Almost six months after beginning service in a limited capacity, The Hop’s L-Line will run its complete route for the first time next Thursday, April 11 — and do so seven days a week — as it extends to the Lakefront via the Couture transit concourse.
With the streetcar reaching the high-rise apartment building’s turnaround at 909 E. Michigan St., the L-Line will cover nearly two miles on its route that runs along Milwaukee and Broadway in the north-south direction, and Michigan and Clybourn east-west.
“This is a milestone years in the making and we couldn’t be more excited to finally provide streetcar service directly to Milwaukee’s lakefront,” Milwaukee Commissioner of Public Works Jerrel Kruschke said in a release. “The new transit concourse in the Couture will be a transformative resource for public transit in the region and a tremendous asset to our riders, who can now access all that Milwaukee’s lakefront has to offer in a safe and convenient manner.
“We’re looking forward to an extremely busy and exciting summer for Milwaukee and The Hop.”
The project received significant funding from a federal Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant in 2015 and, nine years later, will provide another option for those downtown going to and from destinations like Milwaukee Art Museum, Betty Brinn Children’s Museum, Discovery World and the Henry Maier Festival Grounds.
According to the schedule on The Hop’s website, the L-Line will complete its loop in 20 minutes with stops at:
- The Historic Third Ward near the Milwaukee Public Market
- The corner of Michigan and Jackson streets
- The Couture transit concourse
- The corner of Clybourn and Jefferson streets
- The corner of Milwaukee Street and Wisconsin Avenue
- Milwaukee Street outside City Hall
- Broadway Street outside City Hall
- The corner of Broadway Street and Wisconsin Avenue
Several of those stops overlap with the existing M-Line that runs between the Intermodal Station on St. Paul Avenue, and the corner of Ogden and Prospect avenues near the Jewish History Museum — a crossover that will allow riders to transfer between the two lines. As has been the case throughout its existence, riding The Hop will remain free.
For more information on both routes and the streetcar in general, visit The Hop website.
