The Downtown Milwaukee streetcar cleared yet another hurdle last week as the city received approval to spend $54.9 million in federal grant money to continue its planning.
While many in Milwaukee anticipate the return of this form of public transportation, and others debate its merits, Kenosha Transit's electric streetcar system celebrated its first decennial last year and has already launched into its 11th year of service.
After being absent from the city's transportation scene for 68 years, streetcars were brought back to Kenosha in 2000 as part of a long-term revitalization plan.
"Reintroduction of the streetcars was a tool for developing downtown travel," says Ron Iwen, director of Kenosha Transit for the last two years.
Streetcar ridership is around 60,000 every year.
Downtown Kenosha lost its largest employer when the American Motors main engine plant located there closed. Chrysler, which bought American Motors, shut down the lakefront plant for good in 1988 (Chrysler operated another plant in mid-town Kenosha until 2010). No one wanted the large compound which had been the site of numerous assembly plants since 1902, anchoring the city to the lakefront for nearly a century, to sit empty. The plan for mixed-use development on the former industrial site included the streetcar line nearly from the beginning.
The streetcar line connects the Metra station on the west end to a marina, housing, bars and two lakefront parks on the east. Along the two-mile route are the Kenosha Public Museum, the Dinosaur Museum and the Civil War Museum, as well as the court house, post office and civic center.
It's a 15-minute ride to do the entire line. The fare is $1 for people age 13 and older, 50 cents for kids 12 and under.
Kenosha Transit operates the Joseph McCarthy Transit Center in the middle of the circuit (the center is named after a former transportation director, not the U.S. senator from Wisconsin). The transit center is on the north end, near Kenosha Harbor and the third park on the line.
The transit center is also known as the "streetcar barn" and it's where Bradley Preston has worked for the last eight years as Kenosha's streetcar mechanic.
"These are great cars. I've always enjoyed them," says Preston, who has worked for Kenosha Transit since 1985.
Kenosha Transit has a total of eight streetcars, two from Philadelphia and six from Toronto. All but the two most recent additions have been repainted in the color schemes of five different city's transit systems, Chicago, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Toronto and Johnstown / Kenosha.
The Johnstown car, which is one of two originally from Pittsburgh, has a destination sign familiar to Milwaukeeans: Route 10 Wells / Farwell.
A different color-schemed streetcar is run every day and only one car is used each day.
On popular lakefront holidays and events, such as Fourth of July and when the tall ships are in the harbor, Kenosha operates three cars. Because of power supply limitations, three cars is the maximum that can be run at one time along the circuit.
"We could run them bumper-to-bumper, if there was more power," says Preston.
The current streetcar loop was built all new in 2000, but Kenosha still has old streetcar lines under some city streets. Most of the circuit runs in grassy medians on 54th and 56th Streets, with new track and road tar taking up the least amount of lane space possible on 11th Avenue near the Metra station.
The Kenosha streetcar model was designed in 1939. They are President's Conference Committee (P.C.C.) cars, assembled by the Canadian Car and Foundry Company with parts made by the St. Louis Car Company.
The name of the A8 class P.C.C. comes from the Electric Railway President's Conference Committee, convened in the early '30s and comprised of the presidents of privately owned street railway companies seeking to create better streetcars.
There are currently 6,000 streetcars in North America and 12,000 in Europe. Many are older than the P.C.C. class cars, dating even to the late 1800s.
The P.C.C.s are a now classic design and marvels of engineering technology in their age. All of Kenosha Transit's cars were built between 1948 and 1951 and, with a storehouse of parts and spare "trucks" (wheel assemblies), the streetcars can run indefinitely.
"They need maintenance, like everything else, but it's comparable to new vehicles," says Preston. "Sometimes it can be a bit of a challenge, since we can't just call up the factory and get parts."
Kenosha acquired the extra 11 streetcar trucks from the Chicago Transit Authority, which stopped running the electric cars in the late '90s.
Like modern buses, there's only a "go" and a "stop" pedal that operates the streetcars.
"There's no cruising, like in a car. If the car is going, it's accelerating," says Preston.
Braking the electric motors generates a lot of heat, which is trapped and used inside the car.
There's a display inside the streetcar barn with the same wiring diagram as the streetcars that demonstrates how the electric motor works. Preston says that every city that had streetcars would have a similar display to train mechanics.
"And it's great for tours," he says.
Preston can also hook cars up inside the barn to the electric motor display – via jumper cables – and use it to move the cars around.
The top speed of the streetcars is 38 miles per hour.
"They were designed to keep up with traffic. At that time, the 1930s V8 Ford was the standard model of what was in traffic. The cars can accelerate at this rate with one person or 100 people on them," says Preston.
The cars are able to hold approximately 100 people by weight. There are 38 seats on each streetcar with room for two wheelchairs. Each car has a wheelchair lift. While the interior appearance is quite similar to what a modern bus rider is accustomed, the streetcar's aisle width is more akin to a mansion's grand staircase than a bus aisle.
To save on funding operations in the winter, the streetcar only runs on weekends from the beginning of January through the end of February. Normal route operations are seven days a week, usually until after 6 p.m., especially during the summer months.
Preston says the streetcars will be packed again as early as March, when Kenosha area school children bus to the lakefront to tour all three museums, taking the streetcar to each of them.
While the streetcar serves the transportation needs of Downtown residents, it's also a tourist draw.
"People come from far and wide to see them," says Preston. "In the last couple of years, New Zealand wins the long-distance award. We also recently had four guys from Sweden, who were in town for a different purpose, come by just to ride."
Royal has taught courses in critical pedagogy, writing, rhetoric and cultural studies at several schools in Wisconsin and Minnesota. He is currently Adjunct Associate Professor of Humanities at Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design.
Royal lives in Walker’s Point with his family and uses the light of the Polish Moon to illuminate his way home.
