Milwaukee’s streetcar The Hop opened in 2018. It is free to the public, fully electric and has an about a two-mile main route with an extension to the lakefront. It connects the lower east side of Milwaukee through the east side of downtown to the Third Ward and the very edge of the Menomonee Valley.
Some — but not all — of that, could change.
In the past few years, some politicians have been trying to expand the streetcar's route — to no avail, while others are trying to defund it. Streetcar advocates are running into trouble because of a law passed by the Republican-controlled state Legislature in 2023 that allowed Milwaukee to raise its sales tax, but came with restrictions on other city operations. Streetcar opponents are facing obstacles because most local officials do not want to defund it.
The Milwaukee Common Council recently passed an amendment to the city budget asking that the city look into a plan to collect fares for the service. That 2026 budget still has to go before the mayor.
To find out more about the streetcar debate, WUWM's Maayan Silver spoke with Jeramey Jannene, president of Urban Milwaukee, who has been following the story.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Maayan Silver: So overall, what's your assessment of this streetcar project in Milwaukee? Do you think it benefits the city?
Jeramey Jannene: When I look at it, when I think back to when it was being debated in 2015, a lot of the discussion was about, 'OK, we're going to start here and then we're going to grow it.' And it seemed like it just continued to make more sense, even with relatively short extensions. I think if the city can't extend it, the longer it goes on, it is going to have challenges getting political support to continue to operate it.
Why can't Milwaukee expand the streetcar lines?
Milwaukee, when they originally built the streetcar, was using what are called TIF districts, which is basically future property tax dollars from development to fund the system. And that worked very well to get the system up and running. Then the city ran into fiscal issues where they needed to go to the state. And as part of this grand bargain [in the state Legislature] to get a sales tax, the state imposed all kinds of restrictions.
One of them was [that the city can't use] TIF districts or other property tax funding to extend the streetcar, which really limits the city's options for how it can fund an extension. It can go get a federal grant, even if the federal government's willing, but it doesn't have anything to match that money with locally anymore.
Note: Wisconsin Legislative Democrats are pushing to revise the Act 12 sales tax law that limited how Milwaukee could fund an extension, among other restrictions. It faces obstacles in the GOP-controlled state Legislature.
There were plans to extend the streetcar to Brady Street, Walker's Point, Bronzeville and Fiserv Forum. Has any of that happened?
There was a huge push in 2019, in part, to get the short extension done for the Democratic National Convention in 2020 to extend things up to Wisconsin Avenue to what's now the Baird Center. And I believe engineering work is essentially complete to extend the streetcar to Fiserv Forum. There's just no money to actually build it.
If you look at Vel Phillips Plaza, there's even essentially a cut through the plaza where the streetcar is planned to go. That would provide a ton of utility because it would just open up a large section of Westown. You'd be just a couple blocks from Fiserv Forum. You'd be right at the convention center where lots of visitors are. That little increment would add a lot of utility to the system.
Note: While the city hasn't been able to expand the streetcar routes, it has sought public relations help. A new job opening seeks to find someone to lead communications and seek public engagement and sponsorships.
Now, some are trying to defund the streetcar. Who's leading that charge and why?
Alderman Scott Spiker (District 13) was elected in 2019, so he didn't vote on the system's creation in 2015. And he replaced a pro-streetcar alderman, Terry Witkowski. Ald. Spiker has never been a fan of the streetcar. And this year, he's really ramped it up to say, 'I want to get rid of it.' He tried this a couple of years ago, and that amount that the city has to pay back, now it's $48 million. It was $60-some million then. So the idea went over like a lead balloon. Now he's thinking, 'Oh, the Trump administration, maybe they'll just forgive the money that the city owes them.'
The streetcar was funded in large part with a federal grant, and then the city put in some matching funds. The issue now is, well, if the city stopped running the streetcar, what happens? And the big thing is the city would owe the federal government a prorated amount of that grant, which is estimated at like $48 million.
NOTE: Over the past eight years of operating, which has included the COVID pandemic, ridership on The Hop peaked at about 2500 people a day. It's now at about 1500 per day in September 2025.
Just to make it clear, the city isn't on the hook for that money right now. Only if they got rid of the streetcar?
Correct. Only if they got rid of the streetcar. Otherwise, the city, and this is where it kind of becomes a rub every year at budget time — is the city has to pay to operate the streetcar, which costs about $7 million a year. There's about $4 million that the city actually has to pay.
They estimate they're going to get about $3 million in revenue. A big chunk of that is Potawatomi's annual sponsorship. And then there's a $4 million gap that the city has to pay somehow. And the city has chosen, since the system was designed, to pay that using the parking fund, which they renamed the transportation fund. But that's money from parking tickets, parking meters, and then garages and parking lots that the city owns.
Spiker has some people on board with him, right? Who's that?
He's got state legislators on board. He's yet to find a single Common Council member to go on board with him. But he has State Sen. Van Wanggaard from Racine and then former Milwaukee Alderman, now State Representative, Bob Donovan. They're both Republicans. They've both authored a letter to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy saying, 'Hey, get on board with Scott Spiker's request to forgive Milwaukee owing any debt related to the project.'
During this year's 2026 city budget process, Spiker's amendment to defund The Hop got no support from fellow council members, but another amendment he put forward did. Tell us about this.
When we got on The Hop, it was totally free. There's no fare box. The [second] amendment [from Spiker] requests the Department of Public Works, which operates The Hop, to come up with a plan to actually charge a fare, whether that's actually getting people to go enforce the fare or just a please put money in this box, we don't know yet.
And how do you think that's going to go over with people in Milwaukee?
I think the attitude towards The Hop, when you look on social media, when you talk to people about it, is there is a concern that it [remain] totally free. You look at a city like Cincinnati, they actually charge people to ride their streetcar. And then they got rid of [fares], and the number of people that rode it went way up, and they found more utility.
And so the question is, the City of Milwaukee could charge. Will ridership go down, so the utility goes down, and then how much money could they actually get? And to Scott Spiker's point, he thinks it's a matter of fairness that these people at least need to pay something.
