A proposed commuter rail line aims to do something that Amtrak hasn’t done in 19 years: Bring significant numbers of passengers to Mitchell International Airport by train.
Improving public transit access to Mitchell is among the goals of the revived KRM commuter rail study, along with linking Kenosha, Racine, Milwaukee and other southeastern Wisconsin lakefront communities by train. That could mean revisiting the original study’s plan for running shuttle buses between the airport and a new train station in downtown Cudahy.
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Financed by a $5 million federal planning grant, the Racine Common Council voted Feb. 5 to hire consultants to conduct the new study and to examine whether transit-oriented development near stations could help pay for the rail line. Milwaukee and Kenosha have agreed to cooperate with the study, which will be overseen by representatives of the three cities, the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission and the state Department of Transportation.
Airline passengers have been able to ride Amtrak trains to a Mitchell station since 2005. Yet few do.
“I can tell you that nearly all Milwaukee-based users of the airport rail station are not flying,” airport spokesman Harold Mester says. “It’s typically just a handful of passengers using the (free) airport shuttle for each train departure (or) arrival.”
That’s not to say that the Milwaukee Airport Railroad Station is underused. With 110,938 passengers in the federal fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2023, it’s one of the 10 busiest Amtrak stations in the Midwest, handling more passengers than either the Twin Cities or Detroit stations.
In addition, the airport is a stop on the Chicago-to-Milwaukee Hiawatha line, Amtrak’s most frequent and most heavily used route outside the Northeast and the West Coast. As one of just four Amtrak stations at airports nationwide, it could have helped Mitchell lure passengers from Chicago’s northern suburbs.
Instead, the Milwaukee airport station seems to be a boon primarily to this area’s south side and south suburban residents, who may find it more convenient than the Downtown station. The reasons why it hasn’t worked as well for air travelers have a lot to do with how people use trains, and with the differences between intercity and commuter rail.
Amtrak’s intercity trains, particularly state-subsidized medium-range routes like the Hiawatha, are designed to carry passengers between major population centers.
For business travelers, the Hiawatha’s schedule of seven round trips on most days includes two early-morning weekday departures and two evening departures from each city’s downtown. And if you’re catching a show in Chicago, you can ride an eighth northbound train back to Milwaukee late on Friday nights.
But that schedule isn’t as convenient for airline passengers. Just as Milwaukee and Chicago business travelers look for train schedules that let them put in a full workday in the other city, business fliers book flights that allow for same-day round trips.
Mester notes that the first northbound Hiawatha reaches Mitchell at 7:24 am, “which doesn’t give passengers enough time to reach our first bank of flight departures,” typically between 5 and 8 am weekdays. Similarly, he adds, the last southbound train leaves the airport station at 7:45 pm, too early for passengers arriving during the weeknight peak period between 9 pm and 1 am.
“The train can work out for people flying during the middle of the day,” Mester says.
WisDOT owns the airport station, along with its counterparts Downtown and in Sturtevant. In an email, the department says it doesn’t track how many train riders continue into the airport, but adds, “Overall, we are pleased with the growing number of passengers using” the airport station. With renewed study of expanding Hiawatha service, WisDOT says, “We believe increased Hiawatha frequencies will create additional opportunities for connections to more flights departing from and arriving to the airport, which should have a positive impact for both the air and passenger rail modes.”
The airport station was built with $6.5 million in state and federal funds, making Milwaukee one of just nine cities nationwide with more than one Amtrak stop. Now, after 19 years of inflation, the Mitchell depot is the focus of a $17.2 million project to build a second platform, which will help add more Hiawatha trips by letting freight trains pass while passenger trains are stopped.
Even if Chicago passengers don’t ride the Hiawatha to Mitchell, Milwaukee and Sturtevant riders could do so. But again, relatively few choose that option.
In 2023, WisDOT figures show, 1,384 passengers rode the Hiawatha either way between Downtown and the airport. That was up 70% from 816 in 2019, but it still works out to less than four round trips daily.
The fare is just $10 one-way between downtown and Mitchell. That’s about half what you would pay for a taxicab, Uber or Lyft, including tips.
But again, schedule and convenience are paramount for most riders. With the exception of the 6:26 am weekday southbound arrival, the train schedule from Downtown still doesn’t match up with the airport’s peak periods. And if you drive to the Intermodal Station, you need to pay for parking there.
Factor in the wait time for the train, and “Milwaukee residents can travel between downtown and the airport terminal more quickly and for less money by using the much more frequent service on the (Milwaukee County Transit System) Green Line or Route 80,” Mester says. Regular adult fare is $2 on county buses.
But commuter rail could change the picture. Commuter rail lines are designed for travel between destinations in the same metropolitan area, typically between suburbs and downtowns. As the “commuter” name suggests, work is the destination for many passengers, but others are going to school, shopping, sports and entertainment events or airports, and that’s all factored in when authorities set routes, schedules and fares.
Some Racine County riders might already use the Hiawatha as commuter rail. Last year, 4,256 passengers rode between Sturtevant and Downtown Milwaukee, down 33% from 6,372 in the pre-pandemic year of 2019. Another 828 passengers rode the Hiawatha between Sturtevant and Mitchell in 2023, up 26% from 657 in 2019. That’s 5,084 total, or about 14 round trips daily, at a fare of $12 each way.
The Hiawatha was pressed into commuter service in 1998, when four trains each way were temporarily extended to Watertown to provide alternative transportation during I-94 reconstruction. With stops in Oconomowoc, Pewaukee, Brookfield and Wauwatosa, the service stirred memories of the Cannonball, a Milwaukee Road commuter train that ran a similar route for more than 80 years, ending in 1972.
Ridership on the Hiawatha extension totaled about 32,000 during the 90-day pilot project. That was an average of nearly 2,500 a week, meaning it could have attracted roughly 200 weekday round-trip commuters, at one-way fares ranging from $2 to $4.
However, Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari emphasizes that his railroad’s intercity trains aren’t ordinarily intended to serve as commuter rail. That will still be true even if proposed new Hiawatha extensions to Madison and Green Bay wind up adding Amtrak stations in places like Pewaukee, West Bend and American Family Field, Magliari says.
Like Amtrak, commuter trains operate mainly on existing freight railroad tracks. In Wisconsin, the Hiawatha uses the Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd. tracks. The KRM study focuses on the Union Pacific Railroad tracks, which run through both Racine and Kenosha.
That route would let KRM riders transfer to Chicago’s Metra commuter trains at the existing Kenosha station. It would provide passenger train service to Racine, the largest Midwestern city that isn’t on an interstate highway, notes Trevor Jung, Racine transit and mobility director. And it would bring the trains close to Mitchell, which is just west of the UP tracks.
Although Amtrak doesn’t currently use those tracks, the KRM study outline raises the possibility of contracting with Amtrak to operate the commuter trains. Amtrak already operates three commuter rail services for state and local authorities: The Metrolink system in the Los Angeles area; the Shore Line East, a suburban Connecticut route that connects to New York City’s Metro North trains, just as the KRM would connect to Metra; and Maryland Area Regional Commuter Rail’s Penn Line, which runs from Baltimore to Washington, D.C.
Those Amtrak-operated commuter rail lines serve two of the other three airports with Amtrak stations: MARC’s Penn Line stops at Baltimore-Washington International Airport and two Metrolink lines run to Hollywood Burbank Airport. Passengers can even transfer between Metrolink and Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner at the downtown LA station if they prefer to ride the regular Amtrak train to the suburban airport.
Nationwide, 10 of 27 commuter rail systems stop at airports, including NJ Transit commuter rail service to the fourth airport with an Amtrak station, Newark Liberty International in New Jersey. Some other commuter rail lines, including Metra, have stations that are connected to airports by shuttle buses, as the KRM could do.
By comparison, airports are served by 10 of the nation’s 23 light rail systems, including the Metro trains in Minneapolis-St. Paul, and nine of 15 U.S. subway and elevated heavy-rail systems, including Chicago’s “L” trains.
None of the 33 U.S. streetcar systems stops at an airport. Like The Hop and the Kenosha Streetcar, they are typically limited to downtown and neighborhood service. Even in the 1930s, when Milwaukee’s original citywide streetcar system was at its height and Mitchell was in its infancy, the southernmost lines stopped short of the airport, ending at Howard Avenue. Streetcar service ended in 1958 and didn’t return until 2018.
Electric interurban trains, the commuter rail lines of their day, ran throughout the region, including Cudahy and other South Shore suburbs, but route maps don’t show an airport stop. The last interurban route, the North Shore Line, ceased operations in 1962.
That gives the KRM an opportunity to provide the first local rail transit service to Mitchell. But with the study just getting under way and funding challenges ahead, that opportunity still could be a long way off.
