MILWAUKEE — Milwaukee County Transit System (MCTS) said on Tuesday it will reduce its services starting on Aug. 24, 2025 through the rest of the year due to a budget deficit.

What You Need To Know

  • Milwaukee County Transit System (MCTS) said on Tuesday it will reduce its services starting on Aug. 24, 2025 through the rest of the year

  • That includes a pullback of about 20,000 hours in service, but does not include cutting any routes completely

  • MCTS said if it doesn’t change its operations, it will exceed its adopted 2025 budget

  • It faces a deficit of $10.9 million

That includes a pullback of about 20,000 hours in service, but does not include cutting any routes completely, officials said.

“Reducing the frequency of buses is the last thing we want to do, but it will have the least impact on our riders. We provide 80,000 rides a day — that’s tens of thousands of Milwaukee County residents who depend on us to get to work, school and medical care,” said MCTS Interim President and CEO Julie Esch in a release.

MCTS said if it doesn’t change its operations, it will exceed its adopted 2025 budget. The city bus service faces an estimated $10.9 million deficit.

MCTS said that’s due to “unexpected expenses and lower passenger revenue.”

The reduction in hours will affect routes that are high-frequency with the lowest ridership in mid-day. MCTS said this will be on “non-peak weekday routes.”

MCTS said this will also affect route frequency levels on Saturdays.

Leaders did not disclose which routes would experience changes in service, but said those will be announced soon.

This isn’t the first time MCTS has faced tough choices about adjusting services. It’s been forced to eliminate Freeway Flyers, school routes and special event shuttles over the years. MCTS, only in 2023, reinstated its popular shuttles to Summerfest after it was forced to suspend them due to a shortage of drivers.

A Five-Year Financial Forecast 2024-2028 report released by the Comptroller’s Office two years ago, in 2023, also predicted that at least 20% of MCTS bus services could be eliminated by 2025. It said increasing costs, lower revenue collected from fares amid falling ridership and tax levy funding that’s less than half what it was pre-2017, would be to blame.

MCTS said that despite having to reduce some service, it will still move forward with MOVE 2025 improvements, which include four new routes, in the fall.

Riders can monitor service changes online.

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