Milwaukee’s The Hop Summerfest ‘Festival Line’ announced
The Hop streetcar
MILWAUKEE - The Hop will offer a new "Festival Line" service during this year’s Summerfest, the streetcar announced Thursday, May 30.
The Milwaukee streetcar’s Festivals Line will be a combination of the existing M-Line and L-Line, with all vehicles serving the full route and making it even easier for passengers along the entire route to reach the Lakefront stop and its access to the festival grounds without the need to transfer. The new line will also reduce headways in reaching the Lakefront from the existing 20 minutes of the L-Line to approximately 15 minutes.
The Festivals Line will replace The Hop’s existing operations during each of the nine days of Summerfest (June 20-22, June 27-29 and July 4-6), with service still beginning at 5 a.m. on weekdays and 7 a.m. on Saturdays and operations extended until 1 a.m. each night of the festival.
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The Hop will use all four in-service vehicles, serving the entire route. Since all vehicles will serve all stations, passengers can board at any stop along the route and reach the Lakefront station without needing to transfer.
Northbound vehicles will deviate from the traditional M-Line route to include the loop east on Michigan, through the Couture Transit Concourse and back west on Clybourn before resuming north towards Burns Commons, while southbound vehicles from Burns Commons will proceed along the regular M-Line route. Headways for all stations along the route will be approximately 15 minutes during peak hours.
"While The Hop has always been a wonderful option for accessing events along the Lakefront, with our new Transit Concourse at the Couture making that connection even easier we are anticipating wonderful ridership during this year’s Summerfest," Milwaukee Commissioner of Public Works Jerrel Kruschke said in a news release. "We are eager to pilot this new combined line, which will both simplify and enhance our service as residents and visitors make their way to the festival grounds this summer."
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With the "Festivals Line," passengers boarding at Intermodal will reach the Lakefront stop in approximately 12 minutes, a trip from the Historic Third Ward will take eight minutes and reaching the festival grounds from Burns Commons will take around 36 minutes. For riders not looking to access the festival grounds, southbound travel times will remain unchanged, while a northbound trip from Intermodal to Burns Commons will be approximately 10 minutes longer than the usual M-Line schedule.
More information is available on The Hop’s website.