David Michael Miller
Have you heard the exciting news? The city of Madison might enter into negotiations to rent or buy land for a new auxiliary bus garage!
Okay, it might not be the most scintillating news story in the midst of a state budget battle and congressional hearings in Washington. However, something as deceptively boring as municipal infrastructure investments can and will dramatically shape Madison’s future for decades to come.
Madison needs more buses, period. At peak service times, all available buses are being utilized. This makes it extremely difficult to expand service in the parts of Madison where transit options are limited. One reason the city hasn’t expanded its fleet is that there’s no place to store new buses. The current facility on the 1100 block of East Washington Avenue has been at capacity for a long time and there’s no room to expand. However, building a new bus facility is expensive.
While the city has valiantly, but unsuccessfully, tried to get federal funding to build a bus facility, it now has a cheaper alternative: retrofitting existing warehouses on the former Oscar Mayer property. These buildings, built to ship hot dogs and Lunchables around the country, could find new life as bus barns.
On Feb. 26, a resolution was introduced to the city council directing city staff to begin negotiations to use portions of the Oscar Mayer facility as a satellite bus storage facility. The city’s various committees, including finance, will now give the project the proper scrutiny but the initial reports are extremely promising.
“Using existing buildings is cheaper than new construction. But this particular location offers so much more than a couple of warehouses,” says Ald. Rebecca Kemble, one of the resolution’s cosponsors.
Articulated buses — extra-long buses with a hinge in the middle that would be used for Bus Rapid Transit — could be accommodated here. Existing water main access also makes it relatively cost-effective to add a system to wash buses. And the electrical infrastructure would make it easy to charge new, all-electric buses.
The location near Packers Ave and Highway 30 offers easy access to major traffic arteries. A report from the city’s transportation department estimates that opening a satellite facility at Oscar Mayer would add next to no “deadhead” time — the costly time that buses spend driving towards bus routes without riders.
Increasing the fleet won’t just add more buses to existing routes, it would allow Metro to expand the service area. According to Kemble, Madison is currently in negotiations to provide bus service to Sun Prairie. A transit contract with Sun Prairie is a true win-win for both communities. Sun Prairie residents would have more transit options at a time when their community is experiencing explosive growth. For Madison, the deal would generate revenue for Metro that could be used to expand Madison routes and pay for such services as reduced-fare bus passes for seniors and low-income residents.
For now, the existing garage on East Washington Avenue will stay open. At first glance, it seems silly to keep an entire block of an in-demand isthmus neighborhood off the tax rolls, particularly for a garage that isn’t exactly eye-catching. But estimates show that the city would pay more to build a new facility from scratch than it would gain from selling the land to a developer and collecting property tax on a condo building.
So keeping the current site open makes sense under 2019 economics. But one of the long-term advantages of the Oscar Mayer site is that there is additional land nearby that the city could buy. That means one day the maintenance and administration facilities could be moved from East Washington to the north side. As Madison and Dane County continue to grow, our transit needs will continue to grow too. The area near Oscar Mayer’s old campus offers the right mix of flexibility, affordability and connectivity to adapt to whatever the future holds for Madison.
Alan Talaga co-writes the Off the Square cartoon with Jon Lyons.