Rebuilding Connections: Planning, Policy, and the Challenge of Restoring Commuter Rail Service to Southeast Wisconsin – Published in the Journal of Transportation Law, Logistics, and Policy, Second Quarter 2016
Travel in and around cities continues to become more complex with increasingly long commutes and new travel patterns. Meeting travelers’ needs with public transportation has posed a challenge in many locations where mobility demands have outgrown the boundaries of institutions that fund and manage services. It is possible to develop new connections by creating new services or restoring those previously discontinued and to reexamine the boundaries and priorities established in existing policies.
This article uses the proposed restoration of commuter rail service between Kenosha, Wisconsin, and Milwaukee as a case study to consider the challenge of creating new policies to meet changing mobility needs. Public transportation policy in Milwaukee and its surrounding area evolved to support the management of urban bus services by individual municipalities. Advancing plans to restore commuter rail required reaching a consensus regarding what form a new regional transportation policy would take and what its priorities would be. Maintaining engagement with Chicago’s commuter rail service agency as the project advanced was also key in terms of being able to meet interstate travel needs. The project’s conclusion, via dissolution of its sponsoring agency, ended a valiant but ultimately unsuccessful effort to reach an accord in the region.
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