Milwaukee Mayor Stumps For Transit Plan

"Earlier this month, I traveled to Portland, Ore., and Denver, Colo., to study the highly successful public transportation systems in those cities."

"We visited Portland and Denver because they provide good models for Milwaukee to follow. All three cities are approximately the same size...At the same time, Milwaukee has a greater population density, about three times that of both Denver and Portland...and typically, more people in less space means greater need for public transportation to ease congestion and help move people around."

"All three cities also have growing downtown districts and adjacent neighborhoods...and the residential population that lives within a three-mile radius of downtown Milwaukee is 205,100, which is greater than that of both Portland (138,000) and Denver (188,600)."

"These statistics suggest that Milwaukee would be a good fit for a modern, multimodal public transit system on par with Denver and Portland...Milwaukee is one of the only cities of our size in the country that does not have a fixed transit system in operation, and most of our peer cities are expanding existing systems."