the ATTAIN program is short for Advanced Transportation Technology and Innovation. And Rachel's going to provide a little bit more detail about what that program is and what our application is all about.

Thank you. MCTS applied for $5.6 million to support two technology investments, the expansion of transit signal priority and the modernization of technology supporting our Paratransit Transit Plus service. So for clarification, transit signal priority is GPS communication between buses and traffic signals working to reduce delays and improve service reliability. And the technology modernization reference for Transit Plus is a new software license to support Paratransit service. The total project costs $5.6 million including the required local match of $1.12 million. If awarded, we will return to the County Board with the identified projects and associated costs prior to executing an agreement and we're happy to answer any questions.

Supervisor Belinsky. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay, so what is the practical effect of naming something from an urban area to a rural area? they look like you know the the purple areas so it looks like the urban area shrunk a bit is that correct oh i'm sorry i was reading ahead no problem and uh supervisor martinez i'd like to make a motion to approve okay um seeing no other questions ethan please call the roll

On the motion by Supervisor Martinez that item number five be recommended for adoption. Supervisors Martinez? Aye. Cogs Jones?

Aye.

Galinsky? Aye. Eckblad? Aye. Mr. Chairman? Aye. Five ayes, zero noes. The motion prevails. Thank you. Item number six. Item six, from the Executive Director, Department of Transportation, and the Senior Transportation Analyst, Department of Transportation, requesting an approval of changes to the Rural Functional Classification of County Trunk Highway U, South 76th Street, from Urban Minor Arterial to Rural Major Collector. Supervisor Belinsky, I assume you have a question.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I guess my question is just, when something like that is changed from an urban to a rural, what does that do practically?

Gentlemen, you need to introduce yourselves first. Transportation Planner Daniel Park, Milwaukee County DOT.

Mark Nedvetsky, Urban and Regional Planner, Southeast Region, WisDOT. So in terms of the functional classification, the difference between it doesn't affect whether it's rural or urban in terms of the classification, I can kind of get into that more in the slides if we proceed. Just to provide a little Background functional classification is a way of defining and categorizing the various roles that streets and highways play in serving varied transportation needs as part of the statewide system. Additionally, the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1973 created policies and procedures for classifying roadways eligible for federal aid based on the functional classification of the roadways. The diagram in the lower right corner kind of explains that, how classification is based on access and mobility. So we have local roads that are focused primarily on access, collectors, which are a bit of a conduit between the two, and arterials, which are focused primarily on mobility. Arterials are further subclassified as principal arterials and minor arterials. And specific to rural areas, collectors are also subdivided into major collectors and minor collectors. We'll look at how that impacts federal aid in the coming slides. But functional classification is also used for other purposes in transportation planning needs. SO THE MILWAUKEE URBAN AREA WAS UPDATED IN 2024 BASED ON DECENNIAL CENSUS DATA. THE GREEN AREAS SHADED THERE ARE WHAT CENSUS DEFINED URBAN AREAS. YOU'LL SEE IT'S NOT CONTIGUOUS. SO WSDOT, IN COLLABORATION WITH SOUTHEAST REGIONAL PLANNING COMMITTEE, WORK TO CREATE A CONTIGUOUS POLYGON FOR THIS URBAN AREA, WHICH YOU SEE WITH THE PURPLE LINE. SO THE MILWAUKEE URBAN AREA CONTRACTED, AND AS A RESULT, THERE IS A SMALL PORTION IN THE SOUTHWEST CORNER OF THE COUNTY THAT IS NOW RURAL. The Milwaukee urban area contracted, creating some urban areas, but it also added some small urban areas such as Wales and to the north in the Grafton, Port Washington area. This slide is showing a zoomed in image of that newly classified rural area within Milwaukee County. So roadways formerly within the Milwaukee urban area are now outside the urban area due to the post-census boundary adjustment. So functional classification doesn't change based on urban and rural classification. As an example, the segment of Ryan Road there between Highway 100 and 45 is a minor arterial, the green line there. It was a urban minor arterial. It is now a rural minor arterial. The classification did not change. For County Highway U, however, that is our one proposed change from a minor arterial to a major collector. The reasoning for this is for continuity improvement. Arterials should not terminate at municipal boundaries. They should terminate at intersections with other arterials. And so to make it contiguous with the segment in Racine County, we are proposing this change to a major collector. As far as it impacts federal aid, Classifications of major, collector, and higher are eligible for federal aid, so this doesn't, this new classification will not change any roads within this new Milwaukee rural area in terms of federal aid eligibility. So what we are asking from Milwaukee County is to review the proposed functional classification change, provide any feedback, And then ultimately execute a resolution approving the functional classification changes. That resolution, along with the updated classification map and spreadsheet, and a submittal letter from WSDOT is then ultimately sent to Federal Highway's administration for final approval. So with that, I can take any questions.

Supervisor Belinsky. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So just for clarification, the federal aid is not impacted by this one change on County Highway U. What about state aid or anything to do with transit funding? Because, you know, like when we, let's say we contract the fixed route system, that affects the paratransit system. When we reclassify a road, that doesn't have any impact on sort of a transit map, does it?

No. Okay. The urban classifications, the functional classifications and rural classifications. Or just federal? Just federal, correct.

Not state either?

No.

Okay. Any other questions?

I just have to say it's hard to believe that some parts of Milwaukee County are still classified as rural. Although I did once come face-to-face with a cow in Milwaukee County, so apparently some parts still are. Anyway, do we have a motion? Okay, Supervisor Martinez makes a motion. Ethan, you want to call the roll? If Supervisor could just state the motion on the record, please.

I'll make a motion to approve. On the motion by Supervisor Martinez that item number six be recommended for adoption. Supervisors Martinez? Aye. Cogs Jones?

Aye.

Belinsky? Aye. Eckblad? Aye. Mr. Chairman? Aye. Five ayes, zero noes. The motion prevails. Thank you.

Thank you.

Ethan, the next item, please. Item 7, from the Executive Director, Department of Transportation, and the Director of Fleet Management, Department of Transportation, providing an informational report on rising fuel costs on Milwaukee County fleet vehicles. This file is also considered by the Committee on Finance and is informational only unless otherwise directed by the Committee. Please introduce yourself.

Good morning, Mr. Chairman. John Blanion, Fleet Director, Milwaukee County DOT.

Daniel Park, Transportation Planner, Milwaukee County DOT.

So Mr. Chairman, Supervisors, we're here today to provide a brief update on our fuel costs for the year for Milwaukee County overall. This applies to Milwaukee County and not the transit system right now. They budget differently. So a lot of this is a little bit of a review from our prior meeting, but we'll go through it again. For 2026, we budgeted $3.12 per gallon for diesel fuel and $2.52 per gallon for unleaded fuel. Our most recent fuel deliveries, just a day or two prior to the meeting today, we paid $5.63 per gallon for diesel. So more than $2 a gallon over budget and $3.62 per gallon for unleaded. These rates are slightly lower than what you'll see at a retail gas station because we do buy our fuel in bulk and we own all of our own fueling infrastructure. THIS IS A CHART OF OUR FUEL COST VERSUS BUDGET THROUGH AUGUST FOR ALL DEPARTMENTS. SO YOU'LL SEE IN JANUARY WE'RE A LITTLE BIT UNDER BUDGET, BUT THEN DUE TO WORLDWIDE IMPACTS TO OUR FUEL, FUEL COSTS, EVERY MONTH SINCE THEN, WE'VE BEEN SIGNIFICANTLY OVER BUDGET. AS OF RIGHT NOW, OUR FUEL BUDGET IS JUST ABOUT EXHAUSTED FOR THE YEAR, AND WE'VE GOT SOME ESTIMATES ON WHERE WE'RE GOING TO BE ON THE NEXT SLIDES. So each department is responsible for managing their fuel budget. They're the ones conducting maintenance operations, so really their fuel costs are somewhat in their control. So for our largest consumers are the Sheriff's Office, the Parks Department, Highway Maintenance, and Mitchell International Airport. The Sheriff's Office and Parks Department primarily use property tax levy to cover their costs. Highway maintenance is reimbursed primarily through the state of Wisconsin. 90% of their work is performed for state of Wisconsin roadways. And then Mitchell International, all those funds are, those costs are covered by airport generated revenue and FAA expenses, so they don't use any tax levy. Here's a summary of fuel expenses for the departments so far through August. You'll notice that the Parks Department is currently the highest fuel user because they're closing out their summer season. They consume most of their fuel during the summer for mowing and golf courses and things like that. Highway maintenance and airport will start to spend more money here going into the winter as they start conducting snow removal operations. And because our diesel expense is so much higher right now relative to unleaded, that's going to be a big impact for those departments because their snow removal fleets are primarily diesel-fueled equipment. At this point, our estimate, if fuel prices remain consistent from what we're paying now until through the end of the year, we're going to be about $756,000 over budget for fuel countywide. If they were to increase more, it's potential for diesel. It's been increasing rapidly over the last couple weeks. We could be over budget by a million. So the only way to really reduce our costs, because the costs are out of our control, are to reduce our operating expenses in other areas or reduce utilization on fossil fuel equipment. We have been in regular communication with county departments and the Office of Budget Strategy and Performance to plan fuel adjustments for budget next year. Our current budgeted numbers for next year are lower than what our current rates were paying. We're hoping for things to go down a little bit, but we just kind of have to play it a day at a time because it's almost impossible to predict. In summary, I think the beginning of the snow season is going to be when it actually starts snowing and how bad our winter operations are going to be this year are going to have a major determining factor on where we're going to end up with our budget for the year. If it starts snowing in early November and we have a bunch of storms, that number is going to be higher. If we luck out and the snow starts coming later in December, then It's not going to be as bad as that $750,000 number, but that's based off our budgeted amounts and kind of our normal utilization from year to year. I'll take any questions you may have.

Supervisor Cox-Jones.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the report. I do have a question relating to what immediate steps are being taken to manage this exposure without reducing essential services?

The only thing the departments are able to do is potentially cut operations in areas that aren't statutorily required or aren't essential. So some of the only areas that don't fall into those categories would be recreation and things, but a lot of the parks department, golf, for example, is revenue generating. So most of the revenue for golf offsets their fuel expenses. SO ALL THE STATUTORILY REQUIRED AND PUBLIC SAFETY MATTERS OBVIOUSLY CAN'T BE CUT BACK, SO DEPARTMENTS WOULD BE FORCED TO MAKE OPERATING CUTS IN OTHER AREAS, PERSONNEL, COMMODITIES, THINGS LIKE THAT. THE FUEL COST IS JUST SOMETHING THAT ALL THE DEPARTMENTS DO HAVE REQUIRED WORK TO DO, AND THERE REALLY ISN'T MUCH THEY CAN DO OTHER THAN CUTTING DOWN ON A LITTLE BIT OF IDLING AND CONSOLIDATING SOME TRIPS TO BRING THAT that overage down. And that's a very small, you know, that'd be a very small percentage. So all of our equipment does have, our trucks have anti-idling systems on it. We have a very large fleet of hybrid equipment already that are getting 40 plus miles to the gallon. So we are doing everything we can with the resources we have available to it. It's just kind of, right now it's a matter that's out of our control and we're just kind of paying the price right now.

Supervisor Ekblad.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Less of a question and more of a comment. First of all, I really want to commend the county staff who are trying to tackle an issue that is fundamentally outside of their control. I was reading in the newspaper this morning there are protests and riots over the price of diesel fuel in places as far away as Bangladesh, Portugal, Guatemala, the Philippines, and everyone is pretty clear about the cause of this fluctuation. It's the war in Iran, period. When you shut down one-third of the world's energy when you shut down the market and sow chaos like this. This is the impact. This is the impact on local people, on our tax dollars, on our property taxes, pure and simple. I want to thank the public servants who are trying to navigate it, but I also want to be really, really clear about what the cause is here.

I just wanted to say We are suffering through another period of an absolutely insane war, which has brought ramifications, negative ramifications to all of us and this is one of them. I was crossing the home bridge on my way here this morning and just this morning fuel prices have gone up again and they're probably going to continue to go up. So I want to thank you for your presentation and I want to amplify Supervisor Ekblad's comments that we thank people working for the county to make due under very, very, very challenging circumstances. So, thank you. Thank you. Did we want to make a motion to place this on file?

Mr. Chair, I make a motion to place on file.

All right, we have a motion. On the motion by Supervisor Martinez that item number seven be recommended to be received and placed on file, Supervisors Martinez? Aye. Cogs Jones?

Aye.

Belinsky? Aye. Eckblad? Aye. Mr. Chairman? Aye. Five ayes, zero noes. The motion prevails.

Item number eight, please.

Item eight, from the Executive Director, Department of Transportation, and the President and CEO, Milwaukee County Transit System, providing an informational report regarding MCTS forward bus network redesign concepts. This item is informational only, unless otherwise directed by the committee.

Good morning, Mr. Chair, Supervisor, Steve Fuentes, President and CEO, MCTS.

Enrique Ngueda, principal with Gerald Walker & Associates.

Okay, good morning. We are here to provide an update on our MCTS Forward bus network redesign. But I do want to start by saying emphatically where MCTS stands with regards to the future of our services. We do not have any desire to implement a 25% service cut as is reported. This is not a proposal that I would hope you adopt. This is not something that we want to see happen. What MCTS Forward is, it's our plan for the projected financial future at MCTS. Earlier this year, the Comptroller's Office issued their five-year financial forecast for the county. And for the section relating to MCTS, we are anticipated to have a budget deficit in 2027 of over $15 million, which grows to $37 million in 2031. MCTS Forward, again, is our plan for that projection. Think of it in terms of a meteorologist. If they see a hurricane brewing and it's about four or five days away, and they start talking about the devastation it could cause, their hope isn't that the hurricane hits and devastates the area where they live. But they do need to be proactive in preparing the people for what potentially could be coming. And this is what MCTS Forward is. At the July T&T committee, we gave an overview of what MCTS Forward is and why it's here due to, again, the projected financial forecast that we're facing. Knowing this was and is still our financial future, we needed to be proactive. We needed to come up with a plan, a way to at least for the next couple of years stabilize our system, make it sustainable financially, and also make it scalable so that if increased or new funding is found, we can always grow the system back. Again, what you're going to hear today are concepts, not proposals, not anything that we want to see happen. I just want to be very clear about that. This isn't something we want to see happen. So what's going to happen over the next three years, and you're going to hear more about this from Ricky when he starts giving his presentation. MCTS Forward is a three-year plan to reduce the system as we know it today due to the financial constraints that I mentioned. What that will do is that will give us a system that puts out as much service as we can afford without any new one-time appropriations. This is based on local, state, federal, and along with some fair box revenue. This is the money that we did our best to project out and said, here's what we can afford. How much service can that get us? And the system that we landed on that you're going to see concepts for today, both cost the same, but they accomplish a little bit different things. And again, I want to be clear, nothing regarding the future of MCTS with the system reducing service has been decided. These are simply concepts for the discussion, and those decisions are still months into the future. What would the 25% service reduction look like? Our service levels would remain the same for three years, which makes us stable. Our service levels can be fully funded for three years due to that 25% service reduction, which means we're sustainable for a short-term period. Our service levels can grow if and when new or increased funding is found, which means our system is scalable. In July, we had a series of meetings with our stakeholders in partnership with the consultant firm from Jared Walker and Associates. And we met, we engaged, we brought in all kinds of stakeholders from the county, the cities that we serve, the area all throughout Milwaukee County. Several supervisors were there to participate. And you heard what we're kind of preparing for. So today, what we're going to hear from Ricky is where did all of that stakeholder engagement, all of that core design retreat that we had in July, where did it land our concepts? And so now I'll turn it over to Ricky Hingara.

Thank you, Steve, for that introduction. Chair, supervisors, thank you for having me here today and for giving some time to talk about this important project. You all met me in September, so I don't want to do a big introduction to myself, but the one thing I do want to reiterate is to make it clear that I am not the consultant that is coming from out of town to tell you what to do. My job here is to lay out the options so that we can have a clear conversation about what transit can be in Milwaukee County. I am not here just to tell you what you should do. I'm presenting concepts because I'm agnostic between these concepts. I really do want to have a clear, transparent conversation about what transit can be.

The first few slides that I have here is to talk.

Some things are a little repetitive from September, but I think it's important. Repetition is important, and it's important because they explain how the concepts came to be. So first, I want to talk about what makes transit useful, and that is access, access to jobs and access to opportunities. Imagine a person. Her name is Jane, and Jane lives in a city that is full of many possible destinations, places she can work, places she can study, people she can meet, all kinds of things that she can do. If we look at the transit network, we can draw a bubble that shows where Jane can get to in 45 minutes. This includes all parts of a transit trip, walking to a bus stop, waiting for the bus, and riding the bus. And if we put this bubble on top of the city, then we can actually count all of the places that Jane can actually get to in a given amount of time. So this is Jane's access to jobs and access to opportunities. This bubble really shows how useful the transit network is for Jane because it shows what she can really do. Like I said, those bubble accounts for all parts of a transit trip. The walk, the wait, and the ride. And if you transfer, they repeat. Waiting time is very important because waiting for the bus is part of the total travel time for transit. And transit riders will tell you that they care a lot about frequency and about wait time. Now, why does access matter? Access matters because it describes the possibilities of things that people can do in their lives. Why? Because beyond those bubbles are jobs that are just too far for people to get to. There are schools that people can't attend because it simply takes too long to get there. So the bubble really shows and the access really shows just what people can do in their lives. And if people can have more access, they can reach more places, then it means that the service is more likely to be useful to them. And if the service is more useful, they're more likely to ride. So we very often associate access with ridership because if you have more access, you're likely to get more ridership. Now, if we want to maximize access and we want to maximize ridership, we can design a transit network to do so. And we can do it by designing a network that follows this recipe. It is designing high frequency service in the places where most people and jobs are. Those are places that are dense, walkable, linear, and continuous. Why? Because when you combine frequent lines in places where most people and jobs are, you can bring the most useful destinations within a reasonable travel time for most people. That is how you grow those bubbles because people spend less time waiting for the bus because the bus is frequent and they can reach more places where the bus is going. So frequent lines in the places where most people and jobs are increases access, increases ridership. That's what you would do if you want more ridership. But at no point in this study am I going to tell you that you should want high ridership. Because ridership is just one goal associated with transit, but it is not the only goal. And so that brings me to the ridership coverage trade-off, which is the bulk of the conversation that we're having throughout this project. And to explain it, let me show you this fictional town that we saw in September. Here, the lines are streets and the dots are people and jobs. And you can see that most of the activities concentrate on two main quarters. So about 70% of the people and jobs in this town are in those two main quarters. We have 18 buses and we're going to design a transit network. If the goal is ridership and ridership alone, then I would follow that recipe to design a frequent network that is focused on places where most people and jobs are, which means that I would design a network that looks like this. We concentrate all the service in just those two routes. And because there's a lot of buses on those two routes, it means that the service is coming very frequent. So buses might come every 10 to 15 minutes here. And if the service is coming very frequently, people don't have to wait a long time and they find the service useful. So people that live along these two routes would find the service very useful because they don't wait a long time, it's easy for them to transfer, and they can reach a lot of places. So in a network like this, you would get high ridership. Not just ridership, but ridership relative to cost, which we call productivity. But this network doesn't go everywhere. Mrs. Jones lives down here in the southeast, and she doesn't have any transit service. If you want to provide service to Mrs. Jones in the southeast, Mr. Smith in the northeast, and to everybody in every little corner of this town, then maybe your goal is not ridership and your goal is coverage. And if your goal is coverage, I would design a network that looks like this. We take the same 18 buses, but we spread it out so that everybody gets a little bit of service. But in spreading it out, we spread it thinly, which means that all of these routes are coming every 60 minutes, even in the main quarters. And so by spreading the service out this way, people have to wait a long time, which means that you're not gonna get high ridership because a lot of people don't have the time or patience to wait for a 60-minute route. Even a lot of low-income residents have two jobs and a family, and they don't have a lot of time to be waiting for a bus. So, in a network like this, you will get some writers, and the people that you get will be very appreciative of the service that you provide, but you will not get as much writership as you would with the Writership Network I showed. But that's okay, because remember that the goal of this network is not writership. The goal of this network is coverage, and it does that very, very well. Both of these goals are important, but they lead in opposite direction. If you go for something like a ridership goal, that is thinking like a business. You get more ridership, so it's a lower subsidy per passenger. It supports them some walkable development, and it aligns with all the sustainability goals. All of the environmental goals from transit come not just from transit existing, but from a lot of people using transit. And going for a coverage goal is providing access for all, just some service for as many people as possible, and it's really hard to be against that. It supports suburban low-density development, and it makes sure that there is some service in every neighborhood or supervisor district, which is something that a lot of people care about. Now, it's really hard to choose between these two, but they are on a spectrum. It's not just one or the other. You can choose a point along the spectrum. But because it is so hard to choose between them, that's why in this phase of this project, we have designed two conceptual alternatives that show what the transit network in Milwaukee County could look like if you focus on either one of these goals. And that is the bulk of the conversation for this engagement phase. Before I show you the maps, a few notes. They both use 25% less service, which is, like Steve was saying, what we need to do is to stabilize the network over the next three years based on the fiscal challenge. But they're both the same. So when you see the redshirt concept, when you see the coverage concept between them, they have the same amount of service. It's 25% less than today. And I want to stress that these are concepts. They are not proposals. They are not recommendations. These are meant to show the range of possibilities of what the network could be. So when you look at them, I urge you to think about the big picture. The details will matter much more when we actually have a draft plan ready. And I also want to say that I don't have a preference between these. MCTS doesn't have a strict preference between these. We really are noxious people because we want to have a transparent conversation about what the goal can be. Before I show the maps, any questions there?

Members, any questions? Okay, please proceed.

Okay. So this is a map of your existing network. And let me tell you about the colors in this map, because the colors make all the difference. Routes are color coded by the frequency of the service, how often a bus comes. Routes that are red are routes that are frequent. So dark red means every 10 minutes, bright red means every 15 minutes. Purple means every 20 minutes, dark blue every 30, and light blue every 60. So in your existing network, you can see that there are five main routes that are frequent, that are red on this map, and come every 15 minutes or better. You have a lot of other 20-minute routes that go along main corridors, like North Oklahoma, the blue and a lot of other quarters that you have that run every 20 minutes you have a lot of 30 minute services that continue to complete the grid and then 60 minute services that reach out to other outer areas your frequencies today do vary a little bit so this is sort of a range that is about every 20 about every 30 about every six minutes now let me show you the readership concept looks like this let me flip back and forth back to existing readership concept existing And ridership concept. Now, these maps look very different. And the very first thing that you notice when you look at them is that the ridership concept has many less routes, but there are more routes that are red, more routes that are frequent. And that is what you do when you design for high ridership. You follow the recipe that I was saying before, frequent service that is focused on the main quarters where most people and jobs are. Now, the other thing this does is that it creates a grid of frequent services. Wherever two red lines cross, it means that that is an easy transfer and people can transfer to get to more places. Transfers aren't bad. It's just important that transfers are easy so that people can reach more of the network. If you don't transfer, you're just limited by what your route can do. But if you can transfer and the transfer is easy, you can reach many places. So the frequent grid is very useful and make it the service get more useful in getting high ridership. But in order to do that, we can't provide service everywhere with this 25% reduction. And so you see that there is not a lot of service north of Silver Spring. There is not a lot of service south of Oklahoma. There are some routes that go south along these streets that go north-south through the county, but there isn't service on Layton. Within the grid, we've also had to retreat back to the one mile grid. And so you see in some places where people might have a route today, but in this concept, they have to walk longer to a more frequent service. So for example, we have service on 27th and Sherman, but there isn't service on 35th, which means that people on 35th will have to walk a little longer to get to 27th and Sherman. Similarly, we have service on Capitol and Hampton, but we don't have anything on Congress. So people in Congress will have to walk a little longer. And that's not great, but that is what we have to do to try to preserve as much usefulness of transit service. And yes, people in those places will have to walk longer, but we do see that people generally walk longer to more frequent service. That's a literature concept. Let me show you the coverage concept. Looks like this. Flipping back and forth, that's ridership, coverage concept. Ridership and coverage concept. Now the coverage concept, you can see has many more routes, but the routes are blue and they are lighter. What we have done in the coverage concept is that we have kept service near everybody that has service today. So everybody that lives near transit today continues to live near transit in the coverage concept. But in order to account for the 25% reduction in service, we have decreased frequencies pretty much everywhere. You can see that there are only three main frequent corridors. There are no purple routes, no services that come every 20 minutes, and there's a lot of services that have big frequency reductions. Some of the bigger ones, you see service on Capital and Sherman that runs frequent today every 15 minutes or better, and that is going down to every 30 minutes. There's a lot of other corridors like North that runs every 20 minutes, and it's going down to 30 minutes. center is changing from every 30 to every 60 minutes. And that is what we have to do to account for that 25% reduction while keeping service near everybody. What that means is that people will have to wait longer for service, so they might not find the service as useful, but everybody continues to have some service. And if your goal is coverage, this network does that very, very well. These are maps, these are the lines, and it's important to look at these maps, but the maps themselves just tell you half the story. It's important to also look at the outcomes of how these networks compare to each other and how they compare to the existing network. So I have two big measures that I want to talk about that show how these networks are different. First is just how many people are close to transit, which we often call proximity. How many people live within half a mile of transit? These charts show the number of people that are close to transit. The first set of bars in the existing network, the next ones are a ridership concept, and the bottom ones are a coverage concept. The full width of all those bars is all Milwaukee County residents. And each color bar shows the percentage of people that are close to service of that frequency. So in the existing network, you can see that 30% of all Milwaukee County residents are near frequent service. It comes every 15 minutes or better. And a total of 82% of all County residents are near any transit service. In the ridership concept, the percentage of residents that are close to frequent service goes up from 30% to 51%. Many more people close to frequent service. But the total number of people close to any service goes down from 82% to 70%. So there's 12% of Milwaukee County residents that will not have service under the ridership concept. In the coverage concept, you see that the total bar is still the same, so all 82% of all Milwaukee County residents that have service today would continue to have service, but the red bar gets much smaller. It goes from 30% to 16% of residents that are close to frequent service. That's all residents. We also looked at jobs specifically, and we see a similar trend where in the ridership concept, more of today's jobs are close to frequent service, but less total jobs are close to any service. And in the coverage concept, similarly, all jobs continue to have some service, but less are close to frequent service. And additionally, we did this for different subgroups, just to make sure that we're exploring how equitable these changes would be. And we looked at low-income residents at the top, minority residents in the middle, and households without cars at the bottom. And we see a similar trend in all of these, but what we also do see is that these impacts tend to be a little less negative for these subgroups. And that's mainly because a lot of them live in places that are dense and walkable and very urban, which are places that would have decent transit in both of these. And so those groups are generally affected a little less than the overall population. But we did this analysis anyway, just to make sure that we know the impacts. And the second measure I want to talk about is access. Those are the bubbles that I was talking about before. And I want to show you an example of what this looks like with these concepts. From Mayfair Mall. Here, Jane is standing in Mayfair Mall and she's asking where she can go in 45 minutes. If we look at the existing network, we can draw this bubble that shows where she can go. Remember, this includes waiting for the bus. It's walking to a bus stop, waiting for the bus, and riding the bus. In the ridership concept, the bubble looks like this. If we put them on top of each other, we can see the difference. We can see to the east all of these new blue places that are places she can reach under this concept that she can't reach today. And that's mostly because of the increased frequency, specifically on north and Burleigh, where now there's 15 minutes service on the Redshift concept. So she can wait less for the bus and get farther and reach more jobs there. There is some red going north and south, and that's because in the Redshift concept, we don't have Route 28 going along 108th. So there are gains and there are losses, but what we can also do is count the number of jobs in each of these. And we can quantify and say that with the Writership concept, Jane can reach 10% more jobs from Mayfirmall. We can look at the coverage concept. So this is existing. That's the bubble for the coverage concept. And we put it on top of each other. We can see that there is a lot of red and there's a lot of red because of the decrease in frequency. People have to wait longer for the bus so they can reach less places in those 45 minutes. And if we count up the number of jobs, someone from Mayfair Mall can reach 14% less jobs, 14% less places, 14%. less opportunity in general going to and from a firm all. Now, I have a few more examples here. I want to go through them just quickly just to show that we did this analysis in many, many different places throughout the county. So this 16th and national existing bubble, ridership bubble, this is the difference. Someone from here would see an increase in the ridership concept of 4% more. If we look at the coverage concept, these are the bubbles on top of each other, and the difference is 14% less jobs. and also looked at the University of Wisconsin, and you can see that if we put the ridership concept on top of existing, it looks like this, and there's actually a decrease of minus 2% here. And that's the general experience in a lot of places. It's a decrease even in the ridership concept. If we look at the coverage concept, and we put them on top of each other, it decreases 7% here. So these are three specific places, but we did this analysis throughout the entire county, and we came up with this map that shows the impact everywhere. Here a dot represents 50 people and the color is the change in access. So green is an increase in access. Brown is a decrease in access. This is comparing ridership concept to existing. You can see that there is a lot of green in the inner parts where we have increased frequency, but there is also a lot of brown in the outer parts where we have removed service. We can see the change geographically, but the more important thing is that we can average it out for the entire county. We can calculate and say that in the ridership concept, the average resident can reach 2% less jobs. Now think about what that means. This is a 25% reduction of service. In the ridership concept, because we have focus on making the service as useful as we can, there is still a reduction in access for the average resident of 2%, because reducing total service by 25% is not nothing. It's impactful. But let's look at what it looks like for the coverage concept. That's the map. It's all brown, which means that basically everybody sees a decrease in access. And if we calculate that out, we can say that the average resident can reach 37% less jobs. And that's what it means to reduce frequencies throughout the county. It means that the network overall is going to be 37% less useful under the coverage concept. But there is still service near everybody. And if that is the goal, then that's okay. To show again, we did the same analysis for different subgroups, so on the left is all residents, then residents of color, low-income residents, and households without cars, and they'll see a similar trend. 0-2% less for the ridership concept, and 30-40% less for the coverage concept. So the big question, is ridership or coverage? It's really hard to choose between these two because neither one of them is objectively correct. Neither one of them is technically the best answer. It really depends on your goal and what you want to achieve. So if your goal is to preserve as much usefulness and ridership as possible, then that's something like the ridership concept. If your goal is to keep some service near everyone, even if it's less useful, then that is the coverage concept. It depends on the goal of what you're trying to achieve. And that is what we're going to the public with over the next six weeks. Starting with engagement process today, for the next six weeks, we're going to be asking the public on a five-point spectrum, where do you land between ridership and coverage? Do you strongly prefer ridership, strongly prefer coverage? Do you lean towards ridership, lean towards coverage, or are you halfway in between? We wanna hear from everybody in the community so that we know what people's values are in terms of this trade-off. And what we're gonna do after we close engagement is that we're gonna summarize those results and we're gonna bring them back to you all. We're summarizing, we're finishing engagement on October 26th. During that time, you can go online to learn more about these concepts, learn more about the project. You can read the full concepts report, take the survey, and then when we close, we're going to summarize the results. We're going to bring them back to you all in December. I'm going to show you what the public said. And that will help you all ultimately in January, make a decision between ridership and coverage. But because you will have seen what the public said, you will be able to make an informed decision based on collectively what the public said, which is just one piece of the puzzle, right? Your role is to make decisions to represent the community. So hopefully that'll help you all make a better informed decision.

Questions? Supervisor Balinski. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So looking at the map for the ridership model or ridership option, it does create a situation where there's six and I guess maybe even seven districts of the county board that become sort of transit deserts. And looking at the sort of political, socioeconomic, historical makeup of Milwaukee County, there's a longstanding perception by, I think, a lot of residents in some of the periphery of the county that, you know, the city gets all the resources and that the suburbs don't. And I feel like, you know, if we do move toward a ridership path, we're just going to risk making that situation worse. And I guess if you have any reaction to that, that's fine. And then... you know, looking at, I guess, all the comparisons you did between the different models was based on a 45-minute timeline. How different would that look had you done it on the 60-minute timeline, in terms of the change in jobs?

It would be something similar where you would probably see something that is close to today in terms of the change in access for a register concept and less for the coverage concept. It would be something that's similar in trends. 45 usually splits the difference pretty well. Different people have different attitudes towards travel time. Some people say that commute shouldn't be longer than 30 minutes. Some people say 60 minutes is more realistic. So 45 minutes splits the difference in terms to work pretty well in most places. And that's the reason why we use 45 minutes. It's not a single correct answer, but yes.

And then I guess my main question on this then is, in areas, other communities where there's been a system like this and then they've scaled it up, is it easier to scale up from a coverage map or to scale up from a ridership map? Because I guess my... thought is that it's harder to justify adding coverage later because those are automatically going to be less efficient routes whereas if you keep a general skeleton and then you want to add frequency to certain parts of that map later you can say look how efficient this new this new spending is and when we're looking at approving spending as a body i think the more efficient we can look at each additional dollar invested THAT IS AN EASIER LIFT. AND SO I GUESS, DOES THAT MEAN THAT WE SHOULD BE MAYBE LEANING TOWARD MAINTAINING A BASIC SKELETON OF A COVERAGE MAP IF WE EXPECT THAT WE WILL GET SOME MORE FUNDING FROM THE STATE PERHAPS IN THE NEXT TWO-YEAR BUDGET?

It's easy enough to scale both of them. I guess increasing ridership is always much easier because you can just increase ridership, put more buses in the same bus. But adding coverage back also isn't too difficult. It's something MCTS is capable of doing. That's actually what happened in Miami when we did this study. They chose something that was between the two concepts, which in their case did get rid of some coverage. And a few years later, they had some... policy changes in which they decide to invest more in transit and they put back some of that coverage so uh so it's happened it's happened both ways um okay yeah and in terms of your previous comment on uh the ridership concept not covering all supervisor districts that's right um and that's what it means to focus solely on ridership uh A lot of the way that the ridership concept was developed is really just following the formula of what makes transit useful, which is ultimately geometry. It's really just putting it where the most dense places are, the most walkable people, traveling in straight lines, and avoiding gaps. By doing that, that's how we get the most useful network, regardless of thinking about supervisor lines. If that is something that you all care about and you really do want to keep service near everyone, then the coverage network does that a little better. And this could land somewhere where you might have some minimal service providing something to supervisor districts and the rest focus on ridership. That's something reasonable as well. But that's the reality of what it means to focus on ridership.

And then finally, just given that the sort of spatial mismatch we have between where people live and where people work, how aggressive are we being as a transit agency or as a county in trying to get private funding to fund job routes?

That is a conversation that has come up as far as the level of aggressiveness. I can't answer specifically.

I don't mean like shaking them. I just mean like we upped the number of conversations we're having with these large employers.

So we have looked at and I've had some conversations with folks who are looking at maybe ride share programs with large employers. But we have to be careful on our end to not do anything that's going to increase our level of spending when we're looking at less funding coming in. So it's kind of a tricky conversation, but if they are open to it, and we see it happen in other cities and other transit agencies where a large employer will cover a lot of the cost and the agency covers some of it, we're open to those conversations and we are looking at all possibilities. And I will tell you this, and I appreciate your questions, Supervisor Polinsky, very thought-provoking. Where what I would like to see happen, I mean, I talked about what I didn't want to see. I don't want to see this go into effect, but the reality is the reality based on the five-year financial forecast. What I would love to do for Milwaukee County here at MCTS is take the coverage concept and add in the frequency from the ridership concept. That would be ideal. That's going to take a lot of funding. And I mentioned our financial challenges early on, but I didn't talk about what we're doing to help make that better. We're not just sitting back and watching things happen to us. We're trying to be proactive. We're engaging. We're working with folks from Milwaukee County, from the Milwaukee County DOT, and we're forming, we're strategizing on how we can best approach the new legislature once they're seated after the November election. and they begin working on the new biennial budget for Wisconsin. We would love to see mass transit funding increase, at least be indexed to inflation, so every year we're not facing a bigger deficit. We would love to see that happening. Right now we're facing federal challenges on the funding level with the new surface transportation bill. That was set to expire September 30th with a tremendous amount of reduction in federal funding. They did pass a continuing resolution which buys time until December 11th. So we're hoping to see at least the same levels that are in the current surface transportation bill, the IIJA, stay steady and not be reduced. And just this week I reached out to 11 members of our Wisconsin congressional delegation asking them to support keeping our levels where they're at, not to reduce them because of how important we are. um sewer pack is you know coming out with a report later this year that shows our value to the region at 366 million dollars annually we're too important not to fund and this is the message we're trying to get out there still looking forward to that bus parade around the capitol on your lobby day later with all the agencies around the state that'd be great supervisor ekblad

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. A couple of questions to piggyback off of other supervisors. One, have you guys calculated the difference in terms of the cost of infrastructure changes between these two plans? Is it significant? Is it minimal?

It probably won't be very much. It won't be too different from one to the other. And you would use a lot of the infrastructure that you have today.

which is mostly bus stops. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off, but I apologize.

I just said that the things that you have today that you would continue to use are mostly buses and bus stops, and this is a 25%, so you would use a lot of what you're using today.

Okay, thank you. In terms of scaling, when we think about different partnerships, and I'm thinking specifically about the 55 that serves Reagan High School, When we think about the ridership model and scaling frequency, if you explore maybe going to the ridership model and seeking different partnerships to increase frequency on specific routes, for example, a partnership with MPS on routes like 55.

You know, I think that's definitely a possibility. I've definitely seen that in other cities where there are partnerships that decide to invest in transit and that can either go into coverage routes or increased frequency. I've definitely seen that. It happens between public and private places. It happens between counties and cities. It happens in all sorts of ways.

And I guess the question specifically for CEO Fuentes. Mr. Fuentes says, are you guys still in active discussions with MPS? Has that topic been raised?

We are still engaged with folks from MPS, and they are actually part of our stakeholder group that we'll be meeting again for the second time later this afternoon. So they are included, and we did have more frequent talks early on. And as you know, they were going through some of their challenges as they were preparing for the next budget. But we are certain those doors are still open. We're certainly open to talking with MPS. How can we partner with them? But again, I'll reiterate, we have to be careful how much we obligate ourselves to knowing that we're facing these fairly large budget deficits.

Okay. Any other supervisors, any questions?

I do have a question.

Supervisor Cox-Jones.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. You stated that you would be holding some sort of public information session to kind of receive input. Which communities are you looking to hold these public sessions?

So the full list is available on our website, riotmcts.com, mcts forward. And we're focusing on the entire county. There's going to be at least five open houses, along with 20 or more just open community events to gather input throughout the county. So we tried to pick locations that are easy to get to on our services, on our buses, and also areas that can focus on multiple districts.

Okay. So a follow-up question would be, in the event that most folks are not looking on your website for this information, right, how else are you informing them of what is to come forward soon?

Yep.

I'll mention that we have a group of stakeholders that we're engaging with separately, a group of key community leaders from different groups, which we're meeting with later today, actually.

Okay.

And we want to use them as an avenue to reach more people. And one of the things that I'd say to all of you as supervisors, everybody that's attending here today, is to spread the word. Help us spread the word. Tell as many people in your network. Tell your friends, family, coworkers, everybody that you know about this so that we can hear from as many people as possible. And that is what we're going to be telling this group of stakeholders. Key select the stakeholders to engage with them a little more closely to really have them help us throughout this engagement period. We have six weeks and we're doing everything that we can, but we can also use all the help that we can.

So just as a suggestion, I'm sorry, before you give your input, I cannot stress enough how informing the barbershops, the gas stations, the hair supply stores, places where people frequent, but by using the bus as well. I feel that that is something essential, that if you really want to get the message out, if you really want to get input from the people who will be impacted by this reduction, that is where you could really get some hardcore feedback from the residents.

I love that idea. Brian Deneve, Senior Director of Public Affairs and External Relations for MCTS. That's an excellent suggestion, Supervisor. And to echo what Ricky said, yeah, it is very much something that we're looking with the stakeholder groups to have ownership on and help distribute through their networks. As part of that, we have a toolkit that we're actually developing, which will have different types of signage and custom-made articles that they can just essentially lift and then distribute in their networks. As far as the actual open houses, the first one kicks off on Thursday the 24th in Cudahy. So we'll be representing that community there. We also have a one at Independence First that was intentionally suggested because obviously they often look through the lens of the vulnerable users of the system. Tosa Library, Center Street Branch Library of the Milwaukee Public Library, and a UCC one in mid-October, which will be a Spanish-focused one. And then we have roughly, you know, 15 others that are going through Sherman Phoenix, several visits there, several farmers markets throughout the system because we really want to reach people where they are as opposed to them coming out to a specific place. But I love that suggestion. You know, we can certainly look further to go dial it down into the neighborhoods. And we'll also be putting flyers on the buses, which can be helpful.

and utilizing our community centers, right? You have Kosciuszko, you have Washington Park Senior Center, you have Clayton Rose, you have the King Center. Those places where people frequent all day would be a good place to have the literature so that people can see it coming in and out of the buildings.

We'll certainly do that. Thank you.

All right. Any other questions? SEEING NONE, WE HAVE AN INHOUSE BLUE COMMENT CARD. MICHAEL BROWN?

Good morning, Chair. Good morning, Supervisor. This whole concept, we met yesterday and everything that y'all brought up, I brought up yesterday to MCTS. The concept they got, I don't like them for let's take the bus driver and stuff out of it. I don't like it for our community. I don't like it for the African American community. They always use Mayfair Mall as the access place for jobs, jobs outside of Milwaukee County. You take in 35th Street and you cutting it off from Highland all the way to Silver Spring on the concept. We have older people. We have group homes. We lost grocery stores in that community. You just heard him talk about the Route 21, that they have to walk to the bus stop. Route 21, that's another 30 minutes wait to catch the bus to go north or east. I mean, north or west. East and west, I'm sorry. You got the Center Street bus. He just said they're going to take that in their concept. That's going to be 60 minutes apart. I brought up the idea because I spoke with some NPS leadership during Labor Day. They talked about how they jacking up the price on them. They didn't want kind of the ridership. That helped our deficit with transit, putting kids on the buses. This whole concept and what you brought up, I brought up about where they're going to have these meetings at. If you were serious about making some serious changes about transit, right? If you have some real talk communication with us about cutting routes and we can tell you what certain routes that you can cut, we can tell you about the routes that ain't doing too good, Let's have that conversation. You came up with your own design without speaking to the stakeholders on some of this stuff, your concept with the route cuts. I feel like the route cuts is basically hitting our urban area, south side, the north side. We yet can't get the jobs already. Now you're talking about crime. Let's talk serious language. We talk about the violent crime that we got off of 35th Street in that area. And that's neck of the woods in that neighborhood. You're going to make it even worse. You're going to make it even worse for a teenager to go out and catch the bus to school. If it's taking them, there's going to be no service there. They're going to have to leave the house at 5 o'clock in the morning to get to school at 8 or 745. So I suggest if you guys go back and look at 2011 where MCTS had 470 buses and you look at The structure of MCTS, how we ran with at least administrators. Let's stop looking at that. Cut some of these management. Do we need all that for 328 buses? Because we still got the same style of management, but now we got even more. We got more CEOs, EOs. Let's start there and start picking with the community. People have to get to work. People don't have transportation. And I represent 998, the union, the bus operators, but I also am a representative of my community too. I'm tired of the crimes in Milwaukee. The wreck is driving. What are we going to do? We're going to have more kids out here speeding and driving because they can't get nowhere. We're going to have more car theft. That's what this plan is. AND WE BRING IN PEOPLE, I KNOW THEY BROUGHT IN SOME OUTSIDERS. STEVE, GOOD PERSON, BUT IT'S PERSONAL TO ME NOW BECAUSE YOU BROUGHT SOMEBODY IN FROM CHICAGO TO MANAGE OUR SYSTEM WHO DON'T HAVE AN INVESTMENT IN MILWAUKEE. YOU'RE BRINGING IN RICKY FROM THE OUTSIDE WHO NEVER HAD ESTATE IN MILWAUKEE. WE HAVE ESTATE IN MILWAUKEE. SO I'M ACTUALLY A U COUNTY SUPERVISOR THE WHOLE TOWN HALL MEETINGS. You and your districts.

Okay.

Old Town Hall meetings in your district so we can't hear from the public, so we can't hear from the people in our community. It's got to stop somewhere, y'all. All right. And it has to start with you all.

Thank you. Thank you. For the record, I believe all of us don't want cuts. There isn't anybody here who wants any cuts. The problem, as always, comes down to money. And the state has not been doing its duty of giving us our own fair share of our own tax money. That's where the problem is. Supervisor Cox-Jones had a question for...

Mr. Rickey and Mr. Fuentes. And my question was prompted by what Mr. Brown just mentioned. The question is, have you, Ricky, personally utilized our Milwaukee County transit system at any time during the day, preferably at night? And the concern is that if there are longer wait times for people, you know, safety is a huge concern. And Mr. Brown brought up a good point where children have to get up at 5 a.m. to catch the bus. I know I just laid a whole bunch of questions on you.

I have used your transit. I have used a lot of buses here. I've used the green, the red, the 30, the Connect 1, the 80, the 18. I've used a lot of buses, the 54. I've used your system a lot. I've used it at all times of the day, in the morning, in the middle of the day. I walked here today. I didn't take the transit here, but I've taken it at night also. I was around... First in National the other day, I took it back night after dinner, not too late, but yeah. Yeah, I've taken a lot of your transit system.

And so the concern is that on North Avenue in Fond du Lac, high traffic area, a lot of accidents at times and crime. And so the concern would be a mother getting off of work, having to wait that long time to get home to her family. I just want you to be mindful that when you are presenting that a lot of people, safety, is impacted with the changes and the reduction. And being a representative of the 13th District, I know that there are a lot of high crime areas. And so I just want you to be mindful that the reduction is something that we are not in favor of, especially considering if there are longer wait times for people that are on the bus waiting.

Yeah, and safety and security is something that is a concern in both of these concepts. It's not something that they really solve within themselves. Having longer wait times in the coverage concept means that someone might be waiting by themselves at a bus stop for longer, and that's what you're saying. But then in other times, it might be in the concept that people have to walk longer to get to transit. And that might be something that is not the safest thing to do in some places. There are a lot of additional things within the city and within any urban place that just sort of put in together the conditions. And we need to be careful that we're not We're not saying that it's transit's fault. There's many factors within the community.

Correct.

But I completely understand. We're aware of those things. And cuts only make those things worse. But we're trying to have a clear conversation about what it can be.

And Supervisor Coggins, I just want to thank you for always showing concern and compassion and always caring about the communities. I'm from Chicago. I rode the system in Chicago. I worked there. My father is a retired bus operator. And primarily raised by single mom, parents split when I was young. I rode the system. I encountered gangs several times, got in trouble with that on multiple occasions. So I fully understand the concerns of safety. And what I do want to stress once again is this isn't our decision. We are not deciding to remove service from dangerous areas. This is going to be a collective decision between us, JWA is presenting the concepts, the county board, the community, the five open houses, the 20 engagements, the surveys, all of that is going to play a part. So this is all of our decision about putting the service where it needs to be. And I just, I look forward to the engagement and hearing more from you and just I want to say how I appreciate your always being concerned.

Thank you.

And if I can say one last thing, just thank you all for being engaged and asking questions. I mean, that's what makes these projects move forward and come out with the best outcome. So I'm happy to see that you're all engaged.

And final decisions for what we end up with is still months into the future. So no decisions being made today.

Thank you.

Supervisor Ekblad, did you have a question?

Yeah, to CEO Fuentes' point, I'm curious about the timeline for these cuts. I appreciate that MCTS has been really proactive with this conversation. I think that's really, really important. But when would these cuts need to go into effect?

That's a great question, Supervisor. Thank you for that. It's kind of a moving target, if you will, based on how we do things here. We won't know what our funding levels will be until later this year, right? The county exec will present his budget and then it gets discussed and deliberated amongst the county board. And it won't be until the mid to late Q4 before we know how it will be funded. But we will be ready, regardless of where we land financially, we will be ready to implement a level of this next year if needed. Again, my hope is we don't have to go this route. I'm simply forecasting there's a hurricane coming. Everyone needs to buy plywood and board up your windows. But my hope is that we avert the crisis and we find the funding we need. And then eventually we work with the new state legislature and we get more increased state mass transit funding. Federal levels stay the same. And we have a long, sustainable future. That is my hope.

Supervisor Martinez. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Okay, so based on what the answer you just gave that Supervisor Ekblad asked you, I think november because i'm already planning one with uh mike brown over here um for you to be able to come because this ridership and the the whole concept and versus the um planning get uh i think that that It's kind of like a sort of an archaic concept that would be really helpful to be broken down for people in our areas. And I represent 16th and National, one of the ones that you guys were talking about. yeah i just wanted to say like yeah like what supervisor cox jones was saying too is people really need to be like informed uh about about all of this because it's sort of been so um skittish and sometimes kind of like hidden um it's out there that we we have a lot of that the hurricane is coming right but i think the specifics would be very helpful to people in our area so Look forward to possibly like mid-November to connect with you guys for a public information session.

Absolutely. We will do our best to be at anything that we can be helpful at. You know, we'll do our best to have some representation there and answer all the questions.

Mr. Stowicki, you've been very patient. Do you have a comment, question?

I DO. GOOD MORNING, MR. CHAIR, COMMITTEE MEMBERS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME. JUST A COUPLE OF QUESTIONS AND A COUPLE OF COMMENTS. THIS CONCEPT, IT'S NOT A PLAN, BUT IT'S A CONCEPT. WAS THERE EVER ANY KIND OF FIXED AMOUNT TO HOW MUCH THESE CONCEPTS WOULD LOOK LIKE FINANCIALLY? LIKE, WOULD THEY BE SAVING THE 15 MILLION TO BRING IT INTO THAT BUDGET? or is that kind of like something that's going to be looked at a little bit further down the road if this is going to be voted on? Supervisor Belinsky actually asked a question I was going to ask about the flexibility of these plans in case there were to be a little bit more money available for public transit. you know, in the next year or two. But a couple of questions. You referenced Mayfair Mall 16th and National and UWM as your reference points. I was wondering how you came up with those, number one. Number two, does any of those concepts include, and let me be totally honest with you, we're against microtransit, but do any of these concepts include have microtransit included, maybe in the small print, maybe something that they're thinking about, but not putting it out there yet. And number three, I mean, any design or redesign, whatever you want to call it, a lot of it is going to be dependent on funding. And part of that funding is Fairbox revenue. And I don't know if you guys saw Channel 6 Investigates. Again, they came out with another one. They looked at three bus routes last year and said that the fare evasion was at 52%. And this past, the last couple of months, they went on those same three routes and they said that the fare evasion was at 51%. So not a lot changed there, even though the company is saying that it's down to 24% from, I forgot what that number was. But, you know, looking at the report for fare evasion for the six months of last year versus this year, I know it looks good on paper, but in this conversation that Director Fuentes and the union can have is how they come up with these numbers, how they ascertain the exact ridership and the exact evasion numbers in that. But just putting it out there, there's a new report from Channel 6 out there. So it looks a little bit different than... the report that MCTS has for the fair evasion numbers. But anyway, thank you for your time. I know it's going to be a like me or not like me situation, but I do appreciate your time. Thank you.

Okay. Mr. Kevin Myers, you have also been waiting very patiently.

Good morning, county supervisors and the others. I should say good morning, Mr. Chair and other supervisors. My name is Kevin Myers. I'm the member of the Same Day Pilot Program Task Force, co-chair of the Transportation Advocacy Team at Independence First, and a member of Transit is Milwaukee. I live in Greenfield right now, and routes 24, 35, 55, 60, and 92, if any one of those routes is shortened or eliminated, is going to dramatically affect my life if we're going with the ridership concept. Like I said, it's going to have a big impact on my life. INDIVIDUAL WITH DISABILITIES ARE STRONGLY GOING FOR THE COVERAGE CONCEPT BECAUSE AT LEAST THAT'S GOING TO GIVE US A CHANCE TO CATCH A BUS WHICH THEN HOPEFULLY WE CAN CATCH ONE OF THE OTHER RIDES. NOW, AS WE ALL KNOW, IN THE LAST YEAR OR SO, THERE'S A NUMBER OF ISSUES THAT WERE DEFINED OR DETERMINED WHAT WAS CAUSING THAT HUGE DEFICIT IN MCTS. They are things like the staff and overtime. There is the issue with trans dev, had additional charges. And then there was some work done between the MC test lawyers and trans dev lawyers, which reduced that amount of additional charges. And then fare evasion, which is probably the biggest thing I think is going to have an effect here. If the ridership concept is going to be implemented, Are any of these information items that I just mentioned about staff and overtime, trans-dev cost, and then spare evasions, have any of these been looked into when analysis was done on the current system to come up with this redesign? Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, we have one more blue comment card here. Mr. Freeman?

Good morning, Mr. Chair, other supervisors. I just got a couple things that I would like to speak on. First of all, we all know that this whole redesign concept thing is deficit driven. Unfortunate that Mr. Fuentes has to come into this situation and deal with this immediately when he comes to Milwaukee. But I would like to just first of all just show you that I am very disappointed in Milwaukee County Transit in the fact that historically the leadership has always worked its way through the system. With that being said, we did not do that for the current leadership. We looked out of state for leadership and you guys made a decision to bring in this particular leadership. This leadership has no stake in Milwaukee whatsoever. As far as I'm concerned, it's just a job for them. They applied for it and they got it. Now they have to deal with the issues that come with this job. But on the other hand, as far as the concept redesign, One of the things that I have somewhat of an issue with is the information, the meetings that we're going to have coming up for the public to come in and get acquainted with the concepts and have questions and talk about what they need in the transportation system. The one thing I do see a concern with is getting the information out of people in the inner city, in the minority districts. I'm just looking at the schedule right now, and the only meeting that we've got scheduled for the inner city is at Center Street Library. And that meeting is scheduled for 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Most of the people who ride the bus in the inner city during that time are probably going to be at work. And those are the people that you're going to need to reach out to. The casual riders probably not coming to the meetings. A lot of the casual riders that are in the inner city that frequent those routes that we're talking about at the Center Street Library probably aren't even paying. So my concern is that we need to really pound it out in the inner city that we've got to get people the information, get them the opportunity to voice their opinion on this. Because the way I see this now is the inner city, the minorities in the inner city, they're going to get swept under the rug. People in the inner city and the minorities are used to things being changed on them without having input, and what they do is they just adapt. Other areas, they have ample opportunities to display and voice their opinions on certain things. And they usually get things done. They get their voices heard. And for the most part, the voice that gets heard is the one that they make decisions on. So that's all I have for not right now. The concepts, unfortunately, are going to hurt us either way. The ridership, not being able to reach the outline areas, the coverage areas with the frequencies that are you know, up to an hour, maybe more than an hour probably. We're in a lose-lose situation right here. Without the efforts or without creative ideas on how to fund the transit system as it is right now, unfortunately we face these deficits. And if we can't come up with, you know, creative measures to come up with money, to fund transportation, we're probably going to be stuck with one of these concepts. And either way, I know for sure that the public's not going to be happy. Once again, I do, and we talked about this yesterday, I get comments, I get calls into the union office, voicemails, and their concern is that that the leadership of MCTS has no emotional state in preserving this transportation system. And they're looking for us to do something about it. And I mean, literally, the comments are, you guys let them hire somebody from out of state, namely Chicago, Illinois, and they're just going to ruin this transportation system by making all these cuts. So thank you. Supervisor Coggs-Jones.

Thank you. The gentleman in the back with the gray suit jacket on, I'm sorry, I cannot... What's your name again? Brian Deneen. Brian Deneen. I'm sorry. I'm terrible names. Forgive me. But Mr. Freeman brought up a good point of the times that are available that you all have listed on the website for the information sessions. You have other locations that are in the evening, but the location at Center Street is from 11 to 1. Would you be open to doing one at the King Library from like 6 to 7.30?

Again, Brian Deneve, Senior Director of Public Affairs and External Relations. We can certainly look at an additional meeting on the times, possibly outside the windows we presented. We've tried to strike a balance of there are some people that go to the library during the day. There are some people that go to Sherman Phoenix for lunch hour during the day. There are some others, obviously, the farmer's markets we've selected, including like Fondy Farmer's Market, which is obviously... outside those normal business hours to try to get a variety of different people using the bus for a variety of different reasons. So while I certainly understand the need for an evening meeting, and we do have some of those programmed, we just try to strike that balance of all the different riders, for when they use the bus through certain times. So we can certainly look at additional time at King Library. We will, you know, recept it to that as a possible another opportunity because we really want to have as much robust data and a very representative sample of riders throughout the system, particularly those communities in need.

Yes. And I would be more than happy to collaborating or partnering with you being that that is District 13. And as you know from previous years, I do listen and learn sessions. So I believe that that would be an area because based off of what Ricky said, that is a cross-section where there are bus transit areas. that goes north, south, and east and west. So that is a high traffic area where we do have a good population of folks utilizing our transit that I feel that King Library will be a good location to do a listening session there, Mr. Deneen.

Thanks so much. And I was honored to join you for your listening lunch last year as well. And so I'm happy to do something more like that with you or anyone else on the county board to assist in this process because it is so very important to get meaningful input from so many different members of our community.

Thank you.

I was just going to say, if we just schedule our own and invite you, then that's not an issue. You'll just come, right?

We'll try to look at, obviously, our capacity and time. You know, we have 20 of these events already, but, yeah, certainly, you know, reach out and let's talk about when we can do these. We do have a six-week period that would be ideal to get it in because then we'd have the official survey information as opposed to, you know, after that point. Again, late October is what we're looking at, so... But yeah, we'd love to. We obviously know this coincides with the county budget process, which is another consideration that is ongoing for all of you more so than probably anyone, right?

Yes.

Thank you.

Supervisor Balinski. Thank you, Mr. Chair. One quick comment and one question. Our future transit riders are going to be our younger people. And I guess as we're making these plans and considering our network, if we can also think of ways to try to get younger riders used to riding the system so that when they become adults, they become adult riders. Because we also have to think about sort of the long term, getting people in the habit of using transit. But my question is, This presentation, this whole redesign, seems to be missing one key component, and that's its effect on our paratransit. This kind of focuses on the fixed route. But if I'm not mistaken, the paratransit map is directly dependent on what our fixed route map looks like by sort of federal standards in that. And so if we go to a ridership map, that could potentially cut off some residents in Milwaukee County from access to paratransit and I guess I would like to have estimates as to how many of those residents would be cut off and whether you'd be able to somehow maintain an expanded map for paratransit even if the fixed route map is shrunk.

Thank you for the question Supervisor Belinsky. We don't have the exact number of how many people would be cut off but as you stated the first thing that we need to come to you know agree on and collaboratively is the fixed route network And then from there is how the paratransit network is built out. As you know, we have a federal mandate to provide paratransit services three-quarters of a mile outside of any fixed route. So right now, we're taking this kind of one bite at a time so as not to choke. I mean, it's a lot to try to do both of them at the same time when one depends on the other. So we're taking the fixed route network now. We have nothing in the plans right now for changing paratransit. We work with that community on an ongoing basis. We meet with them regularly and we're listening to them. We're gathering their comments, their feedback, and we'll kind of cross the bridge when we get to it. But the first thing is our fixed route network. And we're trying to present these concepts, have this discussion, and then from there we can have the further discussion with Paratransit.

Okay. All right.

I apologize. Seeing no further questions, let's move to the next item.

Item nine, from the Director, Office of Economic Inclusion, Department of Administrative Services, providing an informational report regarding participation and departmental waivers of Milwaukee County's targeted business enterprise program and federally funded projects relative to disadvantaged business enterprises and airport concession disadvantaged business enterprises. This item is also considered by the Committee on Community Environment and Economic Development and is informational only unless otherwise directed by the committee.

Good morning, Mr. Chair, Supervisors, Lamar Robinson, Director of the Office of Economic Inclusion, here this morning with an informational report related to small business participation for the months of May and June of 2026 and the first six months of the year. Okay, so when we look at the month of May, we show about $19 million worth of contracts that came through our office for review for small business participation. Roughly $9.6 million was deemed eligible for TBE participation, and contracts held by those certified firms was roughly $2.2 million, or just over 23% of eligible contract dollars for the month, and over 11.5% of total contract dollars awarded for the month of May. When we go to June, we show about $9.3 million worth of contracts that were awarded. About 6.1 was deemed eligible for small business participation. June was actually a good month when you look at the amount of participant or committed participation related to the contract values. Show about 4.4, almost $4.5 million worth of contracts committed to small businesses. About 73% of the eligible contract dollars for the month of June. and just under 48% of the total contract dollars awarded for the month of June. So when we look at the breakdown of how the dollars were allocated for the month of May, we see how that $2.2 million of committed participation was awarded, with about $1.1 million going to small businesses in general, just over 900,000 to women-owned businesses, and then we just kind of continue to see the breakdown between the remaining groups. When we go to the month of June, again, that $4.4 million, we still see a vast amount of the award go to small businesses. Again, we show the breakdown of how that's allocated to the other groups. Again, some of this information is slightly skewed just because of the ability to capture some of that demographic information has been changing and some of that information that was previously available to us currently is not. So again, just want to give some clarification on why we may be seeing some of the growth in relation to small businesses versus some of the other groups that are listed here. And when we look at the first six months, we show about $17.5 million of committed participation to small businesses. Again, we show how that breakdown is generated to get us to that. I will say there is a slide missing. So when we look at 2026 versus 2025, for the first six months in 2026, we're roughly 10% over where we were in 2025. So we are showing greater achievement through the first six months of this year than last year and that is also without the inclusion of DBE goals and DBE participation that we had access to back at this time in 2025. So again, When we look at where we are with the DBE program and things like that, we're getting to the point where that will be coming back online for Milwaukee County and for the state. There's been definitely some challenges in trying to get there with the new changes that were in effect in October of 2025. But we plan to have our programs back open and running with DB goals, participation, goal setting, all of that good stuff, hopefully in the fourth quarter of this year. But it has been a challenge. But I do want to give kudos to the departments, our prime vendors and our subcontractors that are still working. finding value in these programs and in the use of small businesses. And we're just trying to do our part on the other end to see that that continues and continue to find ways to grow that participation and those opportunities for small businesses as well. So with that, I will end my informational report and happy to take any comments or questions. Thank you.

Supervisors, any questions? I was just surprised at the small numbers for Hispanic-owned firms. It seemed that they were disproportionately small compared to the others. Can you expound on that?

Yes, as much as I can, Mr. Chair, Supervisors. Again, it's not always an apples to apples because I believe in 2025, there was a greater utilization of Hispanic-owned firms over some of the other groupings. So it's just kind of the ebbs and flows of the process and where those certifications are held by those businesses. So if there's like an over-concentration in certain areas... where contract opportunities aren't being let in a specific year for those opportunities, sometimes it just doesn't flow. And so again, when I'm looking at that, I saw that as well. I saw that group trending better in 2025 as opposed to 2026. Similarly, I think when we're looking at black-owned firms, they weren't necessarily doing so well in 2025. They did great in 2024, But then 2025, it was kind of a lull. But now in 2026, they seem to be doing better. So, again, we want to see better and increase across all groups. But as we're continuing to work through these processes, these programmings, the outreach, the engagement, and everything that consists of developing and growing these types of programs, we understand that there's going to be lulls. But it's not something that we have yet. we haven't lost sight of but it's also trying to figure out how to improve those opportunities uh inform those groups of where the gaps may be in the opportunities where we don't see a lot of firms certified in that group where if they move over to this group or there's interest in doing this type of work or this type of service excuse me it could lead to increased opportunities within uh specific groupings okay

Seeing no other questions, thank you. Thank you.

Ethan, item 10? Item 10, e-comments submitted to the Committee on Transportation and Transit via the County Legislative Information Center. Click.

There are no e-comments.

Okay. Well, we've exhausted our agenda. The next regular meeting for the Committee on Transportation and Transit is Wednesday, December 2nd. So something tells me it's budget season. All right. Thank you very much, everyone. I believe we are adjourned.