COUNTY WANTS TO AX FLYERS

The Milwaukee County Transit System, strapped for funds, proposes to end the Freeway Flyer service that it has so considerably mismanaged. Is this a transit service decision, or a chance for the county to cash in on a number of nicely located properties adjacent to freeway exits? Time will tell, but one thing is for certain; the flyers are doomed because the county has never bothered to make them work properly.
The flyers operate in their own little world, with little or no connection to other bus lines. It is a relic of an imagined sensibility in which people would park their cars at the flyer lots, and then ride their vehicles in to work.
These Park and Ride lots do have their place. However, most grown-up metropolitan areas use local feeder routes to funnel the greatest amount of traffic to the express buses. Milwaukee is the exception here. The flyer service would be much more robust if local bus lines actually intersected with the flyer service in their vicinity instead of passing right by it.
--Michael Horne