Discussion on Public Transportation in Wausau May Heat Up Later this Year

Friday, March 1st, 2024 -- 8:01 AM

(Mike Lieschner, WSAU) After sitting dormant for the last few years, the discussion around public transportation from Wausau to the surrounding communities may heat up later this year.

According to Mike Lieschner with WSAU, Mayor Katie Rosenberg says she’s more than willing to be a part of those discussions, and hopes that other leaders from Wausau and the surrounding area will too.

“We need to get people excited about transit. I have faith that we are being organized correctly, including people from the business community in addition to our elected (officials).”

Rosenberg says the talks were halted in the spring of 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic set in and many groups chose to not meet in person or hold virtual meetings. But the time seems right to revisit the issue.

“We need to start with ‘What are the community needs?’ We need to right-size all of the discussions so it’s not just Wausau trying to fit our bus system into a different community. We’re going to take feedback. I think we are all ready to [to discuss] what needs to happen with transit to make it useable for everybody around here.”

She adds that while finances are an important part of that discussion, she doesn’t want that to dominate the early stages. This all comes as Arran Hersey prepares to take over as director of Wausau MetroRide.

Rosenberg says she feels he has the right experience to help grow the system while solving many of the issues like lack of service and inconvenient hours. Hersey’s first day will be Monday, March 4th.

He comes to Wausau from Portland, Oregon where he helped run the TriMet service, which offers multiple means of bus and rail transit to several communities. “They do everything from light rail to real rail to buses. We expect he’ll bring some real expertise here. He also has experience managing people. We’re excited he’s decided to move his family here and start to work with us,” she said.

Rosenberg didn’t say when the transit workgroup would be formally seated. The Metropolitan Planning Commission is still finalizing the details. She is hopeful that the city of Wausau will have at least one elected official and one MetroRide employee in the workgroup.

“We have a good project ahead of us. This won’t be short, but it will be good,” added Rosenberg.

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