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Report: Ways to Enhance Speed & Efficiency of Milwaukee County Buses

flickr, Milwaukee County Transit

The Milwaukee County Transit System has made changes to routes and technology in recent years, but questions about its stability remain. 

The Milwaukee-based Public Policy Forum released a report looking at the state of transit here, and several possible ways to make it work better for the people who use it. The report, Picking Up The Pace, analyzed the best practices used by transit systems around the county and looked at how those pratices could be implemented in Milwaukee.

The report found that some fairly low-tech solutions could add up to more efficiency and reliability for public transit in Milwaukee.

"We found some pretty simple solutions – ranging from increase the average distance between the stops throughout the system, to introducing technology like transit signal priority," Public Policy Forum senior researcher Joe Peterangelo said in a Lake Effect interview.

A few enhancements the report mentions are:

Small Modification: Buses could be equipped with transit signal priority technology, which would allow buses to trigger green lights at busy intersections. Larger Modification: Dedicated bus-only lanes could be introduced, and bus-only shoulders that already exist in Waukesha County could be extended into Milwaukee County. Major Improvement: BRT could be added to the east-west corridor, providing faster service to the region's two largest employment centers - downtown Milwaukee and the Regional Medical Center in Wauwatosa.

http://youtu.be/3EYSyPBEEuo