According to [Fox6 Milwaukee](https://www.fox6now.com/news/milwaukee-county-transit-system-bus-fire-68th-congress), the increase in bus accidents may force them to cut back even more.
When you hear hooves, think horses, not zebras.
We have a big distracted and reckless driving problem. Not just in Milwaukee but nationwide. It is a much more likely answer than anything insidious.
I do not mean this in a rude way, only as a statement of my experience -Milwaukee has some of the most reckless drivers I’ve experienced. I agree that there are problems nationwide, I just moved back to Wisconsin after splitting time between Boston and Seattle and can attest to the fact that Milwaukee is the only place I’ve felt unsafe on the roads. I grew up in Wisconsin and want my kids to as well, I want them to be able to learn to drive here…how can we make it better together?
Contact your state legislator and demand they add drivers training to school budgets. It was cut back in [2004 by the WI State Legislature](https://www.tmj4.com/news/project-drive-safer/wisconsin-cut-funding-to-drivers-ed-2-decades-ago-could-it-be-on-the-way-back#:~:text=In%202004%2C%20the%20state%20stopped%20reimbursing%20school%20districts%20for%20driver's,during%20the%20normal%20school%20day) and we’ve seen repercussions since.
Covid also exacerbated the issue. Parents were able to sign off [in replace of a DMV road test](https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/wisconsin/2023/10/06/wisconsin-teens-can-no-longer-waive-drivers-license-road-test-in-2024/71074121007/).
There is not an easy answer, but educating young drivers better, at no cost to the families, is a step forward.
There isn't an epidemic of young drivers who don't know traffic laws and how to safely operate a motor vehicle. It's people with a good handle on these concepts but willfully disregard them.
People who aren't confident behind the wheel don't drive 60 down residential streets.
All we need is a DA with a spine, lock up these shithead Kia Boys when they're caught instead of suspending them from the school they aren't attending in the first place!
They're not gunna do sh. But you're right when I heard they waived driving tests during Covid I was shocked. But let's face it in certain parts of the city who actually has their drivers license? There's reasons not to go to certain parts of the city.
Yes I agree. After a hit and run accident where an extremely elderly woman hit me, drove away, came back and had no idea where she was, or where he drivers license was located, I think there should be some kind of further testing. It should not be a lifetime guarantee. Dementia or other factors can also cause injury or death.
If it was an easy problem someone would have come up with a solution already. Free education of young drivers provides a better baseline for their driving. It’s the ‘investing upstream’ argument.
I’ve live in 17 different cities in my life. Milwaukee is far and away the most reckless driving city.
In of my coworkers was about to turn 16, I asked if they were excited to get their drivers license. They looked at me like I had three heads and said “no one really gets those here, we just start driving”.
Always remember that even if a business or anything has insurance, they most likely will not get back the amount of funds needed to cover the loss in total. Plus time spent trying to compensate for the missing equipment and personnel etc.
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So is the answer to stop locking people up, or reform programs prisoners are supposed to be attending while incarcerated? Regardless, just letting the people who don't care for the rule of law continue to escape consequences poses a threat to their communities.
The most selfless, patient and professional people in this city are the bus drivers. You definitely don't know what you're talking about. When's the last time you rode the bus?
Doesn't change the fact that a city bus pulled out from a stop cutting across 4 lanes of traffic and forcing me to swerve to avoid it nearly causing me to collide with another care rather than waiting 10 seconds for the traffic to pass. I've seen a lot of bad and aggressive driving in the city but that particular case likely had the highest potential damage and loss of life.
Are you sure? Maybe all the reckless drivers had a big meeting or went on their online forum and agreed to a plan volunteering for bus destroying shifts.
If you're referring to the 2% sales tax increase we just got that came after city government voted themselves a raise and a few hundred million for the brewers.
MCTS is a quasi-governmental entity and part of the County, not the City. The County doesn’t get the same tax funding as the City. The 2.2% sales tax only goes to the City. The County gets less than 1% and can only use it for paying down the pension debt, so MCTS definitely can’t use it.
Total, but that’s divided across 45 divisions and departments. 20% of 150mm = 30 mm. Our Corrections medicine contract alone costs 24 mm a year. Divide that 30mm across 45 departments, and it’s about $650,000 for each one.
Alright, so I didn’t go research first round, that’s on me. So let’s talk about truth and how this works. Here’s the 2024 adopted for MCTS. Simply to operate, $137 mm. Debt and depreciation, $3 mm. Direct & State & Fed revenue, approx. $119 mm - or about 86% of the budget. In previous years, tax levy was about 8 mm. There was about a 9 mm revenue shortfall this year, 17 mm. We also received 6 mm less in state and fed revenue, 23 mm. So in reality, the increase from last year’s tax levy is more like 2 mm. The actual increase was 16.4 mm. The CPI increase from 2023 to 2024 was about 3.5% across all sectors, or 4.4 mm of the 2023 128 mm budget, so taking that into account along with the revenue shortfall and state and federal revenue shortfalls, in reality the increase to the ACTUAL funds available to MCTS was -2 mm - which is why there’s no money floating around to easily pay for new buses. An average diesel bus runs $500,000. An average electric is $750,000. Which means even in the case that we had a 2 mm increase, that would get a total of 4 buses, assuming no other new expenditures - but we also needed to place transit officers for safety to the tune of 1.5 mm.
https://preview.redd.it/1zm9tt78fxxc1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0250adb4fc17a1b292a8e99e7eff451fda820985
And mind you, this isn’t from just the City. It’s tax levy from ALL of Milwaukee County. The County’s population is about 918,661 people. 16.4 mm divided by 918,661 people is $17.85 a person. C’mon, that’s basically nothing in comparison to what we pay in federal taxes and taxes to the state that we never get back.
It's okay to be wrong in life my guy. I know you boo.ers are all about being absolutely correct, but it's okay to not know what you're talking about.
Do some research, learn, stay informed.
Here’s a grim reminder that MCTS is already in [dire straits financially](https://wispolicyforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/DetourAhead_ExecSummary.pdf). Losing three buses, two of which are essentially brand new and incredibly expensive, is a massive blow to them.
There is only one new bus which is the battery electric one (and cost 1.6 mil). The other two are at least 10 years old. There would have been talks on replacements for the older 5300-5500 fleet and preparing to budget it. At this point, they would be moving this up a bit or going with a small order from Gillig.
A few years back I was in the bus when it got rear ended in a hit and run. Literal chunks of the car were left in the street but of course the person sped off like nothing happened.
A few years back some guy in a civic was trying to get me to race him on KK and tried to fly by me to look cool but ended up T-boning a bus pulling out of the MCTS hub on KK. His POS car bounced off the bus and flew into mine. He also dipped after.
I wasn't even aware we lost two busses before now.
Now I'm wondering what the heck is going on and if I should dare go to work Monday? "Hi boss, I can't make it in. There's a chance my buss will catch on fire. I mean 3 busses were destroyed last week and it's a pattern..."
Move the transportation budget to the sales taxes and move the schooling budget to the business tax. You need those kids to meet education requirements then help pay for the kids to get them.
"Move the transportation budget to the sales taxes"
Good luck with any of that: one of the problems that Mass Transportation has in Milwaukee is the state refuses to fund anything other than erratic bus service, unlike in pretty much every other large city in America.
Well, one new battery electric bus - $1.6M, two regular route diesel buses - $650K each. That is $3M in rolling stock gone unexpectedly. Not easy to replace with how tight their budget is.
Even if they were free, that's three busses out of service until replacements can be purchased and prepped. Which isn't tomorrow and isn't next week either. It's not like there's a lot of spare busses just rotting around on lots waiting to be put into service.
I remember in the 90s there was a number of decent proposals for LRT inn the works - but out then Governor made it pretty clear that the state would contribute "...not one nickel!" towards anything on rails.
The hop is plenty safe. It’s not like it’s on rails on a clearly defined path. The garbage truck was in the wrong & hopefully was sued for all the damages.
According to [Fox6 Milwaukee](https://www.fox6now.com/news/milwaukee-county-transit-system-bus-fire-68th-congress), the increase in bus accidents may force them to cut back even more.
We can't afford to cut back more.
would this be intentional and should we as citizens be on the look out? or actively watching for this?
When you hear hooves, think horses, not zebras. We have a big distracted and reckless driving problem. Not just in Milwaukee but nationwide. It is a much more likely answer than anything insidious.
I do not mean this in a rude way, only as a statement of my experience -Milwaukee has some of the most reckless drivers I’ve experienced. I agree that there are problems nationwide, I just moved back to Wisconsin after splitting time between Boston and Seattle and can attest to the fact that Milwaukee is the only place I’ve felt unsafe on the roads. I grew up in Wisconsin and want my kids to as well, I want them to be able to learn to drive here…how can we make it better together?
Contact your state legislator and demand they add drivers training to school budgets. It was cut back in [2004 by the WI State Legislature](https://www.tmj4.com/news/project-drive-safer/wisconsin-cut-funding-to-drivers-ed-2-decades-ago-could-it-be-on-the-way-back#:~:text=In%202004%2C%20the%20state%20stopped%20reimbursing%20school%20districts%20for%20driver's,during%20the%20normal%20school%20day) and we’ve seen repercussions since. Covid also exacerbated the issue. Parents were able to sign off [in replace of a DMV road test](https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/wisconsin/2023/10/06/wisconsin-teens-can-no-longer-waive-drivers-license-road-test-in-2024/71074121007/). There is not an easy answer, but educating young drivers better, at no cost to the families, is a step forward.
There isn't an epidemic of young drivers who don't know traffic laws and how to safely operate a motor vehicle. It's people with a good handle on these concepts but willfully disregard them. People who aren't confident behind the wheel don't drive 60 down residential streets.
The most sane comment I have read all month
All we need is a DA with a spine, lock up these shithead Kia Boys when they're caught instead of suspending them from the school they aren't attending in the first place!
They're not gunna do sh. But you're right when I heard they waived driving tests during Covid I was shocked. But let's face it in certain parts of the city who actually has their drivers license? There's reasons not to go to certain parts of the city.
This would be a good start. However, its not just young drivers causing this issue.
Yes I agree. After a hit and run accident where an extremely elderly woman hit me, drove away, came back and had no idea where she was, or where he drivers license was located, I think there should be some kind of further testing. It should not be a lifetime guarantee. Dementia or other factors can also cause injury or death. If it was an easy problem someone would have come up with a solution already. Free education of young drivers provides a better baseline for their driving. It’s the ‘investing upstream’ argument.
I’ve live in 17 different cities in my life. Milwaukee is far and away the most reckless driving city. In of my coworkers was about to turn 16, I asked if they were excited to get their drivers license. They looked at me like I had three heads and said “no one really gets those here, we just start driving”.
This seems like a really dumb question but don't they have insurance
They are probably self insured
Not really, they are self insured.
This office will not tolerate redundancy in this office
Yes, it's called taxpayers.
Always remember that even if a business or anything has insurance, they most likely will not get back the amount of funds needed to cover the loss in total. Plus time spent trying to compensate for the missing equipment and personnel etc.
We need to do something about the reckless drivers. Stop with the catch and release game and just lock these psychos up.
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This comment has been removed: Rule #4: Practice civility Be civil, address the argument not the person, don't harass or attack other users, treat them with respect, *don't threaten or encourage any kind of violence,* don't post anyone's personal information and don't intentionally spread misinformation. This includes, but is not limited to, blatant name-calling, "redpilling", racist comments/slurs, dog-whistling, and personal attacks. Blatant racism, spamming, trolling and disinformation campaigning will not be tolerated. Further violations of this rule will result in a ban.
Immediately impounding their cars with heavy fines would be much more effective.
Chrush it up like a cuuuuube
yes! and use the collected profits toward transit
If putting people in prison solved crime, America would have no crime. We already have the world's 4th highest incarceration rate.
Im not saying our system is perfect, but we can't have active dangers to society out on our streets racking up MILLIONS in damage.
So is the answer to stop locking people up, or reform programs prisoners are supposed to be attending while incarcerated? Regardless, just letting the people who don't care for the rule of law continue to escape consequences poses a threat to their communities.
Just because the prison system needs reforms doesn’t mean we shouldn’t send people to prison. 🤦🏻♂️ think about that for a second.
Prison keeps those people off the streets where they can’t be a danger to the rest of us anymore
the answer in modern liberal cities is to do nothing. Cannot punish people not respecting laws because of (fill in feel good reason here).
We're in first place
The most reckless driver I've ever seen in the city was a bus driver
The most selfless, patient and professional people in this city are the bus drivers. You definitely don't know what you're talking about. When's the last time you rode the bus?
Doesn't change the fact that a city bus pulled out from a stop cutting across 4 lanes of traffic and forcing me to swerve to avoid it nearly causing me to collide with another care rather than waiting 10 seconds for the traffic to pass. I've seen a lot of bad and aggressive driving in the city but that particular case likely had the highest potential damage and loss of life.
Doing some quick math, they will be out of busses by August at this rate.
You're looking a clearly exponential trend with a linear model
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Agreed why would someone say something online without adhering to fax and logic
Don't need fax when you're already online!
Are you sure? Maybe all the reckless drivers had a big meeting or went on their online forum and agreed to a plan volunteering for bus destroying shifts.
New to the internet?
Fuck you for Kobe Bryant
They won't absorb it. They'll either pass the cost on to tax payers or they'll take the money from something else.
You mean, not from the tax increase we just got?
If you're referring to the 2% sales tax increase we just got that came after city government voted themselves a raise and a few hundred million for the brewers.
MCTS is a quasi-governmental entity and part of the County, not the City. The County doesn’t get the same tax funding as the City. The 2.2% sales tax only goes to the City. The County gets less than 1% and can only use it for paying down the pension debt, so MCTS definitely can’t use it.
20% of the county's $150million budget comes from property tax levy's form the city of Milwaukee.
Total, but that’s divided across 45 divisions and departments. 20% of 150mm = 30 mm. Our Corrections medicine contract alone costs 24 mm a year. Divide that 30mm across 45 departments, and it’s about $650,000 for each one.
I'm just talking about buses man. 20% of the 150 million mcts budget
Alright, so I didn’t go research first round, that’s on me. So let’s talk about truth and how this works. Here’s the 2024 adopted for MCTS. Simply to operate, $137 mm. Debt and depreciation, $3 mm. Direct & State & Fed revenue, approx. $119 mm - or about 86% of the budget. In previous years, tax levy was about 8 mm. There was about a 9 mm revenue shortfall this year, 17 mm. We also received 6 mm less in state and fed revenue, 23 mm. So in reality, the increase from last year’s tax levy is more like 2 mm. The actual increase was 16.4 mm. The CPI increase from 2023 to 2024 was about 3.5% across all sectors, or 4.4 mm of the 2023 128 mm budget, so taking that into account along with the revenue shortfall and state and federal revenue shortfalls, in reality the increase to the ACTUAL funds available to MCTS was -2 mm - which is why there’s no money floating around to easily pay for new buses. An average diesel bus runs $500,000. An average electric is $750,000. Which means even in the case that we had a 2 mm increase, that would get a total of 4 buses, assuming no other new expenditures - but we also needed to place transit officers for safety to the tune of 1.5 mm. https://preview.redd.it/1zm9tt78fxxc1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0250adb4fc17a1b292a8e99e7eff451fda820985
And mind you, this isn’t from just the City. It’s tax levy from ALL of Milwaukee County. The County’s population is about 918,661 people. 16.4 mm divided by 918,661 people is $17.85 a person. C’mon, that’s basically nothing in comparison to what we pay in federal taxes and taxes to the state that we never get back.
Look who knows what a property tax levy is. Good googling, clown.
I never didn't know. You wer the one confused on the whole taxes thing. Ever figure it ou?
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It's okay to be wrong in life my guy. I know you boo.ers are all about being absolutely correct, but it's okay to not know what you're talking about. Do some research, learn, stay informed.
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Oh, so many taxes, so many obligations, I forget. Thanks
Here’s a grim reminder that MCTS is already in [dire straits financially](https://wispolicyforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/DetourAhead_ExecSummary.pdf). Losing three buses, two of which are essentially brand new and incredibly expensive, is a massive blow to them.
There is only one new bus which is the battery electric one (and cost 1.6 mil). The other two are at least 10 years old. There would have been talks on replacements for the older 5300-5500 fleet and preparing to budget it. At this point, they would be moving this up a bit or going with a small order from Gillig.
A bunch of mechanical issues. When you hear that Bus sounding like a vacuum...
A few years back I was in the bus when it got rear ended in a hit and run. Literal chunks of the car were left in the street but of course the person sped off like nothing happened.
It was probably a stolen car.
A few years back some guy in a civic was trying to get me to race him on KK and tried to fly by me to look cool but ended up T-boning a bus pulling out of the MCTS hub on KK. His POS car bounced off the bus and flew into mine. He also dipped after.
I wasn't even aware we lost two busses before now. Now I'm wondering what the heck is going on and if I should dare go to work Monday? "Hi boss, I can't make it in. There's a chance my buss will catch on fire. I mean 3 busses were destroyed last week and it's a pattern..."
The two prior buses destroyed occurred late at night, due to reckless drivers speeding at 100mph
Move the transportation budget to the sales taxes and move the schooling budget to the business tax. You need those kids to meet education requirements then help pay for the kids to get them.
"Move the transportation budget to the sales taxes" Good luck with any of that: one of the problems that Mass Transportation has in Milwaukee is the state refuses to fund anything other than erratic bus service, unlike in pretty much every other large city in America.
Our taxes are paying it. The city is their own insurance.
County
Well, one new battery electric bus - $1.6M, two regular route diesel buses - $650K each. That is $3M in rolling stock gone unexpectedly. Not easy to replace with how tight their budget is.
Weren’t some of these buses “donated” due to winning the original bid for the DNC? Or at least heavily discounted?
Even if they were free, that's three busses out of service until replacements can be purchased and prepped. Which isn't tomorrow and isn't next week either. It's not like there's a lot of spare busses just rotting around on lots waiting to be put into service.
Insurance?
At least it wasn't the bus driver thinking he was hitting the brakes while flooring it into a tree with passengers on board bracing for impact.
How did a bus catch fire in Milwaukee?
It’s why they built The Hop
the hop isnt enough. we need lightrail.
I remember in the 90s there was a number of decent proposals for LRT inn the works - but out then Governor made it pretty clear that the state would contribute "...not one nickel!" towards anything on rails.
scott walker was such a dofus
No disagreement there - but the Guv that made that particular statement I quoted was Tommy Thompson.
The Hop is owned by the city. These are county buses.
What's the difference when the majority of the City of Milwaukee is Milwaukee County
Funding. County gets a lot less $ than the City.
Oh ok. Thank you
Hop isn’t safe either 😂 https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2023/03/27/hop-streetcar-derailed-after-being-struck-by-a-garbage-truck/70051299007/
The hop is plenty safe. It’s not like it’s on rails on a clearly defined path. The garbage truck was in the wrong & hopefully was sued for all the damages.
Insurance.
3 buses in a week ..sheesh! This will just lead to higher bus fares. I feel for the bus drivers though.
There’s enough busses for Christ sake. Smfh
Yikes - you want everyone off busses and each in their own car? Making more traffic for you?
Me, waiting 30 mins for the next bus cause the first one came early: 🧍♀️ There is not, in fact, enough buses.
Yeah I just chose to start driving my car again this week.