Milwaukee’s streetcar, The Hop, recorded 63,383 total trips this July, the second highest monthly ridership number since the COVID-19 pandemic, according to numbers presented at a City of Milwaukee Department of Public Works meeting Wednesday.
The figure is just shy of last July’s ridership of nearly 66,000 trips, which was a high for the 2.1-mile system in its recovery from the pandemic.
Ridership for July peaked during the first two weekends of the month, which included the final weekend of Summerfest and Bastille Days.
For all three weekends of Summerfest, ridership was up 30% from the year before, which was in part due to the new L Line that merged temporarily with the existing M Line to form the “Festival Line” that included a stop closer to the Summerfest grounds than in previous years. The increased Hop ridership occurred despite Summerfest attendance being down 11% this year.
Ridership during Bastille Days, however, was about 22% lower than last year, something that city officials attribute to security for the 2024 Republican National Convention already being in place and the festival occurring in the immediate aftermath of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.
“Bastille Days is our bread and butter,” said streetcar system manager Andrew Davis-Lockward. “The festival is right in the middle of the line, and our greatest riderships usually come from that Saturday of Bastille Days. But this year it wasn’t as good as last year.
Further, ridership during the week of the RNC and the weekend after was down 28% from the year before, which city officials attribute to typical riders like office workers working remotely that week and RNC attendees not replacing them.
“So the RNC actually hurt ridership,” said Ald. Bob Bauman. “Ha.”
“It’s ironic because that was one of the conditions of the (RNC) contract, that we maintain ridership for The Hop,” said Ald. Jonathan Brostoff.
The Hop saw a sizable boost again during the last week of July, when German Fest, Harley-Davidson Homecoming and the Air and Water Show coincided, the report shows.
Ridership of The Hop has continued to increase year over year, but still remains below ridership in 2019, when the system had a total of 103,000 trips in July — 39% higher than this July.
After many delays, in April, The Hop launched the L Line, short for Lakefront Line, which extended the system’s service about five blocks east to a new travel concourse that was part of high rise apartment development The Couture.
“I think as the L line matures, we’ll start seeing more (riders) during the weekdays, but it takes time for people who are working in those areas to adapt to that and see it as an option,” Davis-Lockward said.
