Bus rapid transit plan and medical examiner's office move tied to Milwaukee County land sale
Milwaukee County would start constructing bus rapid transit service next year from downtown Milwaukee to Wauwatosa and begin planning to move the medical examiner's office out of its deteriorated building, under County Executive Chris Abele's recommended 2019 budget.
Plans for proceeding with the new transit service and the long-delayed relocation of the medical examiner are tied to the sale of 40 acres of county-owned land in Wauwatosa to the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center, budget documents show.
The Medical College of Wisconsin has offered to house both the medical examiner's office and the county's emergency management office with its 911 dispatch center inside a new Center for Forensic Science and Protective Medicine at the County Grounds, officials said.
The center would house medical, safety and research services, including the college's Emergency Medical Services program, Chief Medical Examiner Brian Peterson and Emergency Management Director Christine Westrich said in a report to the County Board.
"Such housing of both a high-tech curriculum and a real-time operations center creates a pipeline for forensic specialists and telecommunicators in advanced training, modern criminal justice investigations and coordinated emergency response," the report said.
The preferred location is within 40 acres of county property south of Watertown Plank Road and immediately west of North 92nd Street and the Medical Center. This is the Milwaukee County Mental Health Complex and includes the former mental health Day Hospital, the current Behavioral Health building housing acute care and emergency services, and the former Children's Adolescent Treatment Center.
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Both the Day Hospital and adolescent treatment center are vacant.
If the parcel is sold, the county would continue using the Behavioral Health building until June 2021 or whenever Universal Health Services begins operating a privately owned mental health services building that would take its place, said Teig Whaley-Smith, the county's administrative services director.
The Medical College is continuing to evaluate the location, President and CEO John R. Raymond said.
The proposed center would build on the college's long-standing relationship with the medical examiner's office and provide "opportunities for enhancing existing academic programs, addressing the shortage of forensic pathologists by increasing the number of pathology residents and fellows that we train and creating new forensic research grant opportunities," Raymond said.
The Medical College would construct the forensic science center on five acres at the site of the former Day Hospital after those buildings are demolished. One option being considered is for the county to lease space in the center instead of building its own more costly building.
The 2019 preliminary capital budget includes $940,262 to design the interior of the county's share of the new building, everything from floors and ceilings to interior walls and stairways as well as laboratory equipment, Whaley-Smith said.
Cost of filling in this interior space is estimated at $23.8 million and that project would be done in 2020 or later, budget documents show.
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But a final land deal has not been reached.
"The details are still being negotiated,” said Bob Simi, Milwaukee Regional Medical Center executive director.
The 40 acres are valued at $190,821 per acre for a total of more than $7.9 million, Whaley-Smith said in a report to the County Board.
The county would take $954,105 off the purchase price if the Medical College goes ahead with plans to locate the forensic science center there, he said.
As a further incentive for the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center to buy the 40-acre parcel west of North 92nd Street, the county is offering to reduce the purchase price by $4.5 million. That is the estimated cost to the medical center of reconstructing several streets there to accommodate bus rapid transit service.
That private contribution would reduce the county's investment in the infrastructure needed for the new service by that amount.
So the 2019 capital budget includes $7 million for bus rapid transit and the $4.5 million medical center contribution.
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New transit service
Bus Rapid Transit will cost $52.2 million to get started with several bus stations, a few miles of designated BRT-only lanes, diesel-hybrid buses, charging stations if electric buses are added to the fleet and other equipment.
To date, the Milwaukee County Transit System has requested $37.4 million in Federal Transit Administration grants to help pay for the service, according to budget documents.
The planned nine-mile BRT route in Milwaukee County would extend west from the lakefront along Wisconsin Avenue through downtown and the Marquette University campus to North Hawley Road where it turns south to Blue Mound Road. The route follows Blue Mound Road west to North 95th Street where it turns west on Wisconsin Avenue.
It turns north into the medical center on North 94th, then east on Connell Avenue to North 92nd Street and north to Watertown Plank Road. This is the section that would be reconstructed by the MRMC. The route subsequently turns west to the Swan Boulevard park-and-ride lot.
A one-way commute on the entire length of the route is expected to take 37 minutes on weekdays. More than 9,500 riders are projected to use BRT service each weekday by 2035.
Among the Abele administration's other priorities in the $124.3 million capital spending portion of the budget: a $9.1 million contribution to the renovation of the hippopotamus exhibit at the Milwaukee County Zoo; nearly $2.5 million for reconstructing Highway N, also known as S. 92nd Street, from West Forest Home Avenue to West Howard Avenue in Greenfield; the replacement of the roof at the Milwaukee Public Museum's dome planetarium at a cost of $873,554; and up to $11 million for replacing 27 diesel buses for the Milwaukee County Transit System.
