The wheels on the bus go round and round – that is, until 2010, when the Milwaukee County Transit System could come to a screeching halt, according to county officials.

Funds for the bus system have failed to keep pace with inflation in the past five years and without a significant change, MCTS will run out of money, according to Sonia Dubielzig, transportation planner for the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission.,”

The wheels on the bus go round and round – that is, until 2010, when the Milwaukee County Transit System could come to a screeching halt, according to county officials.

Funds for the bus system have failed to keep pace with inflation in the past five years and without a significant change, MCTS will run out of money, according to Sonia Dubielzig, transportation planner for the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission.

"We're in grave danger of having to cut a significant portion of routes," Dubielzig said.

The commission held a public meeting about the state of the transit system Tuesday at the Zoofari Conference Center, 9715 W. Bluemound Road, the last of four such meetings.

"We need additional funding in the coming years," said Jackie Janz, community relations manager for MCTS. "We want to generate discussion."

At the meeting, the commission presented its evaluation of MCTS and asked for public opinion about the buses.

The most popular suggestions for improving MCTS were extending routes and hours of operation, making fares cheaper and putting bike racks on the buses.

Unfortunately, improvements can't be made until MCTS finds more cash.

"We're in an unfortunate state of affairs," said First District Milwaukee County Supervisor James White, chair of the board's Transportation, Public Works and Transit Committee. "We're the last major urban transit system to be funded by property taxes."

The federal, state and county governments provide a combined 65 percent of the transit system's $150 million budget. Rider fares cover the other 35 percent, according to Janz.

While state funding has risen slightly in recent years, it has not kept up with inflation, and county funding has simply plateaued, according to Dubielzig.

In 2001, MCTS had to start dipping into its $37 million reserve fund to keep the buses rolling. The reserve now holds around $12 million.

Without more funding, MCTS will exhaust its reserve by 2010 and will have to cut 35 percent of its service, Dubielzig said.

But what does a 35 percent cut really look like?

Dubielzig said that no specific 35 percent cut has been laid out, but an example of one option would look something like this:

Eliminate bus service after 10 p.m., Monday through Saturday. Limit Sunday service to 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Get rid of seven routes and cut back the service on 17 others. Eliminate the Freeway Fliers, the express MCTS routes from suburban communities to downtown Milwaukee.

The commission's evaluation revealed that many cities use a fee that is not collected from property taxes to fund transit systems.

According to Dubielzig, the beauty of this dedicated source of funding is that the county will not have to budget transit money each year. She said most cities and counties use a sales tax for this purpose.

"Most cities have a dedicated source of funding," said Ken Yunker, deputy director of the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission. "Milwaukee is one of the few cities that doesn't."

Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker supports a source of funding that is not from the property tax base but is firmly against a county sales tax, said Rod McWilliams, spokesman for the county executive's office.

White said he was open to a sales tax because he believes such a tax has worked well in other cities.

The committee plans on developing a more specific proposal to address transit problems in Milwaukee that will be presented this summer.

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