MCTS Adds 28 New Buses » Urban Milwaukee

The Milwaukee County Transit System (MCTS) recently received a shipment of new buses, and it sorely needs them.

MCTS has been rotating 28 new Gillig clean-diesel buses into service over the past month. The transit system has been working with the California-based manufacturer since 2019. The buses are the same model as other Gilligs in the system, though the latest batch comes with some minor tweaks.

With the new buses, the transit system’s fleet is up to 371, Denise Wandke, MCTS managing director told Urban Milwaukee. Replacing an aging bus fleet has become a challenge for the system, which had watched its fleet shrink from 400 in 2018 to 321 in 2023.

Typically, when the transit system gets new buses it gets rid of an equal number that have reached the end of their useful life (approximately 500,000 miles). “We’re not doing that, currently, because we need those buses to continue with the operation,” Wandke said.

Like the majority of the transit system’s challenges, the issue boils down to funding. The transit system has struggled against a structural deficit for more than a decade, which has impacted both the number of bus routes and actual buses.

The transit system does not have a dedicated source of revenue. It relies on state transit aids and federal funding. The federal government has not offered regular mass transit operating assistance since the 1990s, so MCTS has been using federal funds intended for capital investments, like buses, and plugging it into gaps in operating revenue.

Using federal funding from the American Rescue Plan Act and an infusion of revenue in 2024 — thanks to the new 0.4% sales tax authorized by the county — MCTS will be able to budget until 2027 without a deficit. But at that time, when the federal funding runs out, the system is looking at a $12.6 million budget deficit, according to the latest projections by the Milwaukee County Comptroller.

Today, approximately 30% of the transit system’s fleet is ready for retirement. But even with the 28 new buses, it can’t afford to take any out of service. MCTS will be requesting funding to replace 30 buses every year for the next five years, Wandke said. And because of the lead time to manufacture them, it will take as much as two years between placing an order and receiving them.

The transit system is also keeping a higher ratio of spare buses to buses in service than it has in the past as the number of accidents involving reckless driving has increased. “The impact of those accidents has really been significant to our fleet,” Wandke noted.

In April, the transit system saw reckless driving lead to two separate deadly crashes in less than 48 hours. One of the crashes totaled a $1.2 million battery electric buses used on the Connect 1 bus rapid transit route.

Like everything else in recent years, the cost to purchase buses is rising. A typical clean-diesel bus cost the county approximately $500,000 a pop just a few years ago. Today MCTS is budgeting for more than $620,000 a bus. The difference adds up fast when you’re planning to purchase 150 buses over the next five years.

“And, again, we’re going to see price increases on buses continuously,” Wandke said.

The new buses that hit the road in June come with a few minor changes, primarily for the benefit of the bus drivers, according to Dwayne Reese, MCTS director of maintenance. Notably, the button that drivers press to secure riders using wheelchairs has been moved, so they no longer have to stand up to press it. The new buses have also returned to the flat front design, for which the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 998 advocated. The buses also come with disc brakes and bigger steering wheels.