Chicago/Milwaukee Differences or How to Enjoy What's Unique in Milwaukee When You're a Chicagoland Native (Rock Island: subsidized, prices)

[reppin_the_847]

You know the hilarious part (in a sad way) about all of this is that the rail infrastructure was already there, but ended up being abandoned & torn up in January of 1963. A tiny segment of this ended up becoming what we now know as the Skokie Swift (Yellow Line CTA train). We essentially had frequent rail service from Chicago to Milwaukee up & down the shore until this point in time.

I could understand the infrastructure being abandoned and the service being canceled amidst the mounting losses the service was incurring at the time. Coincidentally, the But I don't understand the point of tearing up & destroying the rails & infrastructure. Folks didn't realize that transit would make a comeback in later years.

Originally Posted by Milwaukee City

Closer ties with Chicago would benefit Milwaukee - JSOnline

Boy it seems like the Milwaukee papers are going all in with this Chicago/Milwaukee regional effort stuff, it' now a weekly full page story for the last 4 weeks.

[rparz]

How is the public transportation system in Milwaukee? Comparable to CTA? Once you get there, can you get around reasonably easy, or is it pretty car-dependent?

[MKE-Ed]

Milwaukee actually has a very good public transit system. All of the routes have their own published schedules and they are usually within 5-7 minutes of the times that are posted. The system, Milwaukee County Transit System, has actually been cut back, but some of the key routes have now been extended with service well past 2:00am. I still have memories of waiting for the Addiosn street bus to come and wondering when it would when all of a sudden 5 buses would show up at the same time. This was a very common occurrence when I lived in Chicago back in the early 1990s. Here, this has only happened three times in the years that I have been living here. They do make a real effort to make sure the system runs on time. The buses are clean and well maintained.

[Milwaukee City]

I will disagree with Mr.Ed a little bit, it sounds like Ed is describing MCTS(Milwaukee Country Transit System) in the 90's when what he describes was the truth. Now MCTS keeps changing routes every year, the cost for riding is $2.25 which is the same for Chi and NYC subway I believe and the buses are always late but what do you expect they do have traffic and stopping and going all the time to deal with. MCTS just bought a whole new bunch of buses the "clean diesel" buses as they call them. They make it a point to say how green they are being on the back of every MKE bus they have in big white letters "This is a clean diesel bus, near zero emissions" and a picture of a leaf. Plus the routes that MCTS has setup make no sense to me, way to many lines that zig and zag and lines that don't make sense. I believe MCTS buses stop running at 1am on weekends IMO they should keep some of the lines open until 3am. Now MCTS has introduced color express lines such as the red line, green line and blue lines maybe they are just trying to be more like chicago. If you ask me the people who run MCTS don't have a brain that god gave a goose and couldn't run a lemonade stand and make a profit. MCTS used to have bus stop literally on every other corner and the buses were stopping way to much now they have done one good thing and spaced them out a little bit.

[BNboy07]

Native Milwaukeean (Bay View neighborhood) now living in Chicago's Hyde Park.

I've only been here a few months and I still miss the heck out of Milwaukee from time to time. But I moved hoping to experience a bigger city and also just to get out of Milwaukee for at least some period of my life.

That said, I do get a bit perturbed when I hear people here mock Milwaukee so much and say things like "the only thing to do is to get drunk and bomb a hill on a skateboard." To dismiss Milwaukee so quickly seems stupid. If there's really nothing in Milwaukee, well, there's nothing in 1,000s of other cities in Wisconsin/Illinois, which I think we all know isn't true.

Some things to see in Milwaukee:
-Take a drive through downtown. It's true, MKE's downtown can look pretty dead people wise (we don't have thousands of tourists crowding the sidewalks), but there's still cool things to see. Lots of historic buildings, different cultural sites, etc... The Art Museum is an obvious choice. That will lead you to the lakefront, which is also quite pretty.
-South of downtown, the Third Ward is closest and maybe an area Chicagoans would feel most at home. Loft condos, boutiques, places to eat, etc... Going farther south, Walker's Point seems to be coming up slowly. Home to the city's gay bar district. Just west, is the "near south side," which is what most out-of-towners (at least all the Chicago kids I went to college with) assumed is the whole south side. The south side is much larger, but I digress. The near south side was historically Polish. It's where my mom and her family grew up. Mitchell Street was once the "Polish downtown." The area is now overwhelmingly Hispanic. There's still cool stuff to see. Lots of churches. St. Josaphat's basilica is my favorite. Worth a tour.
-Still south, closer to the lake, you'll find Bay View. Since it's my home neighborhood, I'm biased, but I think it's great.
-North of downtown, close to the lake is what Milwaukeeans call "The East Side," which includes Brady Street, North Avenue, the UWM area and other neighborhoods. Brady and North are two of the city's top dining/barhopping districts.
-The North Shore is nice but more family oriented. Drive along the lakeshore through Shorewood, Whitefish Bay, etc.. Check out the mansions.

[reppin_the_847]

Spot on. Milwaukee has a ton of untapped value and its location on the lake shore is excellent (and you have the pro sports teams, festivals, etc.). It seems like a no-brainer to me to have increased rail connectivity between Milwaukee & Chicago (esp. with Mitchell Airport being situated on the route just south of Milwaukee).

The distance is similar to Philly - NYC. Probably even shorter. I know Milwaukee's a lot smaller than Philly, but still, Milwaukee has enough density to warrant a better transit connection to the Chicagoland area than what is presently available.

Originally Posted by BNboy07

Native Milwaukeean (Bay View neighborhood) now living in Chicago's Hyde Park.

I've only been here a few months and I still miss the heck out of Milwaukee from time to time. But I moved hoping to experience a bigger city and also just to get out of Milwaukee for at least some period of my life.

That said, I do get a bit perturbed when I hear people here mock Milwaukee so much and say things like "the only thing to do is to get drunk and bomb a hill on a skateboard." To dismiss Milwaukee so quickly seems stupid. If there's really nothing in Milwaukee, well, there's nothing in 1,000s of other cities in Wisconsin/Illinois, which I think we all know isn't true.

Some things to see in Milwaukee:
-Take a drive through downtown. It's true, MKE's downtown can look pretty dead people wise (we don't have thousands of tourists crowding the sidewalks), but there's still cool things to see. Lots of historic buildings, different cultural sites, etc... The Art Museum is an obvious choice. That will lead you to the lakefront, which is also quite pretty.
-South of downtown, the Third Ward is closest and maybe an area Chicagoans would feel most at home. Loft condos, boutiques, places to eat, etc... Going farther south, Walker's Point seems to be coming up slowly. Home to the city's gay bar district. Just west, is the "near south side," which is what most out-of-towners (at least all the Chicago kids I went to college with) assumed is the whole south side. The south side is much larger, but I digress. The near south side was historically Polish. It's where my mom and her family grew up. Mitchell Street was once the "Polish downtown." The area is now overwhelmingly Hispanic. There's still cool stuff to see. Lots of churches. St. Josaphat's basilica is my favorite. Worth a tour.
-Still south, closer to the lake, you'll find Bay View. Since it's my home neighborhood, I'm biased, but I think it's great.
-North of downtown, close to the lake is what Milwaukeeans call "The East Side," which includes Brady Street, North Avenue, the UWM area and other neighborhoods. Brady and North are two of the city's top dining/barhopping districts.
-The North Shore is nice but more family oriented. Drive along the lakeshore through Shorewood, Whitefish Bay, etc.. Check out the mansions.

[Milwaukee City]

Originally Posted by reppin_the_847

The distance is similar to Philly - NYC. Probably even shorter. I know Milwaukee's a lot smaller than Philly, but still, Milwaukee has enough density to warrant a better transit connection to the Chicagoland area than what is presently available.

What's wrong with the Hiawatha line? Seven daily each way (Mon - Sat), Six daily each way (Sun), Travel time: 1 hour, 29 minutes, 2,245 daily riders, last year 819,493 2011 total.

Milwaukee-MKE Airport-Racine-Glenview-Chicago, $24 one way from MKE to Union Station.

Hiawatha Service - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[reppin_the_847]

What the Hiawatha severely lacks is late night service. You can't expect to take the Amtrak from Milwaukee into Chicago, catch a pro sports game or night at the opera and catch a train the same night back to Milwaukee in the same fashion that one could on the Metra trains from Chicago's suburbs. It's decent as a pure commuter train or daytime train, but that's about it.

Compare that to the numerous train options between NYC & Philadelphia and it is a joke. NYC & Philly practically have 24 hour service on their Northeast Regional Amtrak lines, as well as a more budget friendly NJ Transit - SEPTA commuter train connection between the two cities. The Amtrak run between NYC & Philly takes about the same amount of time as Milwaukee - Chicago on the Hiawatha.

Originally Posted by Milwaukee City

What's wrong with the Hiawatha line? Seven daily each way (Mon - Sat), Six daily each way (Sun), Travel time: 1 hour, 29 minutes, 2,245 daily riders, last year 819,493 2011 total.

Milwaukee-MKE Airport-Racine-Glenview-Chicago, $24 one way from MKE to Union Station.

Hiawatha Service - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[MannheimMadman]

$50 to ride there and back? No thanks; I'll just drive.

[reppin_the_847]

It would be nice if they could find a way to subsidize the service and turn it into $15 each way. If it was only $15 and there was greater frequency on the Hiawatha, I guarantee that more people would consider commuting (from WI to IL) given the much cheaper cost of living in WI.

Originally Posted by MannheimMadman

$50 to ride there and back? No thanks; I'll just drive.