Ordinance & License Committee - Regular Meeting

All right, we'll go ahead then and get started with the Transit Commission meeting for Thursday, July 23rd, 2026. We'll start with a roll call. Chair O'Donnell. Eileen Miklitz. Joel Piper. Kevin Reilly. All right, with that, we can move to the Pledge of Allegiance.

of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right, seeing no public comment, we'll move to approval of minutes.

Do we have the minutes from the June 18th meeting?

I will make a motion to approve. Kevin Reilly seconds. With that, we'll go ahead and take a vote. O'Donnell, aye. Miklitz, aye. Piper, aye. Riley, aye. Cole, aye. All right, motion passes. We'll move to item 5A.

5A is to review and act on the Mass Transit Operating Agreement with Wisconsin DOT for 2026. This was held because we didn't get the agreement in time for the last meeting. And so this is for our operating funds for both the City of Waukesha and Waukesha County Transit for 26. The reimbursement rate is 54.27 if all of our expenses come out as exactly as budgeted. The maximum amount is just over $2.4 million. One thing, and we've talked about this with reductions in state funding, I just put in the financial remarks that in 2024, just two years ago, the reimbursement rate was 59.17. So that equates, I just was doing some quick math, that's over $400,000 less of state aid if we would take this year's budget just because the percentages are coming down. So another reason why we've been making the reductions we have and making the changes because of these changes. Part of it is just stagnant state funding, and then also we're coming off the high amounts of federal funding. So we're a little bit below what we typically would see for an average, but not concerned about this year because of the reductions that we have implemented both in January, June, and we'll be putting into August.

Brian, I've heard kind of a quick tangent, but, I mean, Milwaukee County Transit is, they're saying they're gonna reduce service by almost, what, 27 to 30%? Yeah, it's over a quarter. Is that similar to the, I mean, I can't imagine they're seeing less, they're also seeing less funding from the state as well, correct?

Yes, yeah. Yeah, I mean, this is all part of that. It's just, it's the trend, and quite frankly, most of our peers are either started or they're starting to plan for less funding. Because they're using lots of relief dollars to kind of balance things, but they're going to see those dollars run out.

Was Milwaukee County, were they maybe as efficient as we've been with routes? Or have they been a little bit maybe more reluctant to?

They did do an MCTS next a few years ago, but they probably weren't as aggressive now. Got it. And Alderman Piper, one of the things that I will point out, I was going to do that in the communication, but since you brought it up, that could affect this, because it's a significant change in their service and their planning to implement. In fall of 27, it could affect how Route 1 operates or levels of service of that. I mean, they don't get to dictate everything, but if they're not able to fund as much or if they do a significant change to redesign, there might be a change to Route 1.

And Route 1 is the one that goes out to freighters?

It goes out to freighters. But nothing, we'll know by the end of the year, is when they're planning to roll out their plan.

I'll make a motion to approve the Mass Transit Operating Area Agreement with the State of Wisconsin DOT for 2026 as presented.

I'll second. I think we have a motion to second.

Any other discussion?

We'll take a vote. O'Donnell, aye. Vicklitz, aye. Piper, aye. Riley, aye. All right, motion passes. We'll move to item 6A.

6A is our mid-year ridership report. So this is ridership through June 30th of 2026. On the fixed route side, we did have a decrease over the same period of 8.5%, but it should be noted that we are running 22% less service hours over that same period. So, the total ridership is down, but passengers per hour, which is our ridership efficiency, measured is up at 9.4 from 8, so that's a 17.5% increase. And then, one thing, and Alex and I were talking about this after the council presentation a couple weeks ago, just wanted to put in, like, what our average weekday ridership and Saturday, Sunday, and it's there. It's just under 1,500. And this is through the first six months of the year. Saturdays, it's 850 and just over 500 on Sunday. One thing to note on Sunday is we're only operating four routes. And we have less hours, significantly less hours on Saturday as well.

So Brian, to get to the 9.4, the total of the The weekday, Saturday, Sunday, that would be probably the numerator. What's the denominator in that? I mean, how many revenue hours do we have to get to that 9.4?

It's roughly 155 hours per weekday, so it would be 7... I should have this in my head. It's 155 hours per weekday, and then that's, I forget how much we have Saturday. I think Saturday's around 90-some, and Sunday it's 50 or so.

Could you just email us the math? That came up at council too, right? I still think there's some members of the council that were still a little confused on how we get to that 9.4.

Yeah, we can do that.

I think that'd be very helpful.

No, thank you. Thank you. And then the last thing, just to, if there's... No other questions. Just Metrolift continues to grow at 16.5% over the same period. It's projected to be highest since 2012.

Does Metrolift go up to the freighter as well?

Yes. We're mandated to provide the ADA requires us to have service, Metrolift service within a three quarter mile radius of our fixed routes. But a number of, probably four years ago, I think we recommended to this board and then to the council that because we knew we were going to be bringing the service in in the city, that we'll serve the entire city of Waukesha with MetroLift. So we go a little bit beyond, but it isn't like a significant number of riders. But it allows all taxpayers to have that service, which is kind of a philosophy.

And are there fixed routes with Metrolift, or it's by, someone calls and says, hey, I need a ride from my house to ProHealth.

Well, you have, for MetroLift, they have to be approved. There's an approval process. They have to go through, and they have to have a physician sign off that they have a disability that's significant that they cannot ride the fixed route.

Right, but it's not like a fixed route, as someone can just call and say, I need... Yeah, it's dial-a-ride, basically.

Okay, gotcha. That's the end of that report.

All right, does anybody have anything else?

Are we going to talk about this in public works, or is this just information? Oh, we did that at 5 o'clock.

You missed it.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I can, if you want to, if you want to stay.

No, I know, I was running late. I'm sorry.

If you want to stay, I can go over it with you.

No, I just was going to comment that I think this is a really nice one-pager. As I read through the bullet points, this hits all of the points that I've been trying to make with constituents for 20 years.

And if I can thank Rebecca and Andrew from the communications team. You also have the other, this less than aesthetic, they boiled that down into that, which is amazing what they did. So I appreciate Rebecca and her team for the work.

Can I get this in a PDF?

Yes, I can email you all that along with that other information.

I'm going to put this on LinkedIn and a couple of other places because this is really helpful. And I'm sorry I missed the tour.

No, that's fine. We can run another bus through the car. Can we post this with the minutes? Yeah, let's do that.

And will all the other council members get that as well? Yes. Okay. All right. Perfect. All right. Anything else?

With that, we are adjourned.