I took the bus (route 901) from Waukesha to Milwaukee Wednesday for Insight 2007 since my wife needed our car for work. Here are my thoughts.
Cost. The trip was $2.75 each way. You can’t hardly park downtown for that. Of course, if I would have had to pay what it actually cost to run the bus, I would have driven. My fare accounted for 27% of the operating cost (PDF file, see bottom of page 2, in the middle).
Stress. No fighting traffic. No hunting for parking. Just sit on the bus.
Inconvenience. The actual trip wasn’t as long as I thought it would be, 50 minutes. Still it was longer than it would have taken to drive. And then there’s the waiting for the bus. After lunching with Owen and Kevin, I waited about half an hour for the next bus home.
On the other hand, for my purpose, it was surprisingly convenient. I walked a couple of blocks to catch the bus and it dropped me at Wisconsin and 4th, a couple of blocks from the Hyatt Regency.
As Tim Schilke noted, there are people who benefit from having a transit system. I just wonder if there has ever been a program where so few people had so much spent on their behalf.
Filed under: Milwaukee, Transportation, Waukesha
